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Off The Ball - Is it good?


Off The Ball  

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2 hours ago, JagsCG said:

Were Francie & Josie only ever big in Glasgow? An act well before my time but a bit surprised to hear people unaware at who they were, like Tam referred to earlier I think most people would struggle to remember which one was which mind you. 

 

Cowan is definitely more 'stuck in the past' than Cosgrove for sure. I'd imagine the show simply relies on its regular/traditional listeners, I'd be surprised if it picks up masses of new listeners year-on year but they probably know that. 

I'm 40 but know who Francie and Josie are, but then I also know who Laurel and Hardy are and wouldn't use them as a cultural touchstone.

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On 20/02/2022 at 10:27, Zoomer Brown said:

you could replace stuart and tam with jack and victor fae still game and no one would notice

Naw, Jack and Victor never showed any proper interest in football. They'd come across as totally clueless on Off The Ball  :whistle

Also, nice to see the Ralston wars kicking off on P&B again. Takes me back.

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3 hours ago, JagsCG said:

Cowan is definitely more 'stuck in the past' than Cosgrove for sure. I'd imagine the show simply relies on its regular/traditional listeners, I'd be surprised if it picks up masses of new listeners year-on year but they probably know that. 

Is it not the most-listened to show on Radio Scotland? I’m sure they’ve said that at some point in the not too distant past. 

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19 minutes ago, Junior_Arab said:

Is it not the most-listened to show on Radio Scotland? I’m sure they’ve said that at some point in the not too distant past. 

Popularity and half decent quality aren’t always the same thing. Cowan is definitely stuck in the 70’s (Sydney Devine/Engelbert Humperdinck/Sitcoms of the time) and he proudly admits that.
It’s not an act, that really is his taste. 
The format of the show isn’t going to change, it can’t really if that’s the full breadth of his horizons. Just accept it for what (crap) it is. 

Edited by oldbitterandgrumpy
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1 hour ago, oldbitterandgrumpy said:

Popularity and half decent quality aren’t always the same thing. Cowan is definitely stuck in the 70’s (Sydney Devine/Engelbert Humperdinck/Sitcoms of the time) and he proudly admits that.
It’s not an act, that really is his taste. 
The format of the show isn’t going to change, it can’t really if that’s the full breadth of his horizons. Just accept it for what (crap) it is. 

image.gif.bb2c3c3e36b598cebc949f208cbce36d.gifAbsolutely. But at the same time it means there’s no real incentive to change too much. 

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11 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

- Why does Tam Cowan still think that it's only Celtic fans who dislike Sevco and only Celtic fans who dislike Sevco? The whole "I wonder who he supports?!" pish just shows what a simp he is for the two large Glasgow clubs.

I suspect that’s the evening up you hear pretty frequently in our media 

They can’t really mention one club without mentioning the other 

Then Tam would make a some unfounded claim that if you don’t the “other side” will be up in arms 

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Was driving on Saturday when this was on, and my brother as passenger decided that listening to this would be better than listening to Radio Five, and we couldn't have TalkSport as we weren't in a van, so it seemed a decent compromise given that the BBC is in rugby mode of a weekend anyway.

I hadn't listened to OTB for years - possibly decades - before Saturday but it seemed to be exactly the fucking same as it was last time I had it on. Plodding, deathly-slow delivery. Why is it soooooo sloooooooooow? There's zero zip or energy or fizz or anything about it. C&C get through half an hours worth of material in an hour. Are they reading the emails fresh out the printer? Cowan started reading one and had to stop halfway through as it wasn't suitable. No researcher or studio staff in for this show? The afore-mentioned line about 'I wonder who he supports' was just grim, Tam. And the guest? Talking - at length - about panto or something? In February, on a football show? And the jokes they were reading out? The two of them were laughing like they'd Kevin Bridges in the studio. And it felt like they were reading out literally EVERYTHING that was being sent in. Nothing was junked, no editing. If it comes in, it goes on the air, and the two of them just laugh at anything. 

Literally the only highlight of the hour we had it on for was when Richard Gordon piped up to trail the next show. Informed, prepared, enthusiastic. Compared to him, C&C barely seemed alive. 

Oddly, my brother remarked the programme is a hell of a lot worse when they've to get a stand-in host in place of Cosgrove. That's unpossible!

And I'd forgotten a newspaper once paid Cowan to do restaurant reviews.  

Radio Scotland hands over hours of air time to this show. It's a blank canvas and they can't fill it. Scottish football should fill a two-hour show without even blinking on a Saturday afternoon. Between last weeks games, midweek nonsense and anything about whatever is coming up along with Wingus and Dingus doing their bit, two hours should be a piece of piss. Feels like they bolt this thing together in the canteen an hour before it goes on the air. 

It's not good. In fact, I might have to listen to it again this weekend to confirm it's as not good as I think it is.

And had we listened to TalkSPORT, I think we'd have got coverage of Leeds getting battered, so we missed out on that for the above. Sakes. 

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On 26/02/2022 at 16:44, BFTD said:

Naw, Jack and Victor never showed any proper interest in football. They'd come across as totally clueless on Off The Ball  :whistle

Also, nice to see the Ralston wars kicking off on P&B again. Takes me back.

Cowan must definitely and Cosgrove to a lesser extent, never show any proper interest on football. Cowan enthuses about something he calls 'the fitba' , whatever the f*** that is.

 

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I think Tam Cowan’s quite an okay guy having met him at Morton v Motherwell games etc. and Stuart Cosgrove sees himself as a bit of an intellectual. The only thing with Tam is he loves his own jokes and hates it if you crack one to him. I told him a “Motherwell” joke about the steelworks shutting down. I asked him “what’s green and white and you can drink it?” He replied “I don’t know and I said “a giro!” and his face was absolute fiz!

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Just turned it off after about fifteen minutes. Dreadful stuff. The guest was chipping in with non-sequiturs whenever possible, talk about fake blood in cricket (was that not rugby?), decades old pop culture trivia, et cetera.

In general, a bunch of folk talking over each other without saying anything remotely interesting, insightful or amusing.

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Thought that the show was about par for the course today, reassuringly familiar but the (Rangers supporting) guest was particularly poor IMHO.  

The programme is ingrained into my life, and I catch it every week. If not live, then on the podcast when in travelling up and down the road. 

Mostly, i think it's okay. An observation would be that it has overtly shifted away from being a show based around the more provincial clubs to far more OF focused. That and AVftT is making it look even more anachronistic. 

But I still tune in. 

 

Edited to add: The guest also made a point of stating that Goodwin had never beaten Rangers.  Bollocks. 

Edited by Doctor Sanchez
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Never heard it today but agree that it (mostly Tam) is far more Sevco/Celtic centric.

The guest most weeks if a Sevco/Celtic and they (Cowan and Cosgrove) always link at least feature each week to those two teams.

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