“If you’ve only just switched on, then lucky you.” Sky Sports commentator Ian Darke did not enjoy the first hour of his evening at St. James’ Park last night. Darke would have been longing for an early Newcastle strike that would have allowed him to mark it as “the goal that could propel them out of this crisis and towards their first trophy since 1969.” A Tottenham goal would have been even better.
It was a dream game for any commentator. Two teams were seemingly on the verge of total chaos. And an early goal would have sent one side over the precipice and into the Large Hadron Collider. In fact, any incident of note would have been enough for Darke to launch into a bombastic sound bite.
But it wasn’t to be for Darke. And to make things worse, even the golden rule of commentary went wrong. This rule is to wait until just before a player shoots (preferably from a free kick), and then suddenly scream their name with a mixture of shock and expectation.
The result can create a perfect harmony of excitement and amazement, which peaks on the second syllable of the players’ name. Ideally that name will be “Beckhaaaaaaaaam” or “Lampaaaaaard.”
John Motson was the biggest fan of the golden rule. Although since hanging up his mic, he now applies this rule in the morning when he reaches for the “corn flaaaaaaaaakes.”
But instead of Darke delivering a glorious “Owwwweeeeeeen” as the ball flew past the outstretched Gomes, he was still midway through his pronunciation of “Pavlyuchenkoooooo,” whilst the Russian’s shot had already been deflected, collected by the keeper, and rolled out to the full back.
Thankfully Darke did not go on to state that the only thing Pavlyuchenko resembled was a combination of Andriy Schevchenko and a raspberry pavlova. Darke could at least take comfort from the fact that he is not Mark Lawrenson.
But that was about as good as it got. Not even the pictures of Mike Ashley’s empty seat left Darke with anything worth saying. How he would have loved to have been able to say what we were all thinking.
“We hear that Ashley has been scouring the Middle East for rich investors to take Newcastle off his hands. But we all know how he has been going about this. Picture one of those annoying men who try to flog their worthless goods to holidaymakers on the beach, and you’ve got him.”
The first half was so bereft of, well anything, that the half time Sky Sports catchphrase writers couldn’t even be bothered to write one; and opted for ‘Next: First Half Analysis with John Beresford.’ It was as if they were playing a cruel joke on Beresford who was frantically searching for something to analyse.
Darke had to wait until the 53rd minute for the first serious moment of the match. As Giovanni dos Santos prepared to come on, he first pulled his socks up over his knees, a la John Terry, and then attempted to tuck his shorts into the top of his socks. But while no other player has ever attempted such a feat, it was not the sort of thing that Darke gets paid for mentioning.
So it was no surprise that only 19,000 supporters turned up to the game.
The rest according to Darke “voted with their feet.” The only voting that is usually associated with football is the vote of confidence for the manager. But since Newcastle don’t have a manager, they couldn’t even do this.
Spurs did eventually give Darke something to shout about when in the space of four minutes, Pavlyuchenko first voted with his head, before O’Hara voted with his left boot.
But like Owen’s consolation vote in the dying minutes, for Darke, it was all a case of too little too late.