blonde poker forum

Mr Camel wrote this elsewhere this morning....


Studying the draft would involve listening extensively to the views of Kiper and Mayock, who would be in my top 5 most annoying analysts of any sport.

Who are your...

Most annoying sports commentators or pundits?

Most enjoyable sports commentators or pundits?

Don't think I need to label each pair...

Michael Owen, Phil Thompson.

Gary Neville, Graeme Sounness.

Anybody employed by BT Sports
Anybody employed of formerly employed by ITV.
Jim Watt.  
Anybody who works for BBC Sportscotland.
Neil McCann
Andy Walker
Davie Provan.

There are actually very few analysts I like, the good ones are few and far between.  

Good analysts are like good journalists to me.  They get very little coverage because they don't do sensationalist bullshit.  

too many to mention as regards the "most annoying".  I avoid BT due to Savage?Owen in the main though.

Nasser Hussain is a very good cricket analyst imo. You learn every time you listen to him, which obviously is the point obviously but rarely the outcome with the vast majority of "analysts".

Could listen to Alastair Down all day, and would prefer it if I never heard Mick Fitzgerald again.

Glenn Hoddle gets a fair amount of stick but I think he's a good commentator. Michael Holding and David Lloyd are very good too, actually I think Cricket on Sky has pretty strong commentators and pundits throughout. Same for when test cricket was on Channel 4, I really like Richie Benaud.

The worst by a distance is Don Cherry. Very old school ice hockey player and coach turned pundit, he has a segment on Canadian national TV called Coaches Corner since 1980

Vid is 12 minutes but you get the idea pretty quickly

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnG3F-c594s

Watching the IPL makes you realise just how good the Sky cricket coverage is - my personal fave is Mike Atherton.

I've been quite impressed with the snooker commentary this week (John 'Where's the cue ball going' Virgo excepted) - Ken Doherty and Willie Thorne are both very good.

Pretty much agree with all the comments so far.

Great (of the major sports i spend most of my time watching)

Souness and Neville - Football (Really love Fletch as an Anchor for soccer as well - would love to see him be the head anchor on sky sports football without Sav)
A Down and S Boyce - Racing
Hussain and Atherton - Cricket
Willie and Ebdon (great addition to bbc this year) - Snooker
John Part and late great Sid - Darts
Darryl Williams Erryl Blyth - Greyhounds
Marv Albert, Hubie Brown and Jeff Van Gundy - NBA (Can't split these three absolute pleasure to watch the NBA when these legends are on the mic)
JBL and Gorilla Monsoon - WWE
John Lloyd and John Mac - Tennis

Will come back with the worse of the following sports as that is tougher.  So many bad ones.

Worse

Michael Owen/Savage - Football
Emma Spencer and Tommo - Racing
Can't think of any bad cricket comm's from the major ones.  Think sky do a great job with cricket generally.
John Parrot (by a mile) and Dennis Taylor Snooker
Bristow (truely terrible) and Rod Harrington (he still after 20 years says the word 'seen' as 'sin' which tilts the fuck out of me and i have no idea why!) - Darts
Rachael Casey and Dani Jackson (blonde bimbo hills shop dog comm) - Greyhounds.  Both must have slept their way into these jobs because they are clueless beyond belief.  Ian Meek from Coral also has to get a solid mention here.  Just that the 2 birds are so bad he can't make the top 2.
Cant think of an average NBA comm on the US networks never mind a bad one.
Michael Cole/Jerry 'The King' Lawler - WWE
Andrew Castle (please bbc send him to claims direct adverts forever from your generally excellent tennis coverage) and the OMGGGGGGGGGG Tracey 'your voice is tilting beyond belief' Austin.

Derek Thompson (nap), Sean Boyce

Richard Hoiles, Gary Neville, Trevor Harris

Mark Lawrenson and Garth Crooks- terrible.

Andy Townsend and Lee Dixon also pretty snooze worthy

Not a fan of Alan Shearer either.

Football

Good Shearer (tells it like it is), Gullitt, Redknapp, Henry, Ian Wright (strangely)

Bad Crooks, Townsend, Michael Owen (tells me what i am seeing), Savage (always was a cock, still is)


Rugby

Good Moore (ruffles some feathers, this is good), Jiffy Davies (a bit one eyed but the passion is heartwarming). Eddie Butler's voice. Stuart Barnes, mostly.


