Tag: Alan Shearer

7 Reasons That Match of the Day 2 is Better Than Match of the Day

1. Gary Lineker. Unlike many people, I don’t mind Gary Lineker; he’s knowledgable, charming and his ad-libs are great. In an incident during a live match, when someone in the crowd hurled a coin at Jamie Carragher, the cameras showed Carragher picking the coin up and forcefully throwing it back. “It’s probably his change,” Lineker drolly observed. The problem I have with watching Gary Lineker for more than ten minutes is that I start to crave crisps. Speaking of which:

2. Adrian Chiles. Part-man, part-potato, Adrian Chiles is the television presenter equivalent of Marmite. I like him. I love the seemingly limitless supply of daft questions that he uses to torment Lee Dixon:

“Did Ian Wright ever borrow your shorts, Lee?”

“Did Tony Adams kiss you like that when you scored a goal, Lee?”

“Did you ever get the ball mixed up with a balloon, Lee?”

“Did they celebrate like that in your day, Lee?”

Some people can’t stand him though. Stewart Lee likened watching him to “… being stuck in the buffet car of a slow-moving train with a Toby jug that has miraculously discovered the power of speech…A Toby jug filled to the brim with hot piss.”

I’m firmly in the I-like-Adrian-Chiles-camp and I even miss his much-criticised beard. Anyone interested in starting a campaign to bring it back?

3. Alan Shearer. Alan Shearer is the dullest man in the world. He’s always on Match of the Day where he provides no tactical insight and no wit. Essentially, he just states the bleeding-obvious in a really dull way. Here’s a Shoot magazine interview with him from 1991 (click on it to see it full-sized):

4. Whooshing. Both MOTD and MOTD2 suffer from this. Seriously, could the sound effects that accompany the opening titles be more ridiculous? At the end of the title sequence, there’s about thirty seconds of whooshing noises, for no reason. Why? Stupid pointless bloody whooshy noises! MOTD2 wins here as I’m quite busy on Sundays and I usually manage to miss the first couple of minutes of it.

5. Kevin Day. While MOTD is serious and analytical, MOTD2 is a more light-hearted and jovial affair. The most obvious manifestation of this is the presence of former comedian Kevin Day. His role is that of the travelling buffoon, turning up at a different ground every week to mock daft supporters, eat pies and generally annoy the clubs’ staff. I want his job: I can mock and annoy, I can eat pies. My football team is crap too. And I’m cheaper.

6. Keown. Martin Keown often appears on MOTD2. Martin Keown is the scariest man alive, scarier even that Sebastien Chabal. When he’s on screen I find myself trying to slide down the sofa and hide behind the coffee table. Conversations with my wife tend to go like this during MOTD2:

“Are you scared of Martin Keown, darling?”

“Yes.”

It doesn’t matter who asks the question. We’re both afraid of Martin Keown. He mostly appears on MOTD2, so even if I didn’t believe it, I’d tell you that MOTD2 was better. Otherwise he might beat me to death with a rock. Or discover fire and burn an effigy of me in his cave. While grunting, possibly.

7. Finale. The denouement of MOTD2 and, often, the highlight of Sunday is 2 Good 2 Bad, and it’s obviously the part of the show that Chiles relishes too. This means that Match of the Day 2 ends on a high. Match of the Day doesn’t though, it ends with the knowledge that if you don’t get off the sofa soon, you’ll have to watch the awful title sequence for the Football League show, featuring chirpy-cheeky football fans having a knees-up, and then watch Manish – apparently lost – wandering aimlessy around the studio introducing the show. Why can’t he just stand still? He’s been doing it for almost a season, why doesn’t he know where to stand yet?

April 8, 2010
7 Reasons That Looking Like A Horse Shouldn’t Be A Barrier To Success

Do you look like a horse? Some people do (most horses do too, but we’re not anticipating that many of them will be reading this). There’s no reason that it should be a barrier to a successful or fulfilled life though, as these horse-faced people demonstrate.

1. Jerry Seinfeld looks like a horse. This hasn’t held his career back though. His eponymous sit-com is the most successful comedy show of all time. Jerry Seinfeld made a fortune from it, and he was the least funny thing in it, being upstaged by all of the other cast members. Perhaps his success – relative to that of the other cast members – is because people’s expectations are lower when it comes to performing horses. After all, if a horse multiplies 6 x 7 using its foot, we marvel at it. If a person does it, we cross the road and hope they haven’t spotted us. Forty-two, by the way, in case you were wondering.

2. Sarah Jessica Parker looks like a horse. All horses, in fact. Yet she’s been phenomenally successful as Carrie from Sex and the City. This is despite: 1) Looking like a horse: 2) Being completely divisive in her appeal. The Sarah Jessica Parker Paradox is this: Most women find Sarah Jessica Parker attractive, yet no man finds Sarah Jessica Parker attractive. She’s not desirable to men in the least. Women, however, can’t understand her lack of appeal to men and never believe that men don’t find her attractive. If you’re a woman, you probably don’t believe it right now, so we should test this notion. Women, you have my permission to leave your computer for a moment and go and ask the nearest man if he finds SJP attractive (don’t get distracted by something and forget to come back). Back now? Good. See, I told you. There may be an explanation for this phenomenon.

When they’re growing up, what do most girls want? A pony. What do most boys want? Not a pony. This is why women find SJP so attractive. Somewhere, in a subconscious throwback to their girlhood, women still want a pony, and find themselves inexorably drawn to Sarah Jessica Parker. Men, who spent their boyhood not wanting a pony, do not. What men want is one of the other lead characters from Sex and the City, or a combination of all three of them. Perhaps in a haystack, or a corner-bath.

