50 sHaDeS oF iDiOcY: pArT 1
During the recent sexism furore that engulfed the media (kicked off by Sky Sports presenters Andy 'Arrows' Gray and Richard 'Course-They-Don’t' Keys’ odious confab that was erroneously aired), I clicked on a related link from my feminist sister Lynsey that left me genuinely aghast. The link led to an article that was published on the MailOnline website, penned by a certain Giles Coren, (no, I'd never heard of him either) entitled:
‘So why is it all right for women to be sexist about MEN?’
And by all accounts, it is a frankly jaw-dropping piece of slanderous misogyny, brimming over with boiling hate. This bogus, scurrilous scribble is both indefensible and utterly pathetic in its entirety. But we'll return to Master Coren and his whining, insignificant, baseless-bellyacher opinions after the half-time oranges...
Firstly, let’s tackle Messrs. Keys and Gray and their witless assumption that the microphones were turned off before launching into a tirade of childish jibes directed at assistant referee Sian Massey, regarding the critical flaw in her character needed for accurately translating the footy rulebook into Premiership flag-waving reality...
She's female. A girl. With their stupid, befuddled XX chromosomes.
Evidently her male counterparts are currently doing something of a Sterling job; faultlessly executed week in, week out, as they like to say. Seriously, when was the last time you heard Alex Ferguson or Arsing Whinger beefing-on about bad refereeing decisions following a game? How often does the post-match analysis burble endlessly away about how the result hinged on a couple of controversial decisions made by the male officials? And how regularly does the topic of introducing video evidence into the sport ever crop up? Erm, well…
Lovely day isn’t it? Looks like the weather’s finally on the turn... Sorry, what were you saying?
The exchanges between this pair of old-fangled obsoletes occurred before Ms Massey had even trotted anywhere near the touchline at Molineux for the Wolves/Liverpool match. I expect it came as something of a shock that this hackneyed, meat-and-potato-brained double act were exposed, not as the impartial, philosophical philanthropists (with Zen enlightenment gleaned from their studies in the East) that you’d assumed they were?
Egad! They had me hornswoggled too. Just how naive are we? What with their mud-caked rearing on 1970s/‘80s footy, soccer, football, cabbage kicking, pigskin punting and um, Breakfast Television? Possibly not the ideal ingredients for engineering the 21st century Renaissance man, I accept. But never did I conceive of the intolerance concealed behind the wide-eyed grin of a soft-focus Andy Gray, mullet tossed resplendently over his Villa-striped shoulders, in Panini’s Football ‘86 sticker album. My horror was palpable as I discovered the bombshell of the bullheadedness, seated-deep that belied the steely-jawed yet insipid, expressionless gawk of Richard Keys - his matted hair sprouting coarsely, but proud from under his cuffs and into his coffee mug - as he jostled with the banalities of marmalade festivals or feminine hygiene products with Wincey Willis at dawn, like the hybrid of an Easter Island Moai statue and Teen Wolf's unsavoury uncle. (Although regular daily doses of Willis is possibly enough to make a very hairy man indeed take leave of his senses).
The scandal permeated an excited media for days on end as they always do and we were invited to stare, slack-jawed at the newly-exposed dark heart of institutionalised chauvinism that beats, bigotedly unabashed, just below the seedy, bloated underbelly of the Beautiful Game.
The disparaging remarks made by the pair were damning. Enrolling for evening classes entitled, ‘A Beginners Guide to Achieving Sexism in the Workplace,’ where the lessons are taught in a fusty old changing room with fluted circular-stud-indented, crusty chunks of earth under the rickety desks, the tutor would undoubtedly include the majority of Keys and Gray’s pearls of wisdom for the eager students. It was a veritable magic-marker, whiteboard-squeaking master class. Pure textbook:
Section 1
a) Always commence proceedings with arrogant superiority: 'Somebody better get down there and explain offside to her.’ Check.
b) Follow up with sweeping generalisations: 'Women don’t know the offside rule.’ Check.
c) It is imperative to demean the subject with dismissive aplomb: 'Of course they don’t.’ Check.
d) Insist that these tawdry inferiors will have all their frailties laid bare, paying absolutely no heed whatsoever to the actual subsequent events: 'There’ll be a big one today (bad line call). Kenny’ll go potty.’ Check
e) Always add a dash of derogatory terminology while referring to your quarry: 'Hear Karren Brady this morning, complaining about sexism? Do me a favour love.’ Cheeyeckk!
cLaNg!