Cricket

Good Atherton (terrific print and spoken word journalist), Hussain, Holding, Bumble

Ian Ward a brilliant anchor/interviewer

Willis as a studio analyst

Not so good Warne (believes his own publicity), most IPL commentators (though often thats the style they are asked to use), Botham  


NFL

Good Michaels and Collinsworth

Bad Phil Simms. Jon Gruden


Golf

Good Ken Brown, Feherty, Azinger

Good Allis. last of his kind

Bad, Monty. He is in his own category

Bad. Murray, Critchley


F1

Good Brundle.



Snooker

Good Davis, Doherty, Thorne, Hendry, Parrott

Bad

John Virgo (almost a parody now), Dennis Taylor (this year, lots of inaccuracies), Joe Johnson




sure there are more!

racing

yes

the much missed john francome
richard hoiles
jom mcgrath (timeform jim mcgrath)
graham cunningham
simon holt

no

alice plunkett
emma spencer
alistair down to me is so portentous its off-putting. almost as if he gets in the bath to a soundtrack of swirling aldaniti type music.
mick fitzgerald

no particular view

nick luck

Phil Neville was bad for that World Cup game he did.

Can't disagree the comments above.  A stand out for me would be the Sky cricket team, they do a great job.

Annoying - Townsend, Cundy, Crooks, Monty, Collymore, Owen.

Best - Mike Ingham, John Murray, Butch Harman, John Rawling, GNev, John Mac & Steve Bunce.

Roy and HG deserve a mention, love their commentary on the AFL/NRL etc, many years ago they would do complete Premiership games and they were hilarious.

Savage is a funny one, some days he could appear on either list for me.

John Inverdale - Tennis. Absolutely clueless about the sport.

Andrew Castle is on his own as far as bad goes.

David "Bumble" Lloyd is my favourite good guy.

Rio Ferdinand is the biggest prick on television, closely followed by Michael Owen.....basically anyone on BT Sport.

Clarence Seedorf and Vincent Kompany are great when they do the odd punditry gig. Shock horror, they ain't thick as pig shit like most of them.

Boxing

Halling and Watt are the worst commentary duo by a country mile. Utterly hopeless.
Johnny Nelson struggles badly when presenting on the flip side Paul Dempsey is different gravy and Ed Robinson is good also.

Paul dempsey always be one of my favs back from the very early sky days.

Criminally underused since.

As for least these days it's Martin Tyler.  Sad to say as he was a great commentator.

These days he struggles to go 20 minutes without reminding everybody how sky are the greatest thing since sliced bread and seems to have forgotten that football started before they did.

How come men never get accused of sleeping their way into jobs? 

Is poker a sport?

Top of my own best list would be

Chris Collingsworth NFL
Clive Everton Snooker
David Feherty Golf

Matt Chapman Racing, think that could be a bit marmite but if you want entertaining he is certainly that.
Lydia Hislop Racing
Danny Murphy, don't watch much soccer but like the way he chats as tho he is just chatting to the guy in front of him and not playing to the crowd.
Kendall poker, last time I saw him on TV he needed a bloody hair cut tho.


Dislike

Bruce Critchley golf, If you were hiring for the job now he wouldn't get within a mile of it imo

Graham Cunningham racing

John Grudan NFL Every week at least one player is the best in his position or going to be one of the best. In a game a few seasons ago he claimed that Case Keeenum could be the new Drew Brees because Keenum happened to be playing in the game his station were covering that evening when he was about the teams 3rd choice QB that season.

Mike Mayock NFL, could be the worst in my list if it wasn't for Hayley Turner racing, getting more gigs on ATR. her analysis of a race last week was 'I've seen this one run a few times when I've been in the studio and thought it ran quite well so he will be my selection in this race, what price did you say it was?'

Agree - but I do find the aussi/kiwi coms pretty endearing.

"AWWWW - he's smashed that over mid on and goes down the track to get some glove love from Smithy"

Turner has started beyond bad still early but think racing UK glad she chose atr at this stage.

Agree on cunningham if he was ice cream he would lick himself

lol great line that John.

Overly flirty Turner do you think with certain presenters on ATR or just her natural self? 

If she's flirting with Luke Harvey, safe to say it's her natural self.

I think she got the hots for Boycie tbh on ATR.  Older man crush.

Mike Carlsen is quite comfortably my favourite analyst on any sport. Informative without being patronising and funny without being snarky.

