Off The Ball - Is it good?

[dylandog]

Had an account on here years ago but new email account, password etc etc blah blah so decided to start a new account. Listened to Off The Ball a few weeks back in which this thread was mentioned, the episode where Div was on, and I decided to contribute.

Like a lot of people contributing to this thread, I was a long-time listener to Off The Ball and found it essential listening for many years, particularly through the ‘90s and the first decade of this century. For me a real low turning point was around 10 years ago when they had Gok Wan on the show – this just seemed a real departure and something quite different, and the start of having guests having no idea or interest in Scottish football. Tam in particular went on to reference the Gok Wan episode pretty much every week for the next 5 or 6 years.

Despite being a dedicated listener for many years I really feel it has gone downhill a lot the last few years and I feel really like I’m only still listening out of a sense of loyalty and duty. Whereas in the past it was essential listening, it just feels mostly like background noise now.

First of all the so-called ‘tropes’ - I’m a couple of episodes behind, and the one I am listening to right now has mentioned St Johnstone winning the cup, Motherwell winning the cup, Davie Cooper and Tam mentioning ‘tropes’ - all in the first 5 minutes. The regular tropes off the top of my head include:

- Motherwell winning the cup in 1991 (this takes up so much time of every single episode)

- St Johnstone winning the cup

- How Davie Cooper ‘pound for pound’ is the best bargain in Scottish football history

- How Paul Daniels saved Tam’s life

- The woman who got bovril all over her face after being hit by the ball at Brechin (apparently, Tam can still hear her screams to this day, so I’ve heard)

- Lorenzo Amoruso’s manhood (this is every single episode – seriously, when did Amoruso last even have anything to do with Scottish football?)

- The contestant on 15 to 1 who gave ‘Mexico’ pronounced in a funny way as an answer (admittedly Tam tells it in a funny way – but how many times over the years has this story been told?)

- JFK moment

- The scheme you grew up on

Are there any more that I can’t remember off the top of my head right now?

A year or two ago they went through all the Off The Ball tropes and agreed not to talk about them anymore – I think that plan maybe lasted about 2 weeks?

 

Cosgrove – I’ve always had a massive respect for Stuart – he’s clearly an incredibly well-informed guy and good writer, and I agree with a lot of his views. But I’m getting really sick of him imposing soul and motown on us every week and telling us how great it is. It’s getting more and more every week. It just feels like a crusade to convert every single listener. Just give him a soul and motown radio show, for goodness sake! In addition this has seen an increase in his utter disdain and intolerance for almost any other song or genre that gets played – he seems to be getting more narrow-minded with music and just dismissive of anything that isn’t of his personal choosing. For example a couple of months back ‘Happy Hour’ by the Housemartins got played – at the end he uttered the words ‘that was Happy Hour by the Housemartins’ with an unbelievable amount of utter contempt, and such utter disdain, through gritted teeth, you could almost hear his teeth grinding – before swiftly moving on to the next topic, minus the usual enthusiasm and 5 minute backstory we get after every single soul and motown song. He just seems to sulk and take it as a personal affront whenever a track that isn’t soul or motown gets played.
Another thing is the way he pretends to know absolutely nothing about English football. Not saying he should have an encyclopaedic knowledge of course, it is essentially a Scottish football show after all, but the way he feigns total ignorance is embarrassing. He would claim not know which club’s nickname is the Red Devils or what colours Newcastle play in purely to prove a point. It’s embarassing and cringeworthy. However, if there is a guest who perhaps played in England and makes reference to it with specific points, Stuart’s knowledge of English football suddenly goes right up.
The way he claims to hate nostalgia and reminiscing is of course utter nonsense too – he’s always harking back to the St Johnstone days of old and his experiences in the USA, and of course musically.

Cowan – I’m not going to bother going into his music taste as it is so appalling that I think, as a lot of people have mentioned here, it’s purely attention seeking and to get a reaction.

His repeated phrases are starting to get completely out of hand. Of course Motherwell ‘91 and Davie Cooper will be mentioned every couple of minutes, but it’s the little phrases he continuously resorts to that are just as irritating:

- “That works a treat”
- “Put some meat on the bone”
- “Every penny’s a prisoner”
- “Pound for pound”

At least when Cosgrove was confronted with his “fantastic, ye cannae beat it” catchphrase he took it on board and doesn’t really use it anymore. Someone needs to do the same for Tam – if you played a drinking game where you took a shot every time he uttered those 4 phrases, you’d be dead by the end of the weekend.

