Second Captains

Dots1982

Out of interest does anyone hear Eoin say “we’ve got Richie into analyze the England game tomorrow” and think “good, I’m looking forward to that”?

lawred2

Dots1982 wrote: »

Out of interest does anyone hear Eoin say “we’ve got Richie into analyze the England game tomorrow” and think “good, I’m looking forward to that”?

Why did you resubscribe?

Ol' Donie

Dots1982 wrote: »

Out of interest does anyone hear Eoin say “we’ve got Richie into analyze the England game tomorrow” and think “good, I’m looking forward to that”?

I was happy to hear it, yeah.

I like Ritchie on the show.

lawred2

Ol' Donie wrote: »

I was happy to hear it, yeah.

I like Ritchie on the show.

Same

Dots1982

lawred2 wrote: »

Dots1982 wrote: »

Out of interest does anyone hear Eoin say “we’ve got Richie into analyze the England game tomorrow” and think “good, I’m looking forward to that”?

Why did you resubscribe?

World Cup

Dots1982

Ol' Donie wrote: »

Dots1982 wrote: »

Out of interest does anyone hear Eoin say “we’ve got Richie into analyze the England game tomorrow” and think “good, I’m looking forward to that”?

I was happy to hear it, yeah.

I like Ritchie on the show.

Able to say why?

Mr.Prodston

Dots1982 wrote: »

Out of interest does anyone hear Eoin say “we’ve got Richie into analyze the England game tomorrow” and think “good, I’m looking forward to that”?

Yes

Ol' Donie

Dots1982 wrote: »

Able to say why?

I like the angle he analyses from - what are the players thinking, usually.

And I think there's good chemistry between himself and the lads.

Dots1982

Ol' Donie wrote: »

Dots1982 wrote: »

Able to say why?

I like the angle he analyses from - what are the players thinking, usually.

And I think there's good chemistry between himself and the lads.

I suppose that’s what he does alright. I’ll listen if I can see anything I warm to about his guesting tomorrow.

To act as a comparison I like Tim Vickery on OTB tonight giving an insight on Mexico’s manager and his tactical intentions &shortcomings. That’s what I like.

Brock Turnpike

Dots1982 wrote: »

I suppose that’s what he does alright. I’ll listen if I can see anything I warm to about his guesting tomorrow.

To act as a comparison I like Tim Vickery on OTB tonight giving an insight on Mexico’s manager and his tactical intentions &shortcomings. That’s what I like.

Yes but that meant having to listen to the idiots on OTB

Ol' Donie

Dots1982 wrote: »

I suppose that’s what he does alright. I’ll listen if I can see anything I warm to about his guesting tomorrow.

To act as a comparison I like Tim Vickery on OTB tonight giving an insight on Mexico’s manager and his tactical intentions &shortcomings. That’s what I like.

Caught that aswell. To be fair, Tim Vickery is a high bar to measure analysts against. He's brilliant.

tomwaits48

enjoying the post English game reaction this lunchtime. Ken is good counterbalance to the English hysteria.

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000

Brock Turnpike wrote: »

Yes but that meant having to listen to the idiots on OTB

The OTB show is great these days. Of course you can't say that in here with all the Ken fanboys about.

Dots1982

Ken distilling England’s performance and prospects down to a Gareth Southgate inconsequential post match comment.

Thought the preview was worth listening to but Ken’s review wasn’t.

dulux99

Dots1982 wrote: »

Ken distilling England’s performance and prospects down to a Gareth Southgate inconsequential post match comment.

Thought the preview was worth listening to but Ken’s review wasn’t.

I'm their biggest critic with regards to the lack of actual match coverage but they did actually speak quite in depth about England's tactics this time. You honestly seem to hate listening to this podcast, I just can't understand why you persist with it.

Arghus

tomwaits48 wrote: »

enjoying the post English game reaction this lunchtime. Ken is good counterbalance to the English hysteria.

Thought he was good - all the lads were good really on how the perception of the game is spun in the English media, but he was pretty waffley overall in other respects.

Once he started talking about Southgate's dreaded post game comments, my mind glazed over for a few minutes and when I came too he was still trapped; monologuing about hypothetical mindsets - which is increasingly the usual these days.