Also like Roy Keane, Gary Neville, Richard Langley, Jermaine Jenas, Graeme Le Saux (apart from Langers I disliked all of those as players!).

Dislike would be too long to complete.

An interesting fact about Phil Simms: he scored the lowest in the Wonderlic in the history of testing QBs. His score suggested an IQ between 70 and 80. No wonder he's a useless analyst.

Racing: love Hislop, Willoughby, Mellish, Cleary, Neesom, Hoiles, Cunningham, Machin

Dislike Naughton, Morrison and all on ATR except Cooper.

Mark lawrenson and anything female wittering on about horse racing!!

And who can forget Phil Neville at the last WC - shocking!!

Phil Neville makes me turn off, Bumble the Nuts

No one mentioned Dave Nevison either way for horses.  He is constantly slated on the bf forum.   Anyone got any views?  Was he really a great judge 15 years ago or just a luck box pro punter who got lucky or is the game just that much tougher nowadays?  He sounds clueless at times on RUK.

Good call there Keith, can't believe I missed mighty Mike.

agreed

you can catch mike on a few podcasts and wembley coverage but that sunday late night nfl show is much missed

 

Think it's more her natural disposition but of course that did get her in a bit of a spot in the Jamie Spencer episode, don't think that did her career a lot of favours either.

Jeff Rheinbold another top class NFL guy.

And looks like he's been thrown out by his missus and is sleeping in the car. In his book he writes about Eddie Fremantle teaching him how to make a tissue and then he goes through a day's card using Whitley and Timeform ratings to bet ricks. Unless it's a complete put away the game must have been much easier then (and he ran lucky).

Pundit that most annoys me is the BBC athletics trackside guy who always asks "How do you feel? Can you put into words what it's like right now?". Effectively asking them to write a colour piece for him while they're still puffing and blowing.

Agree completely with Camel's horse pundits - i find ATR unlistenable, use the mute - and would add RUK's Chris Dixon: unbearably smug and thinks he's worked the game out because he's got a couple of horses with the dodgepot Appleby.

Not an NFL expert despite winning my one and only LMS which I feel compelled to mention every now and again, but I like Jeff Rheinbold too.


On the other hand I cannot abide Tanya Stevenson.

Forgot another super tilting guy.  Garry Richardson jack of all trades master of none on the BBC.  One of the most annoying interviewers in sports history.

Errrr...errrrrrr...errr...

I don't think we should talk about women like this.

But to the main point, I love Sky cricket commentary, yah, go on Brian Moore too in Rugby
,
Martin Tyler, oh dear, please retire him

Which reminds me of one that had inexplicably escaped my memory:

Colin Montgomerie - How on earth does he keep the job?

Do people actually enjoy his constant intolerable drivel punctuated by frequent Errrrrrrs?

Thought we were betting without nevo... have heard a few stories about his betting these days and from decent sources fair to say he is certainly not coining it in these days.

Nevo is like a modern-day Statto, but without the, errrr, dressing gown.

Used to enjoy his RFO column in my rookie years in the game.  Always a funny read.  Never sure how true the content was on his weekly betting activities.

Will only tackle racing or the night will be short.

Like.

Mark Howard. Mellish(grown on me), Neesom(a real, got to listen to everything type), Chris Dixon. Bob Cooper. Down(after a few beers) Love Chapman, complete fool, but excellent once or twice a week. Think bad thoughts about Lydia, and she looks a lot slimmer in real life. What a night that could be!! Horse talk all night!

Dislike
Willoughby(talks the talk, and very interesting, but mainly about after the event stuff, eg; Sectionals-"that was never going to win with an opening split of" Cheers, I worked that out myself. Was going slowly skint when I used to follow his recommends. His cheap suits tell you enough!!

Cunningham-twenty words when one will do..

Tommo.wtf. Just got to know he is commentating to not have a bet at the meeting.

Alex Hammond..surely done a turn or two to get the gig?

Nev. Dont like the way he clearly dislikes his colleagues and cant even look at them when all together

Machin. Hate waiting for the end of his commentary and the obligatory forced pun, he has obv been up all night preparing(Ok when he is presenting though)

Tanya and her cliff selections, because she would love to see them win as they are 17 etc.

Weaver

ALICE FUCKING PLUNKETT. Thank fuck she wont be on our TV much longer

Always had a soft spot for James Richardson, going back to Football Italia on C4.

