Mcgregor could be a shyte footballer for all we know.
Why Everyone Loves Ally McCoist (442 magazine)
- Thread starter cloodie
- Start date
RodVegas
Well-Known Member
I've been saying for months I want through this tie then get Man U or Arsenal. I genuinely think we'd have a good chance. But for no logical reason I think Spurs or Leicester would probably tank us. Or for the Kane Son and Vardy reasons!
Bluebearjim
Well-Known Member
Love the guy, great pundit, sticks up for us, wears his heart on his sleeve.....one of our own.
Boba Fleck
Well-Known Member
I think they are also forgetting the fact that he starred in a box-office movie co-starring Hollywood heavyweight Robert Duvall (wheres the tongue-in-cheek emoji)
That still dumbfounds me........
(wheres the tongue-in-cheek emoji)That still dumbfounds me........
RoofeIsOnFire
Well-Known Member
Doesnt know what its like to share a dressing room with Paul Pogba.Always good to see one of our own getting the plaudits.
https://www.fourfourtwo.com/feature...o-commentator-why-everyone-loves-ally-mccoist
The art of being a co-commentator: why everyone loves Ally McCoist
By Richard Jolly 5 hours ago
Holy smokes! Ally McCoist uses his distance from the modern Premier League to his advantage as a pundit – and has become the surprising sleeper hit of Amazon Prime's coverage
(Image credit: PA Images)
Officially, football is the national sport. Unofficially, it seems as if criticising its pundits is. With one notable exception. Ally McCoist, scorer of a mere nine goals for Sunderland almost four decades ago, feels English football’s strange new national treasure.
There is something magnificently illogical about the way Amazon Prime, the newest broadcaster in the Premier League environment, representing the most valuable brand on the planet, whose streaming model could irrevocably alter the sports rights world, have discovered the route to rave reviews involves a 58-year-old former Question of Sport captain. Perhaps it would be like Pep Guardiola embracing 4-4-2 or Marcus Rashford consulting Bryan Robson about refuelling habits.
But there is something endearing and something meritocratic about it. McCoist is a brilliant co-commentator, the best in the Premier League (ignore the rush to denounce everyone else: there are several other fine exponents of the art), despite never playing or coaching in it and rarely working on it.
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He combines an expert’s understanding and attention to detail with a raconteur’s comic timing and memory for an anecdote; like the former England cricket coach David Lloyd, another beloved broadcaster who shares a similar wit, he knows when to be serious and when not to be. With very different accents, both have the sort of rich, reassuring voices that lend themselves to the airwaves.
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McCoist boasts an idiosyncratic turn of phrase – “holy smokes, that is unbelievable,” he exclaimed when Riyad Mahrez scored at Everton – and a vocabulary that various other current and former players should envy.
He marries an infectious love of football with a hinterland. “Kazan has come a long way since it fell to Ivan the Terrible in 1552,” may be the single greatest line of World Cup commentary since Kenneth Wolstenholme thought it was all over; the camera need not be on McCoist to detect the twinkle in his eye. The mean-spirited may say his enthusiasm is more understandable when he has spent much of his time watching the Scottish game or in a studio with Sue Barker, but McCoist shows it is possible to be both positive and analytical. A forward who used to team up profitably with Mark Hateley has formed three terrific double acts, with Jon Champion, Peter Drury and Clive Tyldesley; it may be no coincidence that they are three of the most erudite commentators. Wordsmiths share a fondness for knowledge and football.
Together, the old masters are preferable to the breed of commentators who prioritise quantity over quality, talking for every available second without saying anything memorable. Maybe they appeal to the nostalgic but, judging from the paeans of praise, a newer audience are similarly appreciative of their timeless skills.
And McCoist’s popularity flies in the face of some received wisdom. He may always remain Rangers’ record goalscorer but, as Scottish football is downgraded south of the border and his playing days grow more distant, those exploits may not render him a big name to an English audience. He does not know what it’s like to share a dressing room with Paul Pogba or to coach Raheem Sterling and, while those who do can offer insight, he brings other qualities.