After all that, it seems odd I maybe still listen to Off The Ball. As I say, maybe it’s still out of a sense of loyalty and duty – I grew up with Stuart and Tam, and still have a lot of love for them, despite all the things that irritate me that I mentioned above. Also the show does still genuinely make me laugh from time to time. I just think it feels tired and repetitive – maybe it’s too long now? 2 hours in the afternoon, and another 2 or 1.5 hours in the evening or Sunday – it’s too much.

Also the alternatives are far worse. Si Ferry and his wilfully ignorant, village idiot pal, the odious “Slaney” and his equally barely-literate “Big” Kevin Kyle and their epic bantz and every third word “mate” or “pal” are just utter torture. It’s just horrible, laddish nonsense.

Sorry for the length of the ‘rant’ - been meaning to get all that off my chest for a while! In a nutshell, where Off The Ball will always be very dear to me, and I will still listen, it’s without the same enthusiasm as before. As I said it feels tired and repetitive but still raises a laugh from time to time.

[ropy]

11 minutes ago, dylandog said:

Had an account on here years ago but new email account, password etc etc blah blah so decided to start a new account. Listened to Off The Ball a few weeks back in which this thread was mentioned, the episode where Div was on, and I decided to contribute.

Like a lot of people contributing to this thread, I was a long-time listener to Off The Ball and found it essential listening for many years, particularly through the ‘90s and the first decade of this century. For me a real low turning point was around 10 years ago when they had Gok Wan on the show – this just seemed a real departure and something quite different, and the start of having guests having no idea or interest in Scottish football. Tam in particular went on to reference the Gok Wan episode pretty much every week for the next 5 or 6 years.

Despite being a dedicated listener for many years I really feel it has gone downhill a lot the last few years and I feel really like I’m only still listening out of a sense of loyalty and duty. Whereas in the past it was essential listening, it just feels mostly like background noise now.

First of all the so-called ‘tropes’ - I’m a couple of episodes behind, and the one I am listening to right now has mentioned St Johnstone winning the cup, Motherwell winning the cup, Davie Cooper and Tam mentioning ‘tropes’ - all in the first 5 minutes. The regular tropes off the top of my head include:

- Motherwell winning the cup in 1991 (this takes up so much time of every single episode)

- St Johnstone winning the cup

- How Davie Cooper ‘pound for pound’ is the best bargain in Scottish football history

- How Paul Daniels saved Tam’s life

- The woman who got bovril all over her face after being hit by the ball at Brechin (apparently, Tam can still hear her screams to this day, so I’ve heard)

- Lorenzo Amoruso’s manhood (this is every single episode – seriously, when did Amoruso last even have anything to do with Scottish football?)

- The contestant on 15 to 1 who gave ‘Mexico’ pronounced in a funny way as an answer (admittedly Tam tells it in a funny way – but how many times over the years has this story been told?)

- JFK moment

- The scheme you grew up on

Are there any more that I can’t remember off the top of my head right now?

A year or two ago they went through all the Off The Ball tropes and agreed not to talk about them anymore – I think that plan maybe lasted about 2 weeks?

 

Cosgrove – I’ve always had a massive respect for Stuart – he’s clearly an incredibly well-informed guy and good writer, and I agree with a lot of his views. But I’m getting really sick of him imposing soul and motown on us every week and telling us how great it is. It’s getting more and more every week. It just feels like a crusade to convert every single listener. Just give him a soul and motown radio show, for goodness sake! In addition this has seen an increase in his utter disdain and intolerance for almost any other song or genre that gets played – he seems to be getting more narrow-minded with music and just dismissive of anything that isn’t of his personal choosing. For example a couple of months back ‘Happy Hour’ by the Housemartins got played – at the end he uttered the words ‘that was Happy Hour by the Housemartins’ with an unbelievable amount of utter contempt, and such utter disdain, through gritted teeth, you could almost hear his teeth grinding – before swiftly moving on to the next topic, minus the usual enthusiasm and 5 minute backstory we get after every single soul and motown song. He just seems to sulk and take it as a personal affront whenever a track that isn’t soul or motown gets played.
Another thing is the way he pretends to know absolutely nothing about English football. Not saying he should have an encyclopaedic knowledge of course, it is essentially a Scottish football show after all, but the way he feigns total ignorance is embarrassing. He would claim not know which club’s nickname is the Red Devils or what colours Newcastle play in purely to prove a point. It’s embarassing and cringeworthy. However, if there is a guest who perhaps played in England and makes reference to it with specific points, Stuart’s knowledge of English football suddenly goes right up.
The way he claims to hate nostalgia and reminiscing is of course utter nonsense too – he’s always harking back to the St Johnstone days of old and his experiences in the USA, and of course musically.

Cowan – I’m not going to bother going into his music taste as it is so appalling that I think, as a lot of people have mentioned here, it’s purely attention seeking and to get a reaction.

