Yet another weekend when many a livingroom would have resembled Nasa’s control centre with every available device and spare screen lined up in a row to beam in the innumerable clashing sporting events. Saturday was challenging enough – the Champions Cup final v the FA Cup final v the Scottish Cup final; Sunday no better – Limerick v Waterford v Tipperary v Clare v Leeds v Southampton. There’s a lot to be said for jailing sport’s schedulers and offering them no possibility of parole.
The FA Cup proved entirely predictable, just as we all expected Manchester United played like Brazil circa 1970 to make Manchester City look like Sheffield United circa 2024. Okay, that might be stretching it a touch.
This left our BBC and ITV pundits not entirely sure how to handle Erik Ten Hag post-match – should they give him a hug and say well done or ask him why his side had been muck all season and then were able to produce a performance like that?
They all pretty much went for the latter track, which left them getting showered with dog’s abuse for being “mean” to a fella who has aged three decades since last summer, this being his one day in the sun. But when they don’t ask the tough-ish questions – and they’re often allergic to them – they get castigated too. It was, though, reasonably asked if they’d give their old mucker Gareth Southgate such a rough ride? They’ll have another chance in the summer if it all goes pear-shaped.
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“Do you think this was your last game,” said Gary Lineker, coming straight out with the burning question of the day. And Alan Shearer, not unreasonably, pointed out that if his side had played like that all season “you wouldn’t have finished in eighth”.
Ten Hag batted back, as he did with Roy Keane too on ITV. “You had trouble to manage a team,” he delicately pointed out. “I WON A CHAMPIONSHIP WITH SUNDERLAND,” Roy replied.
Mind you Roy had enough to be worrying about having been hurtfully accused of lacking “humility” by ex-TV person Joe Brolly on his podcast, according to people who listen to it. And Brolly, as we know, is an authority on the humility-lacking front, so he was in a good place to make a judgment.
Still his Roy rant, which at least gave Mickey Harte a breather, called to mind Denis Healey’s exquisite verdict on being assailed by Geoffrey Howe: “It was like being savaged by a dead sheep.”
“Joe who?” Roy would probably ask, and a burn like that is a knife through the heart of ex-TV persons whose barking at the moon is now restricted to podcasts.
The Scottish Cup final? When Adam Idah came on with half an hour to go all you could hope for was that the Cork lad would score the winner in the 90th minute. The 90th minute, Roy Hamilton: “Adaaaaaam Eeeeeeeeee-da.” Thank you Jesus.
The hurling? Well, RTÉ were very kind to put Tipperary v Clare on their News channel, while RTÉ 2 hosted Limerick v Waterford, but for fear of a first-world-problem alert the lack of HD would have you making an appointment with the opticians first thing Monday morning. A blur-fest, and a sea of yellow and blue. And trying to keep up with the permutations was another challenge, a little constantly updated “as it stands” box in the corner of the screen would have been a tremendous help.
No matter. At the end of it all Galway, Waterford and Tipp’s summers were busted, Henry Shefflin and Davy Fitz dragging themselves in front of the cameras to share their woes. “We couldn’t catch a break,” said Henry, “I’m extremely proud of the boys,” said Davy, their inquisitors largely avoiding the Ten Hag route as in “is that you fecked?”
Leeds? Fecked. The Saints go marching in the direction of the Premier League after their 1-0 win in the playoff final. For darts world champion Luke Humphries, interviewed by Sky in Wembley ahead of the game, that was a stomach-churner. He was, after all, named in honour of the club by his diehard parents. “Luke – Leeds United Kings [of] Europe,” he told us. You’d imagine he’s just grateful they weren’t Peterborough United fans.
