The great commentators were originals. They had no giants to stand on the shoulders of. Thatās why theyāre the giants.
Now there are too many giants to stand on the shoulders of and not enough people who donāt want to stand on those shoulders.
Oasis should have been a warning about cultural ossification. Even though I love Oasis.
Jimmy Magee was one of these, although Jimmy Magee wasnāt old in 1963, though it is hard to conceive of a time where Jimmy Magee wasnāt old.
āBig Yekiniā.
Thatās how Jimmy constantly referred to the Nigerian striker in the 1994 World Cup.
You donāt get that off the cuff stuff now at all.
Growing up in two channel land Motty meant nothing
There almost certainly is an element of this. In fact, I see people saying those very things.
Although I think you are being very harsh on Hamilton. As a commentator, I would rate him a lot higher relatively than the likes of Morrissey or Nugent. Although, I wonder what heād be like as a neutral commentator of a Premier League game or something, I think he certainly is a great commentator of international football.
I think Jim Sherwin was a much better rugby commentator than Ryle, but never got as much airtime.
Agree with this. And when we got the channels I wondered what the fuss was about. The fact he would call Irish players Ćire players bugged me.
Sherwin had a great voice, a bit posh but very distinctive. Iād love to see Tyers get a go at commentating in English during championship, real distinctive timbre to his voice.
Michael Lyster had great presence, voice, timing, delivery and is missed in studio hugely on another note. In the same vein, Iād have liked to have seen one of Loughnane or Cyril rotated-not, on together, for the way they tell it, and to decrease the sterility of the thing.
Brendan Maher looks very promising though from what I saw of him last year. Kind of acerbic. They probably should give Wooly a go in the football as well. He has a serious body of work built up at this stage. He is probably the only replacement for Brolly, and shouldāve got in over Philly.
Jerry Hannon who does the racing has a good voice too.
Ian Darke the BT soccer and former boxing commentator is probably my favourite at the minute. I like Alan Parry as well but he is ancient. The fella who does the English Premiership rugby on BT is very good. Ryle is a long way ahead of Hugh Cahill if I was watching an Irish rugby match. Most of the new lads are the shits. I canāt get my head around Conor McNamaraās accent.
RIP John Motson, a true great.
Holt was excellent, some of his commentary was epic but he tries to contrive that a bit now I find. He has a narrative of what he wants a race to be and doesnāt describe what is in front of him enough. Dessie Scahill would only describe position and not how a horse was going unless blatanty obvious, Holt is flip flopping on horses chances all the way through races these days. Iād say he is bored.
I think not getting the ITV gig after Channel 4 went knocked him back a good bit. Hoiles got it. He doesnāt really commentate on big races much any more, you are more likely to get Cattermole, Bartlett or the ex policeman fella on Racing TV, theyre all poor enough. Bartlett sounds authoritative but is a plank. Holt shouldāve been the main commentator on Racing TV definitely, great voice.
Two channels lah di da. We lived in single channel land.
Iād say David Pleat had a great night kerb crawling that night.
Single until 1978 iirc
Was it 1980 there was a strike and they never showed the cup final?
Thatās right, it wasnāt shown on RTE anyway
Iād like to take this opportunity to say that I very much like/d David Pleat as a co-commentator and general football man.
Television channels were very much not crawling the kerb when they employed his services.
Five (5) channel land here from 1966. Electricity connected just in time for the WC.
The slings and arrows of fortuneā¦.
George has had a fairly extensive career covering English and European club football for RTE.
Jim was RTEās first choice rugby commentator from about 1996 (?) to about 2004.
Jim was a fine commentator.
To those of us of a certain vintage heāll always be Irelandās Voice Of Wimbledon.
Jim was earler than that i think. George was on bbc 2 radio
Was he? Did he not always do the āotherā match in the Five Nations while Fred Frogley did the important one. He was a great man to pronounce Paparemborde and Chola.
Jim used to do ālisten and seeā for the blind on a Sunday evening
I never saw that.