After straying into the realm of experimental theater last week, this column has decided to do dive back into the mainstream this week and collate some of the things we learned from sitting on our arse all weekend, enjoying quite a packed weekend of sport.
John Motson has been to Oxford since we saw him last...
Ol' Motty appeared on Football Focus to preview Leicester versus Hull, and before going live, he morphed into an Oxford graduate. Motty went on air looking like Michael Gove, before tossing about Shakespeare references like helmets discarded after an interminably long war with France. He reduced Leicester's season to four Shakespeare quotes.
Forget King Lear, here's King Motson.
Simply poetic. #bbcfootball pic.twitter.com/FIhhQW51HE
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) March 4, 2017
He sadly didn't reappear post-game, and also didn't opine after a post-match interview that no legacy is as rich as Refreshing Honesty.
...while Chris Sutton's wordplay is equally deft
Sutton, BT's master wind-up merchant, appeared once again on BT Sport Score, the rival to Sky's Soccer Saturday. Sutton declared that the stand-in Leicester manager should be called Craig SNAKEspeare, having "stabbed Ranieri in the front". It is all a grubby end to the Leicester story, that has been steeped in Shakespeare references from the beginning. After the body of Robbie Keane-lookalike Richard III was reburied in March of 2015, having been found in a car park in 2012, the club's winning record shot up, a run of seven wins from the last nine games preceded the Premier League triumph.
Gary Neville affronted one of the most powerful lobby groups in sport...
Such is the volume (in both senses of the word) of UFC fans on twitter, they have become quite a powerful lobby group. Big MMA descended on poor old Gary Neville on Saturday, as the Sky commentator flippantly referred to their (Of Course It's A) Sport to sum up an absurd minute's violence at Old Trafford. Tyrone Mings stamped on Zlatan's head a minute before Ibra smashed his face with an elbow in retribution. Neville oohhhed and aaahed before declaring "we've seen a bout of UFC". Of course, the stamping of heads is outlawed in MMA, something the UFC were quick to point out to Neville.
Not sure about that one @GNev2 🤔
— UFC Europe (@UFCEurope) March 4, 2017
Stamping on Somebody's head isn't part of the rules in the @ufc @GNev2 xD
— Saeed (@S433D92) March 4, 2017
...while his Sky colleague seemed afraid of upsetting anyone
There was plenty to talk about in the post-game interviews with Tyrone Mings, Zlatan, and the managers, yet Sky's line of questioning left a lot to be desired. Tyrone Mings was given an easy out with the question "did you intentionally stamp on Zlatan's head", while Ibra was allowed to go all Kellyanne Conway with his "Mings' face collided with my elbow". Wayne Rooney, meanwhile, was allowed give the kind of one-sided view that Ferguson would have been proud of: breaking down in great detail Mings' transgression against Zlatan, while pleading the fifth on his teammate's act of retribution. Sky have, in the past, played replays of goals to players' during interviews: they are yet to be brave enough to play back moments of controversy.
Graeme Souness is slightly less brimming with loathing for frivolity than we thought
When Dele Alli and Harry Kane celebrated the latter's goal against Everton with an exceptionally intricate piece of choreography, most assumed that Graeme Souness' distaste for humanity would be ratcheted up in the Sky studio. Not so. He agreed to attempt to replicate the move with Jamie Redknapp, and only looked like he hated most of it.
Is this not an instant sackable offence for Redknapp and Souness, @SkySports? ?? pic.twitter.com/p8ZUnpTFQS
— Aaron Outram (@azzle94) March 5, 2017
God is a Roscommon man
Kevin McStay has faced criticism over the last week: former Roscommon manager Gay Sheerin dished out some flak based on McStay's place of birth:
I do not like to see Mayo men on the sideline for a Roscommon team. I fought for years against Liam McHale and Kevin McStay, playing against them. And they hated me and they hated Roscommon.
And they can't have got that love (for Roscommon), there's no way, because I couldn't get that love for them.
Well, McStay decided to face his critics down through an RTE camera lens, mediated by Marty Morrissey. The moment Morrissey mentioned that McStay is from Mayo, however, a gale blew in from nowehere, and showered McStay in hailstones. We're not saying that Gay Sheerin can manipulate the weather, but...
McStay hits out at 'nonsense' criticism of Mayo rootshttps://t.co/8mFNNA0Myp pic.twitter.com/YcG5yUEcFk
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) March 5, 2017