I still enjoy it. I still listen. I still think it's good value, but I dunno. I listened to so many previews from elsewhere before the tournaments and I listen to a lot of other daily content and they just seem in comparison to SC stronger, more rigourous and, ultimately, more about the actual football in reality.

Dots1982

dulux99 wrote: »

Dots1982 wrote: »

Ken distilling England’s performance and prospects down to a Gareth Southgate inconsequential post match comment.

Thought the preview was worth listening to but Ken’s review wasn’t.

I'm their biggest critic with regards to the lack of actual match coverage but they did actually speak quite in depth about England's tactics this time. You honestly seem to hate listening to this podcast, I just can't understand why you persist with it.

No one can, not even me. What did ken say in brief on tactics? Can’t remember.

dulpit

Arghus wrote: »

I listen to a lot of other daily content and they just seem in comparison to SC stronger, more rigourous and, ultimately, more about the actual football in reality.

I've already mentioned this. But SC is not a football podcast. It's a sports podcast, that covers football amongst others. One of their strongest things is how they open up sports to others than just their fans. I don't particularly like football, but will still listen in all the time. If they go too inside baseball they'll lose that market. And it's not their thing.

Dots1982

Dots1982 wrote: »

dulux99 wrote: »

Dots1982 wrote: »

Ken distilling England’s performance and prospects down to a Gareth Southgate inconsequential post match comment.

Thought the preview was worth listening to but Ken’s review wasn’t.

I'm their biggest critic with regards to the lack of actual match coverage but they did actually speak quite in depth about England's tactics this time. You honestly seem to hate listening to this podcast, I just can't understand why you persist with it.

No one can, not even me. What did ken say in brief on tactics? Can’t remember.

Remembered, it was about Henderson and that he always played the simple pass or something?

riemann

dulpit wrote: »

It's a sports podcast

It's more of a gossip podcast.

Not sure if sneering at a twitter monologue is considered cutting edge independent journalism.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

Arghus

dulpit wrote: »

I've already mentioned this. But SC is not a football podcast. It's a sports podcast, that covers football amongst others. One of their strongest things is how they open up sports to others than just their fans. I don't particularly like football, but will still listen in all the time. If they go too inside baseball they'll lose that market. And it's not their thing.

That's a fair comment and I know there is a lot more strings to their bow than just talking football and there's lots who listen who aren't mad into football.

But, at the same time, football is their bread and butter. Hypothetically, if they never covered any other sports they'd possibly survive: I'd be willing to guess that 70-80% of their audience would stick around. But, on the other hand, if they never covered football and just talked other sports... then they wouldn't be long going under: I'd certainly never listen! They might cover a lot of bases but football is the bedrock of their content, it keeps the lights on and their coverage of it is what built their name and brand over the years.

And I also take your point that going deeply analytical about sports has never been their raison d'etre and they've tried through the years to walk that fine line between being accessible while also bringing some level of insight or at least some kind of unique take or voice on the sports they cover.

And for a long, long while that worked and worked really well. Ken, in particular, has always had that approach and there was a time when - and now this might sound high falutin' - I thought he was absolutely the best sports journalist in the country, because he had that other element to how he talked about football, sports, everything. He may not have always possessed oodles of technical know-how compared to others about the game as it was played on the pitch, but he had a level of insight about getting to the emotional truth of something: whether it be about football or whatever. Maybe he was so good precisely because he wasn't too bothered about looking at the technical minutiae of games: he was focused on the bigger and usually funnier picture. And not just in football: I remember he was particularly good around the time of Mcgregor's first Vegas giganta-fight, because he was focused mainly on the whole crazy cultural sporting entertainment: he could look beyond just the fight itself, because he wasn't an expert, more a perceptive outside critic. He had some knowledge of the fight, of course, but his abstractions and tangents worked at getting to some core truthes about the experience as a whole that weren't obvious to others sent out to cover the story.

There's many people on this thread - we all know them - who've never, ever had anything positive to say about the show. Ever. I'm not one of those; I've given praise and plenty of it over the years. But I can't deny that I think their analysis of football - and Ken's in particular - is nowhere near the standard that it used to be. It was always a bit low on the technical, high on the cultural allusions and metaphor, but I always felt that it was, ultimately, about something - that's what made for a consistently rewarding listen. It wasn't to everyones liking but he had the capacity to make salient points about the game. Nowadays his basic style is the same but it's baggier, looser and lazier. I think he frequently crosses over into lazy, lazy waffle when he's talking football. Like what was he talking about with Southgate today? Really? And substitute Southgate's name for any number of managers/players over the last two years or so. This is his thing now all the time: pure speculative psychoanalysis at a distance. It's awfully lazy and feels like the product of someone totally jaded.

