Comrades, Gentlemen, Ladiez, Hooligans, Nerds, Asylum Seekers - let us all unite for today is the day! After many many years of ear bleeding and brain befuddlement, today is the day that we break the 2 day old news that you’ve all been waiting for. No longer will Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons be spent in a love-hate battle between enjoying the crème of Europe compete in glorious champions league matchups while simultaneously hovering on the mute button and dealing with the internal psychological battle of wanting to enjoy the beauty and art of the ‘goal’ but not knowing how to deal once more with the excedingly grating faux-irish ignoramus insulting our (mild) intelligence with his ridulous affected “accent” shrieking “ANOTHER ONE IN THE BACK OF THE OLE ONION BAG” or some other nonsensical variation.
Taxi for Tommy Smyth!
No, DisneySports have not seen sense and decided to replace their ridiculous clown with an actual real salient being who has some understanding of the game and isn’t stuck in the year 1963 (strangely, in each of the 45 years that he’s left County Louth, his accent has gotten stronger to such an extent that he’s now 94% angry Leprechaun), but they’ve only gone and lost coverage of Champions League games for next season to Fox Soccer Channel. ESPN have had coverage since the 94/95 season so this must be a bit of a blow to them. Then again, if they actually cared about soccer in anyway, they wouldn’t subject us to “Tommy Smyth with a ‘y’ ” Why? Why? Why?
Well actually, Fox will be showing games across FSC, Fox Sports Net and FX. I’m not sure how they’re going to find room in their busy FX schedule, but I’m sure they’ll be able to find a few slots in between showings of ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’ and repeats of Nip/Tuck (was their ever a more pathetic long winded excuse to show cliched school boy fantasies than Nip/Tuck?). Setanta will still continue to broadcast the 2nd choice games.
David Sternberg, the big boss at FSC said that he “would like to see if we can get the network positioned onto more broadly distributed tiers and packages”. Unfortunately I don’t speak corporate so have no idea what this means. But I can tell you that they have yet to confirm commentators but will probably use the official UEFA English feed. Anybody know who that refers to?
Enjoy your weekend with a little extra spring in your step knowing that your annual quotient of onion bags has greatly decreased. Glory!
Posted by Cass
You forgot to mention the best part about the FSC announcement: Fox Soccer will be broadcasting in HD by the end of the year. It’s about time!
I know, it’s going to be fantastic. Can’t wait!
Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. As hard as I find it to listen to Smyth at times, I do fear that FSC will push an occasional Max Bretos called match on us. Then you’ll change the name of your blog to No More YAAAAEEEEEESSSS and long for the day that you heard that lucky little man talking about onion bags.
HD is fantastic news. Seeing that ESPN had the rights since 94/95 did make me a little nostalgic. That was my first exposure to Barca and Hristo Stoichkov.
Hristo Stoichkov… my all-time favorite player.
Adam, that’s hilarious. White I actually do like Max, that yaaaaeeesss thing is awful.
No Lazar, noooooooo! Max Bretos is across the board awful. Next thing you’ll be saying Ray Hudson makes sense occasionally.
Ding Dong the prick is dead
After listening to Tommy Smith….. with a capital “TIT”
in Austalia for years ,i couldn’t be happier the turd has been flushed.
He called our goalkeeper Sher-michael and Cantona cantone-a.What an arse- i USED TO THINK IT WAS JUST ME HE WAS ANNOYING.
Onion bag ,assist and penalty square have no place in a sane world.
Do we think he was a comic genius or just a knob?
My bets knob.
Heard the mention on football weekly podcast today.
Im off to find out which chanel in oz has the rites.
thanx for a great website.
sueben.
am sure you fellas will blog on this but congrats on being featured in Swells’ guardian piece
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/apr/15/tommy-smyth-us-soccer-espn
[...] “No longer will Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons be spent in … the internal psychological battle of wanting to enjoy the beauty and art of the goal but not knowing how to deal once more with the exceedingly grating faux-Irish ignoramus insulting our intelligence. Taxi for Tommy Smyth!” [...]
[...] “No longer will Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons be spent in … the internal psychological battle of wanting to enjoy the beauty and art of the goal but not knowing how to deal once more with the exceedingly grating faux-Irish ignoramus insulting our intelligence. Taxi for Tommy Smyth!” [...]
[...] “No longer will Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons be spent in … the internal psychological battle of wanting to enjoy the beauty and art of the goal but not knowing how to deal once more with the exceedingly grating faux-Irish ignoramus insulting our intelligence. Taxi for Tommy Smyth!” [...]
Adam, stop it! You’re scaring the children with all that Bretos talk.
FSC in HD — Yes!
The one thing that I find charming , if ridiculous, about Max Bretos is that he clearly lived in Brazil or Portugal at some point and his pronounciations of Brazilian players are so perfect it’s almost over-the-top comical. He’s the only American who calls Ronaldinho “Ho-now-JEE-nee-yo.”
