ABC lift your game

by LITTLE BOY BLUE

I SHOULD make clear that these comments are only about ABC radio. I never listen to football descriptions on the commercials, having learnt years ago that the bulk of these so-called experts were hysterical, ranting egomaniacs more intent on promoting themselves than describing the action. Ironically, some of these characters might be passably entertaining if calling for TV, where the viewer can see what's happening, but for radio, where you need an accurate, continuous description, forget it. (OK, I jest, they wouldn't be entertaining.)

Anyway, back to the ABC, to Tim Lane and Co. Recently, there have been letters in The Age complaining about the overuse of the f-word, ie "fantastic". But, for my money, the most overworked word from this team is "certainly", especially by "certain" round the groundspersons trying to summarise a quarter of football. Try counting them next time you listen: in a game characterised by a fair lack of certainty, these guys see nothing else. Curly (of Three Stooges fame) would have been an ideal ABC comments man: "why, soitenly, nyuk, nyuk."

Another gripe I have with some of the ABC team is their tendency towards big word syndrome. Hence, "secondary" is to be preferred to "second" and "fortuitous" to "fortunate". Problem is that these words have different meanings. Technically speaking, it can be fortuitous, but not fortunate, for a player to fall on his arse, and it's hard to see why a bounce 20 seconds after a centre bounce is less important (ie secondary) than the earlier bounce.

The ABC has also lost me with its introduction of the yobbo comments man, viz Danny (call me Daniel) Southern. Call me elitist, but I don't turn on the ABC to listen to "he run quick" (for "he ran quickly") and (said several times on Saturday) "them players". The old "it all goes well" can't be far away (made famous by another yobbo, Tony Shaw) and we all know that the plural of "you" is "youse", isn't it?

God knows why Southern was added to the team, is it a token political gesture to the western suburbs? Memo Tim Lane: I work in the western suburbs and they're not listening to "youse" blokes, and they're not going to!

Finally, Dwayne Russell, could you give the Rex Hunt impersonations a miss and let the listener know when a goal is scored.

At least three times in the second half of Saturday's call, Russell just screamed hysterically, leaving us to guess. I presume these antics are aimed at clinching Russell a TV calling spot on Nine next year, but for those who expect better from the ABC, it's bloody awful.

Clean up their act, Tim.

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