Our mates over at Fox have had a bit of bad luck recently on the programming front – to put it mildly. The Fox Soccer Channel, while vastly devoid of any decent analysts or experts, is the savior for us fans of the English game that live in the USA. Most weekends three games are screened live from the Premier league and there is also a review show thrown in on Sunday mornings. A sort of a Match-of-the-Day in the morning, but with three or four blokes that nobody has ever heard of.
I have no idea how programming is determined or who gets to pick the games. I’m sure there are some contractual obligations with the Premier League and the team at Fox certainly have no say in the Premier fixture list. However, if there is someone in charge of selecting at least a few of the matches that are broadcast live, they might be updating their resume/CV soon.
Now I am not blaming FSC at all – just more bad luck than anything. Of course I realize that nobody has a crystal ball when selecting these matches and a couple (alright one) of the matches looked decent from a pre-game perspective.
Here’s the lineup from the past couple weeks:
Nov. 22 Chelsea 0-0 Newcastle
Nov. 22 Aston Villa 0-0 Man Unt
Nov. 29 Middlesboro 0-0 Newcastle
Nov. 29 Bournemouth 0-0 Blyth
This past Saturday, there was not an additional live Premier game available due to the second round of the FA Cup. Now, I’m all for the magic of the Cup and all that so I tuned in, but 10 minutes of watching this lot hoofing it up and down the field was all I could take. I hope they don’t decide to show the replay. But I always wondered what happened to Darren “sicknote” Anderton (well not really).
That was a run of 360 consecutive minutes of live English footie and not a Saturday goal in sight and I sat through about 300 of said minutes. I’m not sure if there was even one ruled out for offside. Six hours of a goalless drought…this is hardly helping much in promoting the beautiful game stateside.
On the bright side, it can only get better. And those of us waking up early for the 7:00 am Pacific Time Saturday morning kick-offs will surely see some relief soon. Eventually the luck has to change and someone must score on one these Saturday’s. Coming up this weekend is Arsenal Vs Wigan followed by Man U Vs Sunderland. There’s got to be 10-15 goals there alone, how about 4-4 followed by 6-0. That ought to cheer up our friends at FSC.
However, if you are a fan of the thrilling, or not so thrilling, nil-nil draw hit the button below and let me know…Cheers!
I have no idea how programming is determined or who gets to pick the games. I’m sure there are some contractual obligations with the Premier League and the team at Fox certainly have no say in the Premier fixture list. However, if there is someone in charge of selecting at least a few of the matches that are broadcast live, they might be updating their resume/CV soon.
Now I am not blaming FSC at all – just more bad luck than anything. Of course I realize that nobody has a crystal ball when selecting these matches and a couple (alright one) of the matches looked decent from a pre-game perspective.
Here’s the lineup from the past couple weeks:
Nov. 22 Chelsea 0-0 Newcastle
Nov. 22 Aston Villa 0-0 Man Unt
Nov. 29 Middlesboro 0-0 Newcastle
Nov. 29 Bournemouth 0-0 Blyth
This past Saturday, there was not an additional live Premier game available due to the second round of the FA Cup. Now, I’m all for the magic of the Cup and all that so I tuned in, but 10 minutes of watching this lot hoofing it up and down the field was all I could take. I hope they don’t decide to show the replay. But I always wondered what happened to Darren “sicknote” Anderton (well not really).
That was a run of 360 consecutive minutes of live English footie and not a Saturday goal in sight and I sat through about 300 of said minutes. I’m not sure if there was even one ruled out for offside. Six hours of a goalless drought…this is hardly helping much in promoting the beautiful game stateside.
On the bright side, it can only get better. And those of us waking up early for the 7:00 am Pacific Time Saturday morning kick-offs will surely see some relief soon. Eventually the luck has to change and someone must score on one these Saturday’s. Coming up this weekend is Arsenal Vs Wigan followed by Man U Vs Sunderland. There’s got to be 10-15 goals there alone, how about 4-4 followed by 6-0. That ought to cheer up our friends at FSC.
However, if you are a fan of the thrilling, or not so thrilling, nil-nil draw hit the button below and let me know…Cheers!
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1 comment:
Guess you saw one of Anderton's last games then as he just announced his retirement, if he doesn't get injured first!
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