MONDAY night is football night in my house. On the radio only though. I don’t/won’t pay for Sky, so it’s all about Five Live and Radio Scotland.
Five Live more, to be honest. My natural allegiance is to English football. It’s what I grew up watching/listening to in Northern Ireland. Not always a happy allegiance. To be a Spurs fan is not unproblematic. Another year, another Cup final lost.
But as long as Spurs aren’t playing, radio coverage of football is my comfort listening. Monday’s game on 5 Live – Leicester against Crystal Palace – was perfect. I had no skin in the game. I could just sink into the familiar rise-and-fall rhythms of the commentator’s voice and the shouts of coaches and players echoing around largely empty stadiums. On such nights I’m not particularly bothered about the result. I just like the noise of it.
Actually, you could say the same about Radio Scotland’s coverage of St Mirren against Kilmarnock on the same night.
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The difference between the two stations was one of numbers. Radio Scotland’s team turned up mob-handed for the Scottish Cup quarter-final. Over on 5 Live commentator Alistair Bruce-Ball just had Karen Carney as his right-hand woman.
To the horror of a multitude of middle-aged men on Twitter, no doubt, I like Carney a lot. She is game-smart and good at describing what’s happening in front of her. Shelley Kerr has many of the same qualities when she turns up on Radio Scotland but it’s sometimes harder for her to get a word in.
Still, on Monday, Radio Scotland had all the drama, as the game went to extra time and penalties. It also had a half-time interview with Zander Clark, St Johnstone’s hero at Ibrox the night before. The keeper was interviewed about his involvement with the goal that ensured penalties. He came up for a corner and met the ball with his head.
Striker Chris Kane then turned it in. But Clark was the one who ran off celebrating. “I’m still saying it’s going in,” he told Radio Scotland.
Over on Five Live, though, his manager, Callum Davidson begged to differ. “It’s the softest header in the world. It’s going wide.”
Listen Out For: Jamie MacDonald: Life on the Blink, Radio 4, Wednesday, 11pm. The blind Scottish stand-up gets his own series.
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