Mark Lawrenson on 5 live right now. Must have taken a few up the arse over the years at the BBC?

Can't think of any stage of my life where Murray Walker didn't grate

Good:
Cricket - All the Sky team except Botham.
F1 - Martin Brundle
Football - Gary Neville
NFL - Michaels & Collinsworth. Think Rich Gannon is alright in the Sunday Afternoon games too from what little I've seen/heard.


Bad:
Cricket - Ian Botham, Danny Morrison. Could list most India/IPL commentators but they're BCCI puppets, don't know how much of it is their fault.
F1 - Jonathan Legard when it moved from ITV to BBC a few years back
NFL - Jim Nantz & Phil Simms. Someone at EA Sports thought they should commentate on the Madden 16 game, too. WHY?  >:( Ian Eagle/Dan Fouts are pretty poor, too.
Rugby League - Mike Stephenson. Don't think Eddie is great either, but he's by far the better of the two IMO. Magic Weekend is my favourite weekend of the Rugby League season because of alternative commentary as much as anything else.


Honourable mention
To Joe Buck (Only heard him on NFL commentary, I don't watch Baseball) for being the most improved for me. Would've been in the "Bad" section a while back, and it annoys me that he sounds bored to death at times while talking. But the actual words he's saying are pretty interesting, and he's improved a lot over time even if the delivery isn't the best. Although he's not "good" yet, I think he's above average now. Still has the occasional lapse where he sounds disinterested in the on-field action, but that's a huge improvement from a few years ago where he spent large chunks of the game sounding apathetic.

McManaman embarrassing himself in this Villareal Liverpool game.

"Should have been a routine away victory"

"Villareal aren't very good"

How ignorant.

Good - Bumble - a pleasure to listen to, makes the game accessible to everyone.

Nasser Hussein - very good again

Paul Smith (boxing) - knows what he is on about. Probably the only Scousers accent I can hear without wishing I were deaf.

Jonathon Agnew - technically a commentator but has a voice like honey and a genuinely top chap.

Kumar sangakarra - talk sense and has an ability to explain things in simple terms.

Bad - Danny Morison - possibly the most annoying man on the telebox

Jim Bloody Watt - hates pretty much all British boxers and I hate the way he says panic every 2 seconds.

Carl Froch - great boxer, utterly cack at talking about boxing

Nevison's opinion is always the favourite is going to win.

He is as bad as Owen for me on BT sport.  They really have signed as badly as Villa this season BT sport pundit wise.

He is an absolute tool. BT really couldn't have picked a more odious bunch.

Stu - great shout on Sangakarra, such a clever guy with great perspicacity.

Strange man.

He was on the radio in the afternoon doing a preview. He was very knowledgeable respectful and kept stressing how good the yellow subs are at home (true).

He then talked shite on BT sport.

Strange

4 pages and not one mention of Nick Knight - how does he get away with it?

YES!!!

Smarmy, posh bum licking annoying, useless sod he is.

He also seems to get a wide-on for whichever team England are playing at the time.

And he has no top lip!!

Great shout.

Thought Denis Taylor was superb in the evening session of the World Snooker final last night. Really added to the long tactical frames with his insight and tone when predicting snooker attempts and escapes. Some great defensive snooker for long spells not always easy in the eye  but feel it was even better with Denis adding to the tension.

Oddly, whilst it's grand to see Ronnie & Co smashing them in off the lampshade, I really enjoy those long tactical games.

Quite clever how BBC use that graphic to demonstrate likely escape routes, & usually uncannily accurate.

What is your view on this perception that the balls are "skidding" off the cushions at un-natural angles, Phil?

It did seem to be the case to my naïve eyes, & even the very best players seemed flummoxed & exasperated by the whole thing.

Fortunately, it's snooker, not Football, so they don't harangue the Ref or Officials, (nothing degrades football more than the pointless  arguing with the referee), but it does not feel right to me that the table can't be trusted to play as it should.  

The balls always "slide" off the cushions to some extent when the cloth is new but the big bounces are a problem with the equipment.

There have been a huge number of kicks this year too, some of them outrageous.

Mark Williams was asked about the tables in his post match interview and said that he thought he knew the reason for all of the bad bounces and kicks but couldn't answer on camera as he'd get fined. I'd love to know his views.