His repeated phrases are starting to get completely out of hand. Of course Motherwell ‘91 and Davie Cooper will be mentioned every couple of minutes, but it’s the little phrases he continuously resorts to that are just as irritating:

- “That works a treat”
- “Put some meat on the bone”
- “Every penny’s a prisoner”
- “Pound for pound”

At least when Cosgrove was confronted with his “fantastic, ye cannae beat it” catchphrase he took it on board and doesn’t really use it anymore. Someone needs to do the same for Tam – if you played a drinking game where you took a shot every time he uttered those 4 phrases, you’d be dead by the end of the weekend.

After all that, it seems odd I maybe still listen to Off The Ball. As I say, maybe it’s still out of a sense of loyalty and duty – I grew up with Stuart and Tam, and still have a lot of love for them, despite all the things that irritate me that I mentioned above. Also the show does still genuinely make me laugh from time to time. I just think it feels tired and repetitive – maybe it’s too long now? 2 hours in the afternoon, and another 2 or 1.5 hours in the evening or Sunday – it’s too much.

Also the alternatives are far worse. Si Ferry and his wilfully ignorant, village idiot pal, the odious “Slaney” and his equally barely-literate “Big” Kevin Kyle and their epic bantz and every third word “mate” or “pal” are just utter torture. It’s just horrible, laddish nonsense.

Sorry for the length of the ‘rant’ - been meaning to get all that off my chest for a while! In a nutshell, where Off The Ball will always be very dear to me, and I will still listen, it’s without the same enthusiasm as before. As I said it feels tired and repetitive but still raises a laugh from time to time.

I think you take it too seriously, it is a light hearted entertainment show before the sport starts.

[dylandog]

5 minutes ago, ropy said:

I think you take it too seriously, it is a light hearted entertainment show before the sport starts.

Sorry Tam 

[buchan30]

What i think (fwiw) they should do, is maybe have folk on who are really knowledgeable about scottish football, as well as the guest.
Dedicate the 1st half hour to their chat, the guest, then at the moment they will still have the professor on. Takes you up until 1pm, them do a bit of research (or get someone to do it for them) and along with the person who has the knowledge, especially of the lower leagues, have the second hour be a build up (maybe 15 mins per league). Keep the terracing teaser and maybe 1 talking point for the public to text/email in with.

The Sunday show, could be the newspaper’s, couple of talking points and then a non review of the weekends action, again including the lower leagues.

[dylandog]

14 minutes ago, buchan30 said:

What i think (fwiw) they should do, is maybe have folk on who are really knowledgeable about scottish football, as well as the guest.
Dedicate the 1st half hour to their chat, the guest, then at the moment they will still have the professor on. Takes you up until 1pm, them do a bit of research (or get someone to do it for them) and along with the person who has the knowledge, especially of the lower leagues, have the second hour be a build up (maybe 15 mins per league). Keep the terracing teaser and maybe 1 talking point for the public to text/email in with.

The Sunday show, could be the newspaper’s, couple of talking points and then a non review of the weekends action, again including the lower leagues.

Some good suggestions there. However I would maybe shorten the show - I think this is one of the main problems, it is too long. Especially if the guest/s aren't great, it can become a bit of a slog (I seem to remember Derek Riordan on it a while back was like pulling teeth. Also every single time Amy McDonald is on is 'remove all sharp objects from the room' territory).

I would love to see a return of calls from listeners. I understand this is maybe out of the Stuart and Tam's hands and is maybe more BBC policy now, but the calls were definitely a highlight - always funny for a variety of reasons, especially picking out the ones who were clearly 'under the influence', and provided some good talking points.

[SouthLanarkshireWhite]

On 22/09/2020 at 11:48, Shotts56 said:

Nail on the head.  I gave up when one year they said they had no idea how the play-offs worked.  They are professionals, for goodness sake, show some professional pride and go and look it up.  Pretending to be thick or ill-informed isn't really entertaining - it is possible to be funny whilst still knowing what you are talking about.  If they can't be arsed looking up the basics of the football tournaments they are commenting on, I've got better things to devote my time to.

However it is de rigueur these days for working in the entertainment media to appear thick and one of the troops.

Listen to any quiz on any commercial radio station and the hosts are fighting to get over how intellectually challenged they are so as not to offend the listener who is struggling at home to spell something or know the capital of somewhere. Normally they stick to questions about Eastenders or Love Island to avoid any whiff of education. 

Perhaps they know their audience?