The distance he has from the English game feels beneficial. There is a toxic element to the invented agendas of those claiming everyone is biased against their team for reasons that often defy rational explanation; McCoist, his brief and unsuccessful spell at Sunderland apart, is not associated with any Premier or Football League club. He is unaffected by football’s tribal warfare. There is a theory – pushed, pathetically, by one or two clubs – that they need their ex-players represented in the television studios, when the best pundits should simply be hired (which Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville are, regardless of their high-profile affiliations to Liverpool and Manchester United), regardless of who they represented. That includes McCoist.
Most importantly of all, he is a reminder that football ought to be enjoyable. A pundit who savours every game is the necessary antidote to ignoring the game in favour of mind-numbing moans about referees and VAR. If the way his commentary, and by extension Amazon’s output, is received ought to prompt BT Sport into an inquest into their often dire Premier League coverage (though not their fine Champions League shows), McCoist may be achieving the impossible by unifying the football-loving public: he has become the man we all want to watch football with.
He shared a dressing room with players that Pogba could only dream of lacing their boots (Gazza and Laudrup).
RabSpackman
Well-Known Member
That really, really pisses me off."Steven Gerrard's Rangers" is another example, the media/EPL arrogance.
No disrespect intended to His Gerrardness.
I understand that Gerrard has a profile that takes Rangers to the attention of many who wouldn’t have given the club a second thought but there is an underlying, and patronising, view that Gerrard coming to Rangers is the most significant thing that has ever happened to the club.
My stock answer became that he’ll need to learn to win things before anyone take him seriously at Rangers and that he might need to learn about living in a football mad city where every other conversation is about Rangers.... tongue a little in cheek with the second part but your average middle aged or younger EPL viewer has little concept of the history of Rangers or Celtic, in the context of European competition or some of the players who have plied their trade in Glasgow.
RabSpackman
Well-Known Member
FourFourTwo started off as a fine football magazine but was sold a couple of times and certainly developed a bit of a love-in for all things Celtic by around 2006 or so. Lots of little things that, as a regular reader of the magazine, I started to notice... random articles suddenly name-checking Celtic for some act of kindness or other positive link, while any kind of talk of hooliganism on or off the pitch was name-checking Rangers. Adverts that used to include Rangers and Celtic merchandise suddenly included only Celtic. All very subtle but it was noticeable.
I’m sure they feel the need to have an article about McCoist and Amazon without wanting to go overboard in any detail of just what Ally McCoist did in his Rangers career.
Zapp Brannigan
Well-Known Member
That's probably what they're aiming for but at the same time it seems like football = EPL and all else is a footnote. "He is unaffected by football’s tribal warfare" apparently
It would have been worth them noting his glittering playing career as more than enough to make him worth listening to, even outside of his infectious enthusiasm and comic ability.
Why wouldn’t it be? That condescending pish has nothing to do with the points I made about him.
His ‘everybody’s pal’ shtick is working wonders.
burquebear
Well-Known Member
I too noticed this, binned my overseas subscription about 2010. Think an editor? was one of them.
remembertheepoch
Well-Known Member
And two time European golden boot winner
Was hoping your notification was just off and you were ok. Just a wee joke calm down.
the_baron
Well-Known Member
I think they are also forgetting the fact that he starred in a box-office movie co-starring Hollywood heavyweight Robert Duvall
That still dumbfounds me........
His performance in it is actually better than Oscar winner Robert Duvall's as well.
The half time speech Duvall gives might be one of the most cringeworthy scenes of cinema ever made.
Someone should tell them McCoist only ever played in a competitive match against the champions of England twice.
And twice he scored the winner.
The_Irrepressibles
Well-Known Member
How patronising was that whole article?
The_goalie
Well-Known Member
I wish I was an “average footballer”. Super was a far better player than people give him credit for
The last sentence was light hearted but I should’ve put an emoji
RaoulDuke11
Well-Known Member
I agree with the sentiment, but what a load of condescending pish.
Exactly what I'd expect from the likes of FourFourTwo
Exactly what I'd expect from the likes of FourFourTwo