And so on, et cetera, et al, continued the, ‘To you, to me, to you,’ blah blah blah, toing and froing whatnots of this particular chucklesome exchange. And then things got worse for them. Much worse.
Further cringe-inducing episodes of boys' bravado batty-chunter from the hapless pair ensued and these were even more excruciating and potentially career-curtailing than the initial exposé. Their analysis of the 1998 Women’s FA Cup Final between Arsenal and Croydon emerged, which essentially involved the pair laughing their arses off throughout its duration. Now, ‘scuse my common turnstile parlance here, but to be fair, I defy any footy fan to watch the highlights of that game and not guffaw themselves giddy. It begs the question, just what was the quality like in the earlier rounds? Clearly Women’s (and Girls’) football have come a long way since those heady-days. And so followed further ‘exclusives’, including one piece of footage that showed Andy Gray suggestively urging the unimpressed Sky presenter Charlotte Jackson to:
‘Tuck this down here for me, love,’ as he lewdly gestures towards the microphone pack down the noticeably-roomy front of his trousers.
This proved to be Gray’s undoing and he was sent off for an early bath. Two yellow cards resulting in a red from Sky Sports.
Keys’ own personal public humiliation was about to be screened for the masses and will no doubt haunt him well into the next life. Pre-match footage unearthed from the Stamford Bridge studio saw our hirsute charmer probing the clearly-uncomfortable co-presenter Jamie Redknapp about his sexual exploits with an ex-girlfriend. In the most vulgar of terms:
‘Did you smash it? Mind you, that’s a stupid question. If you were anywhere near it, you definitely smashed it.’ He ain’t quite done yet:
‘You could go round there any night and find Redknapp hanging out of the back of it.’
It, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it…
I’ve been pondering as to whether a youthful Mr and ‘It’ Keys consummated their wedding night with him poetically thumbing-in a softy before hanging out of the back of it by romantic candlelight? Let’s hope so.
I say it’ll haunt him, if only for the number of times his daughter Jenny presumably has to put up with some jokester declaring, ‘I’d smash it,’ referring to her.
Keys unceremoniously punted himself into touch and resigned before being given the boot. So what next? Years of penance in the wilderness for the jingoistic jackasses you might presume?
Not a jot of it.
TalkSport announced it had scored a sensational coup by snapping up the two presenters just days after they had to start scrawling lies into their Job Seeker’s Looking For Work Diary. The radio station has emphatically, albeit tacitly declared, we don’t really give a shit what anyone thinks and we have no intention of justifying our position because it’s already been made pretty goddamn clear. Here are two gentlemen that fully comprehend all the nuances of multi-faceted pieces of football legislation such as the offside rule and also have a very clear acumen as to what has always made this hierarchy function. Now click the kettle on sugar lips, that bloody brew’s not going to make itself.
TalkSport may as well have released this as a viral video:
[The camera pulls back to reveal the moment of elation as Keys and Gray are giving each other a high-ten, amid and above the sweaty Eiffel-Towering of a doubly-penetrated Gaby Logan. Camera switches to a slowly panning close-up of her glistening face just seconds before her head inexplicably splits in two and disturbingly reveals that her brain is actually fashioned from a six-wing carbon-latex bladder, encased in micro-textured, hand-stitched hexagonal panels of Thermoplastic Polyurethane.] © 2011 TalkSport
It’s difficult to even criticise them for their controversial standpoint. I mean, if the woman who was recently caught on CCTV tossing a cat into a wheelie bin had actually replied to the repeated question from the press:
‘But why did you do it?’
And responded with, ‘Because it couldn’t open the bin lid itself,’ there would have been no further questions needed your honour. The sour-faced ogress is simply just a twat who really fucking hates cats. That’s fair enough in her world. You can’t really argue with a clarification of position like that. An unrepentant TalkSport are as bold as baboons and all set for the antiquated future.
Now…
(Sharp intake of breath).
Giles Coren. Just where the fuck do you start with this piec-?
PPPPHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!
