Why Gary Neville was perfect for Anfield
... a compliment from your enemy is praise indeed
Gary Neville was the perfect man to wave Liverpool across the line.
Sky Sports’ casting director got it exactly right. Not until you’ve knocked someone off their perch can you really know how good the view is from that perch. Gary’s jealousy was as audible as it was fitting.
There must have been a temptation to select Jamie Carragher to partner Peter Drury. He could catch the Anfield mood and serenade the ritual crowning with an invested gush of guttural scouse celebration. Mo Salah, you little dancer etc.
But you cannot know the true value of something precious unless it is taken away from you. A compliment from one’s enemy is praise indeed. The sound of Neville coronating the new champions must have echoed almost as sweetly as ‘You’ll never walk alone’ to the Kop.
The debate about fan commentators and wildly partisan points of view has even fallen into the inbox of the broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, this week. A hundred or so TNT viewers took enough issue with the triumphal tone of Rio Ferdinand and Robbie Savage during Manchester United’s comeback win over Lyon for a headline or two to be written.
It wasn’t exactly a big story in the global scheme of things. We are all a matter of opinion.
There is something inevitable about the fact that some of the most brutal criticism of United’s failings this season has come from their own – from Neville, Ferdinand and Roy Keane. Strong editorial. Their own excellence set the modern standards for the club that gave them a good living and a blessing of greatness in return. They care and it shows.
Whether Neville or Keane would have about-turned to herald the Mainoo and Maguire Europa League goals with the same giddy glee that overcame Rio is another matter. I don’t see any harm in an ex-pro enjoying a victory for their favoured club as long as it is balanced by objectivity and context. We need lessons in history, not hysteria.
Neville’s objectivity and context comes from witnessing half of Liverpool’s 20 English title triumphs as a boyhood United fan. Between the delivery room and his 16th birthday, Gary had to endure 10 Liverpool Championship parties from an envious distance. As the Sky match director tortured him with a chain of haunting close-ups of Dalglish, Rush, Molby and Hansen, Neville mused on reliving the entire nightmare of his childhood.
‘The perch,’ he uttered darkly as a camera caught sight of a Kop End banner boasting that Liverpool were back on their favourite roost.
The same perch that Neville helped Sir Alex Ferguson knock them down from on 8 occasions during his United career. All that proud crowing and squawking as the Carraghers and Gerrards were left flapping on the wood chip, sawdust and crumpled newspaper at the bottom of the cage would only have made the rise of this Liverpool phoenix all the more galling but Neville met it with a glib gallows grace and recognition.
He was big enough to bestow the biggest endorsement that Arne Slot’s squad could hope for… acknowledgement from a grudging peer. It was the handshake at the end of a Ryder Cup defeat, the forced smile on the face of an Oscar nominee when the envelope opens for somebody else. It was succession.
There are more words than VAR checks in modern football. Every sports bulletin seems to begin with a story about something that someone has said rather than has actually done. The unfinishing symphony of podcasts and pundit-fests has created a constant stream of content for popular news sites to swoop down upon and concoct a debate or argument for us to take sides over. It’s predatory, lazy journalism.
Take the exchange between Eni Aluko and Ian Wright… two people that I’ve worked with and know, two people that know and (I think) like and respect each other too. How have their apparent differences over one detail of employment trends in sports broadcasting spilled out onto the pages and platforms of our tablets and screens? A belated apology, a reluctance to accept it, a row between two colleagues holding the same song sheet and with access to each other’s private numbers.
I write a personal blog because I’m not convinced that other outlets will necessarily report my thoughts and opinions fully or accurately. On the few occasions that I’ve found myself maybe needing to justify or account for my words, I’ve always begun by trying to contact anyone directly impacted quietly and personally and seeking a private resolution. Nobody has taken out an injunction or taken a swing at me yet.
If every word we say out loud is recorded, remembered and held on our accounts until our dying days, we are going to need bloody big tombstones. Most are best forgotten and forgiven.
Commentary is unscripted. During the course of 90 minutes of name-calling, you are bound to spout some stuff you wish you had couched differently. Our judges and online jury are rarely neutral. Most of you instinctively want one team or the other to win the game you are watching and so it is no surprise that much of the criticism that comes our way is accusing of us being closet supporters of a club. I’ve been damned as red and blue on the same night.
Declaring your allegiances as openly as Neville, Carragher, Ferdinand and co takes way any of the pretence and sets a clear agenda for what is coming. The best commentators on our game can still offer informed opinions that are not tainted by the colour of their hearts. Gary takes United defeats to his own heart more deeply than most and never minces his words of censure. Glazers out.
It is only natural that networks choose guests that have past associations with the competing clubs for a live match. We are looking for professional, informed insight and any insider knowledge can help. So, it was quite a bold decision to hand the second microphone to a lifelong United devotee for a game that meant so much to Liverpool fans.
For me, it was a decision that only served to amplify Liverpool’s achievement.
As Daniel Sturridge swooned and swaggered with the high emotion of his former club returning to the summit, the cool analysis of their climb came from a man that had evaluated their every step through gritted teeth. It was Neville that spelt out the smart adaptability that has enabled Slot to meet every challenge that his first season in charge has thrown at him and to hold off a list of challengers that Gary mournfully ran through without any reference to his own beloved club.
Maybe United’s dramatic fall somehow made it a little easier for him. It’s not so difficult being a commentator fan when your team are not even in the game.