Why I love this job
It doesn't happen very often that England win against Australia at Lord's. It doesn't happen very often that I can genuinely ask listeners what they'd like to hear on the radio - and be able to oblige. Today was one of those occasions: would you like to hear ball-by-ball commentary on 5 live from our exemplary commentators as England closed in on the Aussies?
It was radio democracy in action. Of those who got in touch, the overwhelming majority said yes. Many of you were listening in your cars where you can't get Long Wave (for Test Match Special), or where you don't have a digital radio (where you'd hear full commentary on 5 live sports extra). All you wanted was Pat Murphy, Alec Stewart and Jason Gillespie. Never has a threesome sounded so alluring.
Which other radio network would be able to do that? Where else would you be given such a choice? That's why I love working for Radio 5 live.
It was tense, it was dramatic... And within 16 minutes of us starting commentating, Swann took Australia's final wicket.
Brilliant for England - and glad we could be of service.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~04~RS~)
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Maybe we can organise something for everyone of your programmes?
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victoria i have no problem with the commentary on golf,tennis,football and most major sports and the discussions that take place but when we have a genuine winner of world class standard in amir khan at the age of 22 possibly britain and englands youngest and boxing being a working class sport why did that not get a mention we had many of our olympic amatuers that turned pro now who fought on saturday on amir khans undercard and they have a good chance to be world champion as well but we never heard a thing about it especially in the case of young amir khan world champion at 22
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Hello Jimmy - I confess I didn't hear much of Five Live on Saturday night and Sunday morning, but my guess is Khan's victory would have been covered then.
Victoria
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hi victoria i listened to the commentary on saturday night and it was fantastic and after the fight i heard only a few callers come on but that was it it hardly got a proper mention now i know your a proper sports fan victoria who follows a number of sports from football to cricket but when i listen to your show you discuss it in depth and give our british and english sports stars the respect they desserve only last week you had michael vaughan on but since amir khan has won he has not got the mention the kid desserves how many world champions do we have in this country and especially when you consider khan has done that at the age of 22 possibly the youngest ever british champion and with boxing being a working class sport i think it desserved more respect after all it was only saturday he won hardly a million years ago in the last few weeks i heard phone ins on andy murray yet he never won wimbledon yet its not like tennis is a working class sport that everybody can play in this country
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I've just heard you (Thursday, 23rd July) discourage callers unhappy with the number of foreigners in the England cricket team. A testament to BBC brainwashing and no mistake. It probably reflects as well on recruitment policies which emphasize female emotion over intelligence and imagination.
'Would you like to add to that.....or do you think the debate more or less dead and buried now?' Nice.
Dick Best recently revealed an unofficial (and unspoken) policy of selecting English rugby teams partly on racial grounds (Best was explaining a Lions selection but he was drawing on his experience with England).
Immediately accused of racism (brainlessly, inaccurately and on your time slot) Best had in fact done no more than expose the kind of systematic abuse of national team selection permitted in Scotland, Wales and Ireland and which these countries take for granted.
Why should we put up with Sikhs and Hindus playing for England - or South Africans or Welshmen for that matter? We are forced to endure this, just as Engliand football supporters are instructed to forget an all-English (i.e. all-white) World Cup winning team in case it offends players who have no attachment to this country but who are selected to play for it anyway.
Institutional anti-Englishness is often denied. So am I complaining unduly? Let us examine the evidence. I believe I can back up what I'm saying with reference to England's other major export, football.
Recently Glasgow Rangers' footballer Nacho Novo, a Spanish holder of a British passport, applied to play for Scotland. At around the same time his countryman, Arsenal goalkeeper Almunia, was attracting much attention further south by expressing a desire to play for England.
Almunia's case was widely discussed. Left-wing organs such as the Guardian and the Independent broadly favoured the idea, as did slippery, self-serving Arsene Wenger ('I am not a nationalist. I am for human rights').
By contrast the Novo case attracted not a word of comment. Silence. Novo's application had in fact been rejected out of hand, yet hardly a word of this decision reached the ears of rights-conscious English news editors.
Don't rules fanatically imposed on English sport apply north of the border? Do Scots please themselves? Confident he would escape censure Denis Smith, Chairman of the SFA, could afford to be brazen:
"On one hand, the Fifa regulations say that George Burley can pick eligible players who hold a British passport - and on the other we have a gentleman's agreement with the other Associations that says that we will pick players based on their blood line'.
John Barnes did not even come to England until he was half grown. In his autobiography he says he was relieved to retire from international football so he could stop pretending to be patriotic. Thus while England is betrayed at every turn Scotland gets to write its own rules.
How about this for an online debate you fearless truth-seeker you?
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