You can understand how the mistake happened but pity the poor minion who is going to pay for the error. A couple of years ago Gary Neville retired from playing football and took the pundit's chair at Sky Sports for their Monday Night Football show. Many questioned Sky's judgement but Neville soon won over the critics with his detailed analysis, incisive comments and in-depth knowledge of the game based on a footballing career with honours that include 8 Premierships, 2 Champions League trophies, 3 FA Cups and 2 Football League Cups amongst many other achievements. Neville also has the qualifications to talk about international football having played 85 times for England. So when the BBC were looking for a new summariser to replace the world weary Mark Lawrenson for England's World Cup matches, Neville was an obvious choice. Imagine the delight at the BBC when they discovered Neville was available and the champagne corks will have been popping at BBC Sports when he signed up for the gig.
Unfortunately, the BBC got the wrong Neville. It had escaped their notice until too late that they'd signed Phil Neville not Gary and the consequences were played out in high definition, surround sound glory for all to hear last Saturday night as England's opening match against Italy kicked off. And that strange sound you could hear at half time, that was Mark Lawrenson chuckling as he sipped his Ovaltine.
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| Neville Neville |
P.S. Truth be told, I thought Phil did a decent job, offered some good analysis and his CV is a lot more impressive than many on the airwaves at the moment. O.K. his delivery was fairly monotone and he needs to work on his microphone technique but he offered a lot more insight than most of the other summarisers on offer. If you want an over-excited airing of ignorance turn over to ITV or tune in to Robbie Savage and don't get me started on Jonathan Pearce's meltdown for the BBC covering France v Honduras.
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