How many commentators does it take...?

... to change football commentary forever?!

In America, they call it ‘the three-man booth’. In Britain, TNT Sports seem to think it’s the future.

As that old icon of football bear-pits that is Goodison Park rocked and rumbled towards retirement, a new sound could be heard slowly growing in volume across our encrypted screens.

It’s the sound of conversational commentary.

A melodramatic narrative had been written in advance of its final Merseyside derby that Goodison was never going to disappoint. Rough and raw, chaotic and cluttered, old time and Old School. The only letdown was the absence of a streaker or a stray dog.

If the essence of football commentary is to capture the mood of an occasion, TNT’s 3-strong attack on our senses nailed it. It was all of the above. The three amigos each caught the fever in rashes.

As Rio Ferdinand profoundly remarked, “Oh my God, Oh my God.”

If I’ve heard anything more perceptive in my near 50 years with a microphone in hand, it’s Barry Davies’ favourite saying – “one man’s commentator is another man’s pain in the arse.” Like SuperBowl half-time shows, we are all a matter of opinion.

And my view counts for no more than the next viewer’s.

My broadcast mentor, Reg Gutteridge, had a hundred favourite sayings. But if I had a penny for every time he told me to “identify your audience and talk to them”, I’d be typing this trope on my own private island. If you want my opinion, a 3-person team are more likely to talk to each other than they are to speak to the audience.

This is not meant to be a criticism of any member of that team. It’s just an inevitability, a function of the equation.

Ally McCoist is one of the most naturally engaging communicators I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with. He has that fetching knack of sounding like someone you’d just love to have a pint with. (And he is that someone, I promise you).

But last night he sounded like he was already at the bar with a couple of mates and didn’t want to be disturbed. When ‘2 becomes 3’ on the commentary gantry, their exchanges are inevitably littered with name-checks and private jokes. Their audience are made to eavesdrop on their intercourse like outsiders. We feel like we are listening to their podcast. And last night Statler and Waldorf were joined by special guest Ali G.

“Oh my God. Oh my God.”

When TNT launched in 2023 with an all-female presentation team, one of the boasts of their spokesperson was a desire to reduce the stale, male banter of too many football shows. The soundtrack to last night’s game was down the pub with the lads. The expert tactical advice to Everton was to try to rough up Virgil van Dijk’s hair. Get into ‘em.

When a goal was scored, Ally’s penalty-box instincts kicked in and he immediately provided ingrained, intuitive technical insight into how Beto, MacAllister and Salah seized upon the rare chances the carnage of the match allowed them. When he’s not joshing with the boys, he can tell us as much about the game as any storied coach or analyst. Ally is a broadcast gem.

The role of the co-commentator is simple for me, Clive. They are the men and women that have been across the white line where most of us never get to go. Their challenge is to come back and explain how football matches are won and lost. Tell us something we can’t already see for ourselves.

Having the judgment and knowledge to read a game doesn’t necessarily give an ex-player the ability to read it out loud to an audience of millions. They are two separate professions with their own techniques and thought processes. If you are coming from football into broadcasting, you need to be schooled and coached in the methods and disciplines of communication. Your words should count.

“Oh my God. Oh my God” is not quite enough.

Part of the issue is the reluctance of football managers and players to say anything truly revealing for fear of becoming the victim of an easy headline, a social media cancelling or an FA disrepute charge. I don’t blame them one bit. The breakdown in trust between football and its media is the saddest single development during my long career. The flow of valuable information has virtually dried up.

The vacuum has been filled by an eruption of molten opinions and pyrotechnic debates on phone-ins, podcasts and social channels. The vast majority of football news is made by people that no longer earn a living from the game beyond the sponsorships of their content platforms. Managers’ press conferences start with questions about what Gary Neville or Jamie Carragher has said about them. We really don’t need to discuss football anymore because it’s done for us on Sky.

Whether that constant babble of opinions translates well into television commentary is the question here.

Even in other sports with a more measured and predictable rhythm than football, the ‘third eye’ tends to be introduced as an add-on by broadcasters. Sky’s excellent cricket coverage will often use the end of an over as the cue to let Nasser Hussain or Mike Atherton narrate a pre-edited sequence of clips illustrating a particular aspect of the match we are watching. It is the kind of analysis that works well during live tennis or golf coverage. There’s a guy called Din Thomas that has even made an art of it in UFC.

The tempo and cadence of a football match is less predictable or formulaic. Whenever I delve into my library of pre-prepared research and statistics during a game, I’m conscious of the danger of talking across and against the narrative of the pictures that you are watching. Television is a visual medium. We are not as important as the optics. Commentary is the soundtrack to the movie and, whilst there are some memorable soundtracks, nobody goes to the cinema specifically to listen. We go primarily to watch a film.

No advances in televisual technology and enjoyment have ever been achieved without experiment. The ‘3-man booth’ experiment is taking place against a backdrop of growing familiarity with the chattering, jabbering, gossiping sound of football talk on our screens and platforms. I get that.

If it sounds a little jarring and jumbled to me, then maybe that’s a reflection of a media landscape where everything is noisier and nosier than it was. Perhaps a ‘watch along’ version of live football commentary is what the viewing public has been waiting for. If it is, I have only three words to offer.

Oh my God.