[Genuine Hibs Fan]

On 07/10/2020 at 10:58, buchan30 said:

What i think (fwiw) they should do, is maybe have folk on who are really knowledgeable about scottish football, as well as the guest.
Dedicate the 1st half hour to their chat, the guest, then at the moment they will still have the professor on. Takes you up until 1pm, them do a bit of research (or get someone to do it for them) and along with the person who has the knowledge, especially of the lower leagues, have the second hour be a build up (maybe 15 mins per league). Keep the terracing teaser and maybe 1 talking point for the public to text/email in with.

The Sunday show, could be the newspaper’s, couple of talking points and then a non review of the weekends action, again including the lower leagues.

Aye I think this is a good shout. For me the (most) fundamental problem is it's really outdated for what a football magazine show sounds like these days.  

Mainly z list guests, the all our yesterdays routine and shite puns don't really cut it. Also it feels like they've got about 10 texters on at the same time which feels schizophrenic.

What you've suggested is the sort of show I'd listen to. The lead in to the games on sportsound doesn't really do that either as they're bouncing around the grounds and getting team news.

I'm not even talking about discussing the finer tactical points of Motherwell's formation or whatever, just some genuine insight into teams' performance and players would be good.

The problem is that I don't think Cosgrove (because he seems genuinely busy) and Cowan (because I don't think he has the capability or knowledge to talk about modern Scottish football) would have the appetite for the amount of research and work that would involve.

At the moment two hours of their chat with whoever they could get to come on feels like a lot longer, and just isn't appealing. They probably still get decent numbers though as they have a captive audience so doubt they'll change.

[Florentine_Pogen]

Just get rid of uber-balloon Cowan.
Instant improvement.

[Mr Positive, sometimes.]

Why do they constantly shout over each other?

[Wile E Coyote]

6 hours ago, Mr Positive, sometimes. said:

Why do they constantly shout over each other?

It does my nut in when they do that. It does not make good radio. The producer(s) need to have a word when they do that

[DA Baracus]

Tam Cowan reiterating the nonsense that every single football fan in the country was pished for the 2003 UEFA Cup final. Just more arselicking.

[Mr Positive, sometimes.]

1 hour ago, Wile E Coyote said:

It does my nut in when they do that. It does not make good radio. The producer(s) need to have a word when they do that

It's like they both get excited like wee bairns and just start to be the one who shouts the loudest!

[SouthLanarkshireWhite]

Tam Cowan made a big fuss last night about Marshall coming off his line for the save.

The rule is - When the ball is kicked, the defending goalkeeper must have at least part of one foot touching, or in line with, the goal line.

^{_{Marshall clearly does have his left foot on the line which was also clear on the camera lined up to the goals last night}}

[Ric]

6 hours ago, SouthLanarkshireWhite said:

Tam Cowan made a big fuss last night about Marshall coming off his line for the save.

The rule is - When the ball is kicked, the defending goalkeeper must have at least part of one foot touching, or in line with, the goal line.

^{_{Marshall clearly does have his left foot on the line which was also clear on the camera lined up to the goals last night}}

Might want to tidy up that URL.

 

[rainbowrising]

On 08/10/2020 at 12:05, Mr Positive, sometimes. said:

Why do they constantly shout over each other?

I can imagine in the old days of the show the idea would be it sounded edgy with lots of opinions getting fired in constantly on a particular discussion point.

These days? I listened to the Saturday lunch time show for the first time in years the other week and after about 30 minutes it dawn's on you it's just 2 guys yabbering away about nothing in particular and you arent listening to a word they say. Off it went for another bunch of years I reckon.

[D.V.T.]

Kill me now.

[G-MAN]

Cowan pandering to 2 teams yet again.

[DA Baracus]

14 minutes ago, G-MAN said:

Cowan pandering to 2 teams yet again.

He really is an absolute creep when it comes to them.

[Junior_Arab]

14 minutes ago, G-MAN said:

Cowan pandering to 2 teams yet again.

Normally stick up for OTB as being harmless fun, but this doctrine of Old Firm exceptionalism is really pissing me off. It’s a game of football, same as hundreds of others that will take place that weekend. Banging on about how the govt should be putting pressure on Sky to give away the rights to BBC - f**k OFF!!! Scotland had our biggest game in a generation 2 nights previous, but there was no mention of anything like that.
 

It’s not just them that pander of course - making it the last fixture in the 1st round to increase the chance of fans in, Lawell’s bleating about having allowing fans in, talk of postponing the fixture until fans are allowed in. Are the powers that be really so worried that, without the distraction factor of 50,000 raging bigots slavering in the background, people will notice that the product on offer, our “showpiece” match between the 2 biggest teams in the country is in fact crushingly mediocre? 

[Ludo*1]

I have never, ever heard of the story that Cosgrove was referring to about Ivan sleeping with Dario.

Trust it to be part of the St Johnstone song book according to Cosgrove though.