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Dunno what you're smiling about

I KNOW the World Cup is only just over a week old and I know I should probably just lighten up and join in with the spirit of the thing but I have just about had enough of the endless, monotonous noise ruining my enjoyment of the world’s biggest football tournament.

No, I’m not talking about the vuvuzelas: I mean the banal, cliché-ridden, bad-shirt-wearing ineptitude that supposedly passes for expert analysis on BBC and ITV’s television coverage of the current tournament in South Africa.

Let’s start with ITV. Their tournament got off to a bad technical start with their HD channel mysteriously cutting to an advertisement before the Gerrard goal in the England vs USA game. Unfortunately, it still hasn’t got the gremlins out of its system. Recent star signing and coverage anchorman Adrian Chiles looks lost. Surefooted at the BBC, either on Match of the Day 2 or The One Show, he now constantly looks like he can’t quite believe that ITV are paying him THAT amount of money for doing what most of us are doing whilst sat at home or down the pub. Simultaneously, he also seems to be inwardly dying that he has to spend four weeks in the company of Keegan, Southgate and Desailly, all of whom have international honours in being boring.

More specifically, who in their right mind decided to extend Andy Townsend’s contract? This is one of the great mysteries of television. Blander than magnolia paint, this journeyman former footballer must have some amazingly compromising pictures of the head of ITV sport because I do not know how he keeps his job. During the abject England v Algeria 0-0 snore-fest last night, he was heard to implore the England team to “give them something to think about lads” on at least three separate occasions, without ever providing one scintilla of insight into what this “something” actually might be.

When asked by co-commentator Clive Tyldesley – never a man to let a cliché or forced gag go by without beating it into submission – Townsend’s remarkable footballing brain could only conjure the less than remarkable “change it, Clive. Gotta change it”. Townsend’s co-commentary provides no insight and, on occasion, spectacular levels of hypocrisy. Again, during the England v Algeria game he offered up a bizarre theory that seemed to suggest that Fabio Capello was singularly to blame for the general uselessness of the England team – as opposed to the eleven men on the pitch, that is. This was of course the same Fabio Capello that Townsend has repeatedly lauded for being an iron disciplinarian and the same playing system that was “right for our lads”. This is also the same Andy Townsend who once responded to a question on the film Snakes on a Plane: with the question “What’s that all about?”

The usually fault-free BBC are little better. I have never been a fan of Britain’s biggest crisp salesman, but even Lineker appears to recognise that the England team hasn’t got off to the best of starts. Once you have tried and failed to work out where Alan Shearer buys his shirts, you’re left with a line-up of, well, what exactly? Although Lee Dixon tries hard, he knows he can’t compete with Shearer who clearly has never read a football book more challenging than the latest issue of Shoot magazine and phones in his insight: he probably would be happier creosoting his fence.

Likewise, the once redoubtable Alan Hansen is still struggling to use a verb and noun in the correct order and Mark Lawrenson is now attempting to take hangdog cynicism to a new art form. Emmanuel Adebayor must be wondering why on earth he actually agreed to all of this – when his mobile phone isn’t going off live in the studio, that is. It’s deeply undedifying, fundamentally patronising but, worse, it has you reaching for the ’off’ button on the remote

It doesn’t have to be this way. For some sports, commentary has progressed enormously over the past decade. Have a cursory glance at either coverage of Formula One or Rugby Union. The BBC’s F1 coverage has, by any yardstick, been exemplary. Host Jake Humphrey has settled well and the insight provided by Martin Brundle and David Coulthard get the right balance between reflection on the politics of the sport, the technical issues underpinning the track action and the recognition that they are on television and need to appeal to both avid followers of the sport and those who may be tuning in for the very first time for some entertainment.

Likewise, rugby union coverage has been spectacularly overhauled by the no-nonsense insight of commentators like former England players Brian Moore and Stuart Barnes. Barnes, in particular, is deeply knowledgeable, entertaining, passionate and one of key reasons for the general raising of the benchmark in sports commentary.

Many “expert” commentators have spoken and written about how poor the World Cup has been thus far in terms of footballing prowess and quality entertainment. This weekend, many will offer their views on “England: where next?” Before you start throwing stones, gentlemen, have a look at your own house. It’s made of glass.