3. John Kerry looks like a horse. Despite this, he was a highly-decorated military officer and a high-profile member of the anti-Vietnam-war movement. Okay, so George W. Bush retained the presidency when Kerry fought him in the 2004 election, but being defeated by Bush is no measure of failure. After all, George W. Bush attained the presidency in the 2000 election – an election which Al Gore won.

The Princess Royal & Hound

4. The Princess Royal looks like a horse. Despite this, she’s been the greatest Princess Royal of all time. We’re not entirely sure what Princess Royals do, other than looking equine and telling the hoi-polloi to “naff off”, but she’s very successful at it.

5. Nicholas Cage looks like a horse. He looks more like a horse with every passing year. From his early days, acting terrifically in a series of brilliant and often quirky films, to his later career, acting badly in a series of vacuous and often inane films, he has grown steadily more equine. To be fair to him, in his latest film, Kick-Ass, he was brilliant; he plays a horse with a false moustache. He was also in the film Honeymoon In Vegas with Sarah Jessica Parker. They may have been in Sea Biscuit together too.

6. Ruud Van Nistelrooy looks like a horse. Like all Dutch people, he’s quite tall (he’s 18.3 hands high) and he’s used that height to great effect, his aerial prowess has helped him earn a fortune from football and become the second highest scorer in Champions League history. Here he is pictured with his great rival Alan Shearer.

Camilla Parker Bowles (right) and horse.

7. Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, looks like a horse. This didn’t stop her displacing one of the world’s most celebrated beauties in the affections of the heir to the throne though. Perhaps Prince Charles is the exception that proves the Sarah Jessica Parker Paradox?

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*Thanks to sarahjessicaparkerlookslikeahorse.com for the SJP pictures.

April 6, 2010
7 Reasons That We Should Run Manchester City

We, the 7 Reasons team, have decided that we should branch out a bit and take on a new challenge. We have no allegiances with Manchester City, but we have some great ideas on how we could improve the running of the club. Here are 7 Reasons that we should run Manchester City.

1. Wisdom. It is oft said that two heads are better than one. There are two of us, and we have one head each. That’s two heads. Roberto Mancini only has one head. Okay, so his is full of football knowledge and experience while our heads are full of words and Jennifer Aniston, but the two heads will make us a better manager than Mancini, conventional wisdom says so. It is also said that many hands make light work. We have twice as many of those as Mancini, so we should be able to make a substantial saving on the electricity bill too.

2. Bellamy. Craig Bellamy is a brilliant footballer and is in the form of his life at the moment. We’re only too aware, however, that he has, in the past, been an unsettling influence in many of the dressing-rooms that he has been in. We want Craig Bellamy in our team, but we don’t necessarily want him in our squad. We will construct a separate dressing-room for Craig Bellamy and hold solo training sessions for him. This way he can continue to play for us on the pitch, but won’t disrupt our squad. We did love it when he was annoying Alan Shearer at Newcastle though. Annoying Alan Shearer should be a sport in its own right.

3. Bell End. No, not Craig Bellamy again. Colin Bell. When the City of Manchester stadium was taken over by Manchester City, their supporters voted overwhelmingly to name an end of the stadium after their hero Colin Bell. The club, after much procrastination, overruled this decision and eventually named the West Stand after him instead. We would reverse their decision and name the North Stand after him, thus creating the Colin Bell End. The West Stand would become The Hat Stand, The East Stand would become The Last Stand and the South Stand would become The South End, as it’s where Manchester United supporters live. We would also reconstruct the car park, with a new lower level parking bay spanned by The Wayne Bridge, which will be vastly expensive and a bit wobbly.

4. Cars. We don’t know why Stephen Ireland does this to cars, but enough is enough. We’re banning him from the car park. If it were within our power to ban him from the road as well, then we would. He will be fined a week’s wages if any Manchester City fan ever sees one of his cars anywhere, and we’ll donate that money to the Royal National Institute for the Blind, who can use it to help car-lovers that have poked their own eyes out after witnessing his automotive abominations.

5. Human Cloning. Carlos Tevez is brilliant. He’s clearly one of the best players on the planet. It’s not so much his skill that makes him amazing to watch, it’s his desire, his energy and his propensity for turning up in every area of the pitch. We will put in place a human cloning programme to clone Tevez. The technology’s almost there already so it won’t be too many years before we’re able to field a whole team of Carlos Tevez, from 1-11. Not only will they be able to outrun and outplay the opposition, they’ll also scare them silly. What’s more, our Tevez Cloning Facility will be based in England, which will ensure that the national team will be successful for years to come too. In order to guard all of the silverware that we’re going to win, we’ll manufacture Tevez security guards – possibly with wings and/or hooves – to guard the trophy room. We will rule the football world and, eventually, we may use an army of them to take over the actual world. Try not to concern yourself about that though.

6. Scarves. At least 50% of the 7 Reasons team already own a sky blue scarf, so there’ll be no need for all of the supporters to go out and buy yet another new scarf in imitation of us. We will also implement a new rule that nobody may knot their scarf in the same way as the person seated next to them. That will introduce variety into the stands, because frankly, we were a little freaked out when we watched them play last Tuesday.

7. Advertisments. We can’t top the “Welcome To Manchester” advert. But we will keep it, and put more of them up, everywhere. You won’t be able to walk down the street in Manchester without seeing loads of them. We will also put them up in Manchester, New Hampshire and Manchester, Ohio. The locals won’t have a clue what they’re about, but we don’t care. We just want to use Carlos to frighten them a bit. That’ll teach them to buy our chocolate factories.

January 21, 2010