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The Roar

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It's time for the home of football to finally deliver

14th August, 2014
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Western Sydney Wanderers fans. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
Expert
14th August, 2014
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Thursday’s announcement that SBS will move their Friday night A-League coverage to their main channel, SBS ONE, has been met with an overwhelming positive reaction.

Now, it’s time for football’s “home” to get the rest of their coverage in order.

When SBS first declared that Friday night games would be screened on their digital channel, SBS Two, for the 2013-14 season it was a bit of a surprise.

Why the station that had championed football for years wasn’t putting the game at centre stage was a mystery. Subsequently ratings weren’t spectacular last season, and many used it as evidence of football’s continued struggles. In truth, many people probably just didn’t know it was screened.

Yet now that initial folly has been rectified, SBS have to also deliver a relevant and quality football show to replace the abysmal Thursday FC.

In February, SBS put everyone who watches television on a Thursday night out of their misery by shutting down their attempt to bring football to the mainstream. It was due to poor ratings, and was replaced by South Park re-runs. A brilliant decision in my eyes, you can never have too much South Park.

There’s no other way to describe the show but as simply embarrassing. Actually, I’ll give it a crack. It was a train wreck, cringeworthy from the very first show, and just as bad as it went on.

Awkward interactions with the audience, terrible live music and shocking banter between the hosts were just some of the down sides. The up sides? Well, I’ve been told it improved towards the end of its short-run tenure, but its cancellation speaks for itself.

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Some fans will disagree, but I have no idea why. Perhaps just because it was a football show. Thursday FC was partially based on England’s Soccer AM, a light-humoured football program that doesn’t take itself too seriously at all.

I think that was the aim anyway. I’m still not sure. Either way, it failed. Spectacularly.

But Soccer AM is a show for the younger generation, you grow out of it with time. In Britain, the most popular programs are MOTD (naturally), Goals on Sunday with the enigmatic Chris Kamara and Monday Night Football, which offers tactical analysis from the surprisingly brilliant Gary Neville. Football fans like and respect analysis, which can then be mixed with humour. Australia may not be ready for hardcore analysis on free-to-air, but a happy medium can be found.

The first mistake of the SBS directors was their choice of presenters. David Zdrilic may be an okay alternative to Craig Foster’s rants, but give him the spotlight and he’s lost. He was like a rabbit in headlights, completely out of his depth.

His co-presenters, Matt Okine and Lucy Zelic, were similarly lacking, and there was no chemistry between the three. It was just an awkward roundabout.

Okine may be a comedian, but he wasn’t funny.

He may well be entertaining thousands on Triple J now (I wouldn’t know, I stopped listening when Richard Kingsmill became music director and started ordering generic tunes for presenters’ playlists) but he was woeful on SBS.

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Okine’s role was just confusing. From asking pro footballers cringey questions, who fed back appropriately baffled answers, to looking goofily at the camera every 10 seconds, his presence was awkward.

And as for Lucy? Perhaps it’s a bit harsh to write her off, and maybe she deserves another chance. But I can’t help but think that the SBS directors chose the wrong Zelic. Lucy’s brother Ned would’ve been ideal for a show with a more organised format.

I did try to watch Thursday FC, I really did. But there’s a point where so much cheese is just too much. It was like The Office, but real life. The cringe factor was at breaking point. Dad jokes are aptly named. They’re for dads, not footy shows.

Switching to Thursday FC was like a car crash, or was it a train wreck?. You couldn’t quite believe what you were seeing, and it was hard to compute, but for some reason you also struggled to look away at times. I’m aware that I’ve already used this word too often, but cringeworthy is just too fitting.

Football fans don’t want a version of the AFL and NRL’s Footy Show. We want a show we can be proud of. We don’t want forced comedies, we want in-depth discussions about matches and decent previews, mixed with a bit of humour and friendly banter. Can we please have that for the 2014-15 season?

What the hell happened to Damien Lovelock? Get him on board. He was brilliant alongside straight man Les Murray back in the day. What was it called? Fan’s Corner. Brilliant.

Lovelock brought the perfect amount of knowledge, wit and humour to the screen. Everyone bangs on about Santo, Sam and Ed (who are great), but Lovelock was the benchmark that no one has yet been able to reach.

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As we know Santo, Sam and Ed are with Fox Sports now anyway, and won’t be coming back. They’re killing it on pay TV, and offer a fantastic accompaniment to Fox Sports FC.

But for anyone who followed the game in the 1990s, SBS and football were one and the same. Monday nights were for the English Premier League, and Sundays were an excuse to be a slob all day and settle in for a mammoth marathon of footy action.

Thursday FC was a major disappointment for those who grew up with SBS’s excellent coverage of the world game. Bring that same standard to the mainstream now. Bring an insightful football program to the masses. One which previews A-League games, has a look at the weekly squads, crosses over to players and journalists and has panel members that can hold their own in conversation.

It’s not bloody hard, or at least it shouldn’t be. Get in Lovelock, get in N. Zelic and perhaps give Mariana Rudan a more prominent role. Once that show kicks off, then have another crack at comedy.

SBS missed the mark last season, both through demoting Friday night football to their digital channel and through their production of a mediocre football program, unbefitting of their immaculate history in covering the world game.

This season has to be better. Moving A-League matches centre stage is a great start, now give us a footy show to be proud of. Is that too much to ask from the self-described home of football?

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