How they did it? When faced with a dramatic situation for our favorite club or a stressful moment in an engaging match, we usually regress to unintelligible sounds or a series of annoying semi-connected syllables. Broadcasters, by contrast, need to not only stay calm and convey the moment, but also convey the seriousness of what is happening. How they do that separates the greats from the greatest.
Whether it’s “your boys took a hell of a beating”, famous calls from football history become as famous as the moment itself. It shouldn’t be a surprise why. The ability to “sum it all up” (to borrow another phrase from Martin Tyler) and capture the moment is not easy for many of the reasons we describe. For many US fans, for example, “go, go, USA!” it still brings thrills from watching Landon Donovan score even just hearing Ian Darke gasp.
The veteran journalist collects some of the most famous football calls and brings them together in a compact anthology entitled The beautiful poetry of the football commentary. Like the speakers he features, his prose is short and to the point. The book takes a famous call and gives a few sentences that explain why that call is famous.
At around 150 pages, you can pick up this book and read it in about an hour. But if you witnessed many of these matches or are familiar with the calls, it may take a little longer to bring the memory of the match back to your head. With the call of Martin Tyler “Aguero”, I stopped for a few minutes replaying in my mind where I was when the goal happened and how I felt as an interested neutral.
Similarly, I did the same for another Martin Tyler callout, my favourite, of Tony Adams’ goal in 1998. Eccleshare explains why this short callout was so appropriate: the wording reflected the change from “boring, boring Arsenal” to the culmination of Arsene Wenger’s style of play, with two players who epitomized change. His final line, which sums it all up, really means both the goal and the season and Wenger’s renaissance.
The beautiful poetry of football commentary: in depth
The book covers a long period of time, dating back to 1938. As someone who doesn’t have as much football experience as others, I heard about some calls that I had never heard or seen. Some of the favorites I discovered included John Motson’s call about the Wimbledon win over Liverpool (Crazy Gang v. Culture Club), Kenneth Wolstenholme’s call about England’s 1966 World Cup win (They Think Everything it’s over…it’s now) and the call from Barry Davies about that Maradona goal against England (He won’t need them).
Like the players they are describing, all of these announcers were up to the moment to perfectly capture what a fan of the game should feel like.
As mentioned, The Beautiful Poetry of Football Commentary is a short but fun read.
I recommend it for fans who appreciate game coverage and want something on their shelf like a fun football book to cleanse the palate. Eccleshare did a great job of capturing why the station is important and how they add up to those famous moments. And he did it without superfluous words, just like his subjects.
Photo: Imago