The big bounces were really odd. A ball should not come off the cushion faster that it hits it, ordinarily, but balls were rebounding at a greater velocity after impacting the cushions.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfZ12UGiisM

Scotty can't but you can?

Equally surprising is that poker analysts haven't been covered yet.

Yes the tables have been very poor and before they went from two to one table the difference between the two was crazy. Think in general the balls skid anyway but on this table they skid inconsistently so where allowing for side and skid etc is a skill it's been far too random. The kicks just seem to get worse the thinner the cloths too. My main annoyance re the table tho is there can never have been bigger pockets on a final table than this one?

Liam Napier, New Zealand Rugby Commentator with Justin Marshall. Superb and really funny.

"Welcome to the Forsyth Barr Stadium for the Highlanders v Chiefs. Rod Stewart played here last Friday so if you're wondering what the strange markings on the pitch are they're Cougar prints".

Fully agree with this, I think he's excellent.

Probably my favourite of a fairly strong RPGTV panel.

This

I don't watch snooker much at all outside the worlds but didn't find the multiple 45+ minute long frames to be dull at all

Really hope Villareal have an away goal at half time so we can see what the partisan tools McManaman and Owen have to say about it.

This is not aimed at anyone specific but the offensive phrase was just used on the greyhound programme.

When a dog (or a horse for that matter) leads all the way and the commentator describes it as a "pillar to post" win it really annoys me as it should be "post to post".

"Pillar to post" means getting bashed about and the expression comes from the game of real tennis which has all kinds of corners and concrete shelves meaning the ball can come off at awkward and unpredictable angles.

"Post to post" means every post along the track marking the distance to the finish ergo making every post the winning post.

They really should know better.

I've heard a lot of people say "the ball has come off the cushion faster than it hit it", or words to that effect. I'm not sure if this is just a turn of phrase, or people who say it actually think the ball does come off faster than it goes on, on those odd occasions there are big bounces. I assume it's just a bigger bounce than normal, as, to my knowledge, it's physically impossible for the ball to literally come off a cushion faster than it's gone onto it (without the use of spin).

See also - 'stonewall penalty'

'He has hit that TOOOOOO good'

No he hasn't.  If he hit the ball too good he would have hit it perfect and he wouldn't be out of position like he is.

Arghhh!  Owen:  "It's impossible for someone to come here and win"

Yes Michael - that's why Liverpool are 8th in the league.

 A new "most annoying" for me is Owen "Mr Verbosity"  Hargreaves. He was in particularly fine tilting form last night in the CL final.

An example of verbosity, strange language and stating the bleeding obvious to describe the Griezmann 2nd half penalty miss:

"Well you just need your best players to step-up. No question he is their best player and he smashes it against the crossbar. Real Madrid are so fortunate."
"He has made his mind up and doesn't execute well enough. One of the most important things is you need to execute and he just doesn't do a a good enough job. He is a terrific finsiher but wasn't there in that moment"
"One thing you can say as a penalty taker is you can't afford to miss. That's just not good enough from your best player."


Then there are the superlatives. We played superlative bingo in the 1st 10-15 mins of the 2nd half:

Terrfiic 5
Great 4
Exceptional 3
Incredible 2
Remarkable 1
Flawless 1
Exciting 1

He must average 1 a minute. That is over 120 of the fookers in a game that goes to extra time.

Kompany to be on the panel for BBCs coverage of Euro 16.

Shearer/Jenas etc might as well just stay home now.

Edit....apparently they have Ferdinand as well. A Grand Canyon sized gap between them in more ways than one. I look forward to watching Rio try to string a sentence together. You've got 4 weeks Rio to get one right, no rush.

I like:

Cricket - Lloyd, Atherton and Holding.
Golf - Allis, Ken Brown and quite enjoying Rich Beem since started for Sky. I also fucking love Monty, he's so funny just being an arsehole. And his face is hilarious when hes in the studio. From 2010 to around about 2014 he hated you unless you were part of "his team".
Snooker - Ken Doherty and i also think John Parrot is pretty good as he doesn't talk much bollocks.

I dislike:

Ian Botham. Never seen a bigger after timer. "can't believe, they didn't have a 93rd slip in there, it was obvious it was going to fly through there"
Dennis Taylor.
Wayne Mardle. We all know how shite you were, you don't need to make a joke about it every 30 seconds. Shut up and go and judge the fancy dress contest.