NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 02: TNT Sports presenter Ally McCoist during the Premier League match between Newcastle United and Manchester United at St. James Park on December 02, 2023 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. (Photo by James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Images)
One of the most torturous things about having to watch games involving the Ibrox club is knowing that in Europe, you’ll have to deal with the inevitable commentary from Ally McCoist.
Everyone knows how I feel about McCoist. I don’t have to re-litigate old dramas. I think he’s a bigot. I think he’s a clown. I think that underneath the cheeky chappie persona is a hateful, spiteful person. I have never liked the guy.
I can just about cope with the Village Idiot on my TV screen because I don’t watch the pre-game show when I’m watching a game on Sky. I don’t watch the half-time show. And unless Celtic have won or the Ibrox club have lost, I don’t watch the after-match stuff all that often either. So, my exposure to that clown is usually limited to what I’m hearing from other people or seeing on catch-up later.
The thing with the Village Idiot is that he says so many things that are absolutely ridiculous. He gets himself so emotionally wound up that his bigotry and his bias come through loud and clear—but it happens in flashes, and it happens away from the main commentary. So, it never really spoils your enjoyment of the actual game itself. That’s a blessing. And it’s more than we get from McCoist.
Because in the Champions League and Europa League games I’ve been watching the last few nights, McCoist is the commentator.
And it’s hard enough listening to him during a match involving two clubs where he’s meant to be neutral, because he is a fool of the first rank. I have never once heard him say anything insightful about a game he’s commentated on. He cracks jokes. He makes small talk. He praises things he likes. But when it comes to actually offering an insight into what’s happening on the pitch? Nothing.
And that, of course, is in the neutral scenario.
When he’s commentating on his favourite club, it’s a completely different ball game. He is beyond unbearable. I can take the Village Idiot and others being biased after the fact, but listening to commentary that is so nakedly partisan, so monstrously stupid because the man cannot separate what he wants to happen from what is happening—he’s one of the worst people you could possibly have calling a game.
Again, as with the Village Idiot on Sky, I have to question the professionalism of people who think putting this guy in the commentary box does anything but ruin the enjoyment others might get from watching a football match. That should never happen. You should never have a partisan voice commentating on a game because it skews the whole coverage. And I’m not talking about someone who used to play for a club or managed one—happens all the time. I’m talking about someone who cannot even maintain the veneer of professionalism when commentating on his own team.
It was atrocious to listen to last night.
His commentary on the red card was so absurd I wanted to mute the whole thing. It was as straightforward and clear-cut a red card decision as you’ll ever get. Same goes for the penalty kick—utterly routine.
To hear him banging on about how harsh the red card was, was to hear someone who wanted to ignore the rulebook entirely and just go straight to his wished for outcome. He wasn’t giving a professional view, he was mouthing his personal preferences.
That’s not commentary. That is not the face a professional organisation should be presenting to a mass audience.
This just never ends, does it?
Yesterday, someone sent me an article from the BBC, written by Steven Naismith. It was, of course, a piece of pro-Ibrox fanboy gushing.
Is this a joke now? Isn’t it beyond parody at this point? The media is full to the rafters with these people—all with one thing in common. They all played at Ibrox or were involved in the Ibrox operation in some way.
The whole media landscape is stacked with them.
Now we’ve got Scott Arfield as well, and when the Ferguson experiment ends, he’ll be able to walk back into his cushy media gig. I’d bet anything we’re going to have his two sidekicks back on Radio Scotland too.
I suspect I’m not the only person who’s tired of this garbage. And all it does is drag down the standard of the media as a whole. Because in their desperate desire to get as many ex-Ibrox people into employment as possible, they’ve scraped the bottom of the barrel clean.
It’s an insult to every neutral who has to listen, read, and watch this dross.
You’re hardly neutral James! And why on earth do you watch their games??
His modus operandi is NOT to be neutral Hans…
He is not here to pander to fans of specifically Sevco of course or fans of St.Mirren, St.Johnstone, Hibernian, Heart of Midlothian, Kilmarnock, Motherwell, Dundee, Dundee United, Ross County Or Aberdeen either…
He is here to expose these clubs and praise them when due although that can simply never happen with Sevco for sure unless there is a drastic seismic shift in their policy as a club and as a support…
They say that for evil to prevail that good men do nothing – Well James is the least person in Scotland that can have that labelled against him…
As for watching their games Hans which clearly you freely admit to not doing then thank goodness that you are not the manager of Celtic or any of their other 10 Premier League opponents as it’d be a guaranteed as it’d be a record points haul of 132 for Sevco that being the case…
This is Scummy Scottish Football Hans – The most vociferous place in Europe where one has to know their enemies…
And God knows – Celtic have a multitude of these said enemies out there !
I think you misunderstand the meaning of neutral in this context, Hans. And your asking why James watches huns play European football – not really a Celtic fan, are you?
James, I do not turn the sound off, I turn the game off. One week he was on a European Tuesday game I wanted to watch. Fortunately watched another. The same on Wednesday. I was fully expecting him to be on my changed game, but he wasn’t. He has been on English games. He knows absolutely nothing. He adds no value to the game, in fact he has lost that cheeky chappy mantra. He is just a blithering bigoted ersehole.
I don’t pay for TNT or any telly channel so it doesn’t vex me personally as I don’t have to listen to him…
He seems to be a National Treasure (I know, I know, don’t let your false teeth fall out) ! – But he seemed to be in tv long before any of the other million, like himself, run of the mill Huns were ever near a studio…
A lot of the blogs say he has a bad lisp speech impediment so why the fuck do they employ him then –
I have Emetophobia (an extreme fear of vomit or seeing people vomit) so I don’t think that I’ll be helping the girls clean up all the spew on The Cal-Mac ferries any time soon as I’d be no use to them anyway…
So why does McCoist who canny even speak coherently (admittedly not his fault his lisp) get employed by them…
Oh silly old me – He’s a bigot and angry ex ‘Rangers’ as they were when he played for them before they died – That’s obviously why…
As I say – Thank fuck that I don’t pay for it is all I can say !
We should rename him ‘Mr Bumble’ – “If that is what the law presumes then the law is an ass!”
Even Hutton and Rae were ridiculing his rants!
Totally agree..rea would give children nightmares ffs
Is anyone in the media of any sort going to pick up on Barry Ferguson post match IV admiting he risked long term
health problems to personell by playing certain players with an injury and keeping players onfield after being injured during that woeful EL game.
IF that were any other manager they would have been blasted by the prints!!
What do you expect from an Alky, Womanising, Zombie.
If it’s not ex Ibrox players it’s Ibrox fans, the Scottish media, especially BBC Scotland, is packed with them. The commentator last night, who is an Aberdeen fan, tried to explain the rules to him at the ordering off, but McCoist wasn’t having it.
Got to say James I thought the penalty for Atletico was very soft,there is no way I could see that as deliberate hand ball.
Atletico really disappointed me, against 10 men they passed, passed, passed, with very few chances being created. They actually reminded me of our team on a very bad day, 3 nil nil draws in a row isn’t very impressive from the Basque team.
Yesh Moneypenny, you’re a shite for shore eyesh!