Mary Hannigan TV View

'The former world featherweight boxing champion, whose father represented Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest, is Barry who?" asked Anne Robinson on The Weakest Link last week.

We were already howling "BANK" at the screen, so insultingly inane did the question seem to be, but the contestant threw a blank expression back at Anne, before offering: "Barry White."

We're aged enough to remember McGuigan seeing off Eusebio Pedroza at Loftus Road all those epochs ago, but, thanks to The Weakest Link, those glorious images have now been erased and forever more we'll think of the Clones Cyclone as the Walrus of Love, growling "Girl, all I know, is every time you're here, I feel the change, somethin' moves" into his Sky Sports microphone when he's on punditry duty.

That's the thing, though: some people have short sporting memories - and some have none at all. Indeed, we'd hazard a guess there were small people at Croke Park yesterday who thought that triumph over Mayo was Donegal's first major achievement in the sport of Gaelic football.

But the well-ripened among us remember 1992; it's etched on our hearts, souls and elbows, which we dug into Bridie and Séamus from Kincasslagh in the upper Cusack that day (and, once again, apologies), when we were so fearful the Dubs would humiliate Brian McEniff's boys we welcomed their early points with a sigh of relief.

Soon after, of course, Sam was heading in the same direction as Bridie and Séamus, home to the Northwest, which is where the National League trophy will now nest, after yesterday's victory.

Prospects, therefore, of a 2007 double.

"Can Donegal win Sam this year?" TG4's Micheál Ó Domhnaill asked the Donegal manager, Brian McIver.

"Ah," he said, "that's definitely for another day; all we can do is enjoy this one here."

Micheál put much the same question to man-of-the-match Brian Roper.

"It's just a national league, I know it's nice for the people here, but we're still thinking of the championship," he said.

Dissension in the camp, then. There could be trouble ahead.

Speaking of oldie-but-goldie memories: how nice was it that Steve Davis and John Parrott were paired in the opening round of the snooker world championships, the attention surrounding the tie serving to inform the young people of today that these lads were once sporting icons and, in Steve's case, not just commentators who now do ads on RTÉ Radio.

As part of their build-up to the clash of their two chief snooker pundits the BBC asked a bunch of their non-snooker pundits how they thought the match might go.

"It'll probably last 17 days. I think it'll be an absolutely fantastic advertisement for cricket," gushed Mark Lawrenson, while rugby man Jonathan Davies forecast, "Whoever stays awake the longest will win."

On a similar theme, Jeremy Guscott predicted Davis would prevail by default because "Parrott will fall asleep in his chair", so bored would the "old geezer" be by Interesting Steve's 176-minute break of three.

Well, let's hear it for the aged. They fought out a 10-9 thriller, Davis the man who will return to his microphone duties, if not in a "Walrus of Love" kind of way.

To be honest about it, if you heard him growl, "Girl, all I know, is every time you're here, I feel the change, somethin' moves" you'd probably call the Garda.

But the oul fellas did the elderly proud, which, if you were entirely honest, you couldn't really say of Steve Curry and Dave Bassett last week.

Curry, one of the doyens of English football journalism, almost choked on his testosterone when asked by the Dail Mail to comment on the news that Jacqui Oatley would become the first female commentator on Match of the Day on Saturday night.

"I am from the old school," said Steve, in a Stretch Armstrong kind of way. "It is an insult to the controlled commentaries of John Motson (?!), Mike Ingham and Alan Green (?!) that their domain is threatened by a new arrival whose excited voice sounds like a fire siren," he be-baw-be-baw-be-bawed, so emotional was he.

Bassett as good as declared he would be boycotting MOTD in protest at this "political correctness", claiming Oatley's contribution would "undermine the credibility of the programme" that has Alan Shearer analysing Newcastle performances and Alan Hansen scrutinising Liverpool.

Bassett added the clincher: "And my wife agrees!"

We don't, to be honest, know anything about Mrs Bassett, but seeing as the bulk of her husband's managerial career was based on the tactic "nail 'em, kick 'em, lump it, score", we'd suggest that even if she knows zilch about the beautiful game it's still more than her beloved knows.

So, how did Jacqui do? Well, she never had the chance to sound more excited than a fire siren - her game, after all, was Fulham v Blackburn.

But how utterly fantabulous it was to hear a woman's voice on MOTD. And the fact that it upset Curry and Bassett made it all the more lovely.