Tommie Smyth is the biggest apologist for Fergie the Ranter. No matter what hot air blows out of Fergie the Ranter’s rectum, Smyth is right there ready to take it all in and get high on it.
Smyth pretty spends most of his time cheerleading every ocassion for Man United and for the love of jos life, Sir Alex. So why should we take seriously anything he says and even today, when 5 of 6 players of the year are United, a clear ballot stuffing (Where is Lampard, Dirk Kuyt, Mikel Arteta, etc.) Smythe mentioned it gloating that United is such a great team that the other players in the league do not compare to the men that the love of his life, Fergie, has in his team.
Tommie Smyth is a tampax for Fergie and all things United and totally horrible at what he does.
Ovidius, you are not wrong. Tommy also will never say anything critical of anyone who is famous or popular. He forgets that he is supposed to be a journalist, when he is really some guy that ESPN found in a bar like twenty years ago, heard his accent, and hired him to do soccer analysis.
[...] “No longer will Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons be spent in … the internal psychological battle of wanting to enjoy the beauty and art of the goal but not knowing how to deal once more with the exceedingly grating faux-Irish ignoramus insulting our intelligence. Taxi for Tommy Smyth!” [...]
[...] “No longer will Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons be spent in … the internal psychological battle of wanting to enjoy the beauty and art of the goal but not knowing how to deal once more with the exceedingly grating faux-Irish ignoramus insulting our intelligence. Taxi for Tommy Smyth!” [...]
Im Irish and Tommy makes my ears bleed. His appalling attempts at Trivia i.e Johny Giles was the last Irish Player since O’ Shea to come through the United ranks (for f*** sake theres been at least 10 since then, a current first teamer being one of them in Darren Gibson) He quite obviously has no love for the 6 counties either. He happened to mention in the Porto game that United hadn’t scored more than 2 away from home in europe that season, i’m assuming he forgot about the Aalborg match he commentated on. Hes a dreadful commentator and its time ESPN woke up. As far as him being a Manchester United apologist or fan, im going to file that along with the Tommyisms for absurdity. Anybody in mainstream media that doesn’t lambast United at every given opportunity is a closet United fan according to some
HALLELUJAH
THERE IS A GOD
NO MORE FAKE IRISH ACCENTS AND IGNORANT BANALITIES FROM SMYTH
ALSO:
NO MORE GODAMNED ”BOTTOM LINE” ON ESPN WHICH TELLS YOU THE SCORE OF THE OTHER CHAMPIONS LEAGUE GAMES THAT ARE TAKING PLACE AT THE SAME TIME, WHICH WERE LATER SHOWN ON OTHER ESPN CHANNELS LIKE ESPNDEPORTES, ESPN CLASSIC, ETC (WHICH i HAD, SO I COULD TECHNICALLY WATCH WITHOUT KNOWING THE SCORE BUT ESPN BOTTOM LINE TOLD ME ALL THE SCORES FOR NO REASON THEREBY SPOILING THE FUN)
SMYTH RIP
WORST EVER
EVE WORSE THAN S.I.N. TONY TIRADO FROM EARLY 1980S IN USA
shows that Yanks live in a dreamland of caricatures and simplicities
I don’t think it’s fair to blame Americans for Tommy Smyth. The vast majority of American soccer fans I’ve talked to have no time for Tommy Smyth. The people in charge of ESPN have no interest or knowledge in the game and this is why we get subjected to Tommy Smyth. If RTE or BBC had an annoying American commentator for broadcasts of NFL, I don’t think it would be fair to blame the Irish or English people who are forced to suffer through it.
But I do agree with you on Tommy being a caricature and simple
I was just commenting today to two of my other Irish friends whilst watching the Man Utd v Arsenal game, that some of the terms Tommy Symth uses are probably totally incomprehensible to anyone other than Irish people. Is he not aware of this? For example when he utters “ANEEDER”, does anyone have a clue what he means? Of course, he is attempting to say “and either”. Do not ask me how to explain how that fits into any correct english sentence properly. He is just awful. He would never get a job in Ireland or England doing what he does over here in the USA.
John, you are completely right, and therein lies the bitter irony: the only place that clown could get a job is here, sadly.
The Arsenal v Man U second leg CL commentary was especially awful from Smyth. Smyth was furious about the penalty against Man U. The red card was harsh, but it was a penalty, without a doubt. Fletcher wrapped his legs around Fabregas’ thighs within 10 yards of the net. Smyth not only saw no red card or penalty, but no foul? Are you fcking crazy? Repetitively yelling your biased opinions on television doesn’t make them true.
about f*cking time….can’t stand that dbag….
@joe: couldn’t agree more, mate….his comments are so biased they almost make you laugh.