Drury, McCoist, Keane, Redknapp are all saturating our football coverage | OneFootball

When we watch football on TV these days – and there were nearly 70 games broadcast across all platforms just on Sunday in the UK – the commentator and co-comm (if there is one) become very familiar and an important part of the entertainment.

If you mute the sound or take up the option to watch without commentary, it’s a rather vapid experience which diminishes the enjoyment. Except of course if you can’t stand the commentator or co-comm. In that case it’s like being trapped in a room with someone wittering on or shouting at you to the point of intolerance.

We’ve all got our favourites and preferences and have often diametrically different views. It’s common to look back to the John Motson, Tony Gubba and Barry Davies days as a golden era. This is selective memory. Let me tell you, there were a lot of people who couldn’t stand them. Motty was sometimes thought too nerdy and Davies too headmasterly. And I’ve yet to meet anyone who misses David Coleman’s inevitable “one-nil”, not to mention that forced cup final rehearsed line of “goals pay the rent and Keegan does his share”.

These days, commentating styles are much more informal; that seems to be the trend. That’s fair enough but sometimes it goes too far and it feels like you’re intruding on a private conversation. Banter is fine if you hear it once every week or two – Adam Summerton and Don Hutchison thrive while enthusiastically covering Serie A and I think they’re probably two of the best, but that’s because they’re only together perhaps twice or three times per month. If they were on four times a week plus trailers, voiceovers and adverts, it would probably feel like inane wittering.

There is no objective view; it’s entirely subjective as to what you like and don’t like. But what has become all too obvious in recent times is the reliance on certain voices for certain channels. For example, most weeks you’ll hear Ally McCoist with Darren Fletcher several times.

For a while Ally was acclaimed as an entertaining, passionate voice and one which provoked mostly a positive response. Almost uniquely amongst broadcasters, he escaped the criticism which usually comes with the job. TNT or whatever they are called this week, clearly became cognisant of this and deployed him at every opportunity and as a bonus used him for trailers for their coverage. Then there were the advertisers who wanted to tap into this assumed popularity. As I write he’s the voice of Simba mattresses and also in those cringey ads for selling cars (I forget the brand, ironically enough).

You can see the logic but it is fundamentally flawed and doesn’t acknowledge that there’s such a thing as overkill. Nowadays it’s easy to see ‘oh no, not him again’ type comments. This has only happened because he’s in our lives so much. It’s nothing to do with Ally per se, it’s just overfamiliarity. Endearing colloquial tics become teeth-grinding habits.

Yet this comes at a time when there are more commentators to choose from than ever. With Sky showing every EFL game, there simply has to be. So over-exposure really isn’t necessary and I would hazard that it reveals a paranoia about diminished viewing numbers, that they cling on to anyone they think is popular.

I understand that finding co-comms and pundits who are sentient enough to talk like a regular person without deploying football cliches is self-evidently hard, but if they spread their net wider they could engage a broader range of voices. Just being a former player clearly doesn’t give you some kind of superpower of football perception that isn’t available to anyone else. They are seldom ‘experts’ in any meaningful sense. Are they telling us a serious journalist or writer’s voice is of no interest, ever?

Does every Sunday 4.30pm game with Sky mean that only Peter Drury – shouting names in full as they strike the ball – is allowed to commentate? The inevitability induces a kind of footballing ennui. At least half of any audience for the game don’t watch the pundits anyway, so disengaged are they from the frequently banal parade.

The way to avoid the ‘not him/her again’ response, is to spread all the contributions – whether commentators, co-comms or pundits – much wider. Does it always have to be Roy, Jamie or Micah? Is it so hard for producers to think, “this one is always on, people will be sick of them”? Even a popular voice wears thin after weeks and weeks, plus you’ve got them advertising everything from data services to whatever it is that Roy shills for. It’s all far, far too much. We don’t even want to hear the commentators we like three or four times per week. After all, these are not Peter Ustinov-style (ask yer grandad) gripping, entertaining orators.

There can’t be any shortage of people who can articulate themselves about football while wearing some unfortunate clothes.

As unbelievable as some would think, most commentators are good at the job. Just identifying the names correctly is hard enough if you try it, but that’s not the point. The aesthetics of a voice, any voice, have a shelf life that producers seem unable to understand or perceive.

You might not have heard of some of those who work on level three and four games but one of the reasons I watch is because usually the commentators are fresh and energetic, possibly because they’re using it as a stepping stone to bigger gigs. For example Sunday’s play-off between Chesterfield and Notts County was well worked by David Stowell and Courtney Sweetman-Kirk. Why not use them instead of the Drury harsh bellow?

More variety and less predictability seems anathema to the producers. Perhaps they’re scared because the product is too often tedious and they feel they need to have an established performer? Something must explain it.

Also consider using someone less keen on the endless banter and statistical nerding who can also shut up sometimes. This is something those who work the WSL and SWPL frequently get right. Sunday’s Chelsea v Manchester City cup semi-final game was a good example with Robyn Cowans and Rachel Brown-Finnis achieving a good balance.

It’s such an important part of every broadcast; producers need to work much harder and default to the same voices and faces much less. Concentrate on making a quality product rather than trying to sell an over-familiar one.