RTE's Sporting Weekly
By Michael Kennedy
Readers over, say, 35, will remember Hall's Pictorial Weekly, a
triumph of sophisticated satire that managed to treat its
mainstream audience with warmth and respect. Nothing RTE has
produced since has even come close to what Frank Hall created.
In its style and format, The Sporting Press Gang (Network 2,
Mondays, 9.45 pm) has borrowed heavily from Hall's Pictorial
Weekly, and combined with the intelligence its presenters bring
to the programme, it makes for good television.
A sports review and analysis show, interspersed with comic skits,
Tom McGurk and swimming champion Michelle Smith make it
fast-moving, funny and packed with useful information.
Apart from the delicious irony of Michelle Smith quoting Tom
Humphries, who more than any other Irish journalist has raised
awkward questions about her Olympic success, this week saw
discussion of the remarkable bronze medal feat of the Irish
under-20 soccer team.
Reading from The Sunday Tribune, Smith pointed out that there is
a huge drop-off rate from youth football. Of the 17 players on
the 1985 youth world championship side, not a single one made it
to senior level, she said.
For Britain's gallant also-rans at Wimbledon the pair reserved a
little healthy schadenfreude, with McGurk describing `Rusedski'
as ``a well-known British family name''.
``Incidentally,'' said Smith, ``Saturday's Wimbledon Diary in the
Daily Telegraph gave us fascinating information about the
regulations on how and when players can go to the loo during
matches.''
A female player's toilet break may not exceed five minutes. The
men do not have any kind of time limit.
Both sexes must be accompanied by an official, whose duty it is
to ensure that that player is not receiving instruction away from
the court.
The programme cut immediately to another skit, involving the (all
male) committee at the All-England club, discussing how women
``pop in and out to the bathroom like there's no tomorrow,
sometimes two at a time''. Throughout the conversation, of course,
the stuffed shirts themselves run to and from the loo.
After predicting that the Nevada State Athletic Commission will
fine Mike Tyson a relatively small sum for biting off the top of
an opponent's ear, McGurk pointed out that Ireland's Steve
Collins has just successfully defended his WBO super middle
weight welter title in Glasgow, against Craig Cummings, a
full-time fireman.
other sketch, with a boxing agent on the phone to the emergency
services. Thanks for the fireman, he's saying, lovely job. How
about a paramedic or an ambulance man next week, then he could
sort himself out after the fight, and save on medical bills.
Then there was the first interview with the South's new Minister
for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Jim McDaid, and he actually
imparted some new information.
Currently, only 15 percent of national lottery money goes to
sport - McDaid said he would attempt to increase this. He also
promised to ring-fence national events - such as the football and
hurling finals and some race meetings - from the grasping hands
of pay-TV operators like Rupert Murdoch.
On the debate about whether sports funds are best used supporting
a few big-name athletes or a greater number of young hopefuls,
McDaid said he planned a scheme where if an athlete who is
supported as a youngster becomes rich and famous, some of the
money comes back.
A medical doctor, he said there was widespread abuse of drugs in
sport, and promised that Ireland would lead the way in
introducing blood-testing for athletes at home.
The `Main Event' section of the programme was a debate on whether
professional boxing can go on, post-Mike Tyson: seven men in
studio, no women; but at least some of them knew what they were
talking about.
Barry McGuigan said Tyson should be barred for life from the
ring, have to return the purse, viewers should get their money
back, and boxing should go on as usual.
Kevin Myers argued that if boxing were truly an artistic sport,
then hitting one opponent in the head would be banned.
``It is the potential peril to the boxers that makes the sport as
attractive as it is. If you confined the target to the shoulders
and the rib-cage, you wouldn't have an audience,'' he concluded.
Although it might have given us at least a gloating synopsis of
how the English cricket team was being humbled by the
Australians, and there was no mention of the British and Irish
Lions' spectacular performances on their tour of South Africa,
The Sporting Press Gang made for genuinely engaging viewing.
One wonders what would happen if McGurk and Smith were allowed to
make a political satire programme along the same lines.
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