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Reviewed: Sky Blues Interactive

Stuck in the Midlands with you.

By Antonia Quirke

Sky Blues Interactive
BBC Coventry and Warwickshire

“I just wanna say, guys, I mean really, to be fair, look at the results tonight, did any of you see how it was all coming, ’cause, for me, although we absolutely sort of professionally took a part with regards to the counter-attack and everything else, I mean nil-nil away? We needed to win. I thought we’d at least win one or two-nil. We needed to win.”

This was a Coventry fan, Dan, down the line to BBC Coventry and Warwickshire’s football phone-in (23 February, 5pm) vociferously complaining about his team’s nil-nil draw with Crewe Alexandra. But having left moments before the end of the match, he had evidently missed his team’s last moment goals.

“Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dan . . .” interrupts the presenter, with electricity in his voice (he knows this clip is about to go viral). “We won 2-0.”

“What?”

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Rarely has the moaning football fan been so hilariously and succinctly exposed. But everything about the caller’s manner illustrates precisely why radio programmes such as this, and Radio 5 Live’s 606, are increasingly hard listen to: the jigsawing together of Match of the Day-termettes like “with regards to” and “to be fair” and “for me”.

The coy mention of “professionalism” followed by unfettered rage.

Literally every call is now like this. Postmatch, the fans – on speakerphone in the car, clearly after a few – spit boundless fury. The “supporters’ trust” entitlement! The sheer stamina for complaint! Without doubt, it’s getting worse. An insistence that we must be listened to has always obtained in football, of course, but it’s all the more nutty now that it’s being directed at the uninterested capitalists that own the clubs.

Dan was even angry when he found out that Coventry had won. “Leon Clarke header?” he spluttered. “We left two minutes before the end of the game!”

Meanwhile, a midnight email from Planet Rock’s informed listeners announced that Led Zeppelin had been named the most influential band of all time in a February-long poll. The mail was panickedly abrupt – a mere telegram pressed into Mel Gibson’s hand before sprinting along the Anzac trenches to Zep’s “The Battle of Evermore”, with Giuseppe Rotunno behind the camera insisting on long master-shots. A later missive confirmed that Freddie Mercury and his harem of stockbrokers were runners-up and that Black Sabbath had followed up the poll’s rear. Stop.

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