Sunday 26 March 2006
A poor man's Baddiel & Skinner
Those of you that live this side of the Atlantic, have you ever seen a show called Fox Football Friday? It is Fox Entertainment Group and Rupert Murdoch's attempt to bring the world's favourite game into the living rooms of American's and frankly it is quite appalling.
Not the idea, because it is a well worked Baddiel and Skinner type blokes sitting in the pub format, but the two muppets that introduce the show are cringe worthily bad. They're both English, both born in Hampstead and strangely one is a Liverpool fan and the other a Chelsea fan! My, my, quelle surprise!
I don't know what American's make of two English blokes sitting in front of a camera, reading the auto-cue very badly, fluffing their lines, taking the staged piss out of each other and being not funny at all. The Chelsea fan, Steven, stares into the auto-cue so badly, I actually think he is looking at someone over my shoulder.
It's a shame because after a couple of after-work-beers on a Friday, it is worth a watch, despite the phone calls from Chuck in Pittsburgh asking if the US will win the World Cup, it's just that Nick and Steven give us ex-pat football fans a bad name. The shows filmed in LA and they extend an offer for people to come to a live recording. One day I might just do that.
Fox Soccer Channel (FSC) itself is an absolute blessing. It morphed about a year ago from what was Fox Soccer World, which used to show a wide range of non-American sports, but had no identity. It was a masterstroke on Fox's part, with a lot of help from its cousin Sky Sports, to specialise in the beautiful game.
The Premiership is its main focus, but it also carries live games from Germany, France, Italy, Argentina and the USA's Major League Soccer as well as various highlights programmes and an evening live feed of the midnight Sky Sports News edition.
FSC is a lifeblood in a country where the mass media are so wrapped in their own sports but someone please take Nick and Steven away and give us a more realistic David and Frank copies. ¶ 00:34
Not the idea, because it is a well worked Baddiel and Skinner type blokes sitting in the pub format, but the two muppets that introduce the show are cringe worthily bad. They're both English, both born in Hampstead and strangely one is a Liverpool fan and the other a Chelsea fan! My, my, quelle surprise!
I don't know what American's make of two English blokes sitting in front of a camera, reading the auto-cue very badly, fluffing their lines, taking the staged piss out of each other and being not funny at all. The Chelsea fan, Steven, stares into the auto-cue so badly, I actually think he is looking at someone over my shoulder.
It's a shame because after a couple of after-work-beers on a Friday, it is worth a watch, despite the phone calls from Chuck in Pittsburgh asking if the US will win the World Cup, it's just that Nick and Steven give us ex-pat football fans a bad name. The shows filmed in LA and they extend an offer for people to come to a live recording. One day I might just do that.
Fox Soccer Channel (FSC) itself is an absolute blessing. It morphed about a year ago from what was Fox Soccer World, which used to show a wide range of non-American sports, but had no identity. It was a masterstroke on Fox's part, with a lot of help from its cousin Sky Sports, to specialise in the beautiful game.
The Premiership is its main focus, but it also carries live games from Germany, France, Italy, Argentina and the USA's Major League Soccer as well as various highlights programmes and an evening live feed of the midnight Sky Sports News edition.
FSC is a lifeblood in a country where the mass media are so wrapped in their own sports but someone please take Nick and Steven away and give us a more realistic David and Frank copies. ¶ 00:34