Dots1982

I would have to agree with Arghus especially about psychoanalysis of managers and Ken sounding jaded. I think the show depends too much on Ken and if he is off color it suffers badly.

pm1977x

Hunky Monster wrote: »

The OTB show is great these days. Of course you can't say that in here with all the Ken fanboys about.

I haven't heard it in years but caught 20 mins of it tonight - it was terrible! Lots of fake 'banter' about how Kevin Andrews eats kale and quinoa burgers and sure he was raised on coddle and sure how can you slag me wearing that shirt? etc etc



Then onto the World Cup results -



I missed the 2 early matches.
Ah sure pretend you saw them, make something up!


The craic was only mighty! It was cringeworthy stuff and I'm one of the more regular critics of Second Captains but if this is representative of the general quality of OTB I won't be tuning in again.

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000

pm1977x wrote: »

I haven't heard it in years but caught 20 mins of it tonight - it was terrible! Lots of fake 'banter' about how Kevin Andrews eats kale and quinoa burgers and sure he was raised on coddle and sure how can you slag me wearing that shirt? etc etc



Then onto the World Cup results -



I missed the 2 early matches.
Ah sure pretend you saw them, make something up!


The craic was only mighty! It was cringeworthy stuff and I'm one of the more regular critics of Second Captains but if this is representative of the general quality of OTB I won't be tuning in again.

I heard it myself tonight and to be fair it wasn't great. It's normally way better but they are on for three hours not the half hour pod's the last do or the ten mins Ken is on for.

Ol' Donie

Arghus wrote: »

That's a fair comment and I know there is a lot more strings to their bow than just talking football and there's lots who listen who aren't mad into football.

But, at the same time, football is their bread and butter. Hypothetically, if they never covered any other sports they'd possibly survive: I'd be willing to guess that 70-80% of their audience would stick around. But, on the other hand, if they never covered football and just talked other sports... then they wouldn't be long going under: I'd certainly never listen! They might cover a lot of bases but football is the bedrock of their content, it keeps the lights on and their coverage of it is what built their name and brand over the years.

And I also take your point that going deeply analytical about sports has never been their raison d'etre and they've tried through the years to walk that fine line between being accessible while also bringing some level of insight or at least some kind of unique take or voice on the sports they cover.

And for a long, long while that worked and worked really well. Ken, in particular, has always had that approach and there was a time when - and now this might sound high falutin' - I thought he was absolutely the best sports journalist in the country, because he had that other element to how he talked about football, sports, everything. He may not have always possessed oodles of technical know-how compared to others about the game as it was played on the pitch, but he had a level of insight about getting to the emotional truth of something: whether it be about football or whatever. Maybe he was so good precisely because he wasn't too bothered about looking at the technical minutiae of games: he was focused on the bigger and usually funnier picture. And not just in football: I remember he was particularly good around the time of Mcgregor's first Vegas giganta-fight, because he was focused mainly on the whole crazy cultural sporting entertainment: he could look beyond just the fight itself, because he wasn't an expert, more a perceptive outside critic. He had some knowledge of the fight, of course, but his abstractions and tangents worked at getting to some core truthes about the experience as a whole that weren't obvious to others sent out to cover the story.

There's many people on this thread - we all know them - who've never, ever had anything positive to say about the show. Ever. I'm not one of those; I've given praise and plenty of it over the years. But I can't deny that I think their analysis of football - and Ken's in particular - is nowhere near the standard that it used to be. It was always a bit low on the technical, high on the cultural allusions and metaphor, but I always felt that it was, ultimately, about something - that's what made for a consistently rewarding listen. It wasn't to everyones liking but he had the capacity to make salient points about the game. Nowadays his basic style is the same but it's baggier, looser and lazier. I think he frequently crosses over into lazy, lazy waffle when he's talking football. Like what was he talking about with Southgate today? Really? And substitute Southgate's name for any number of managers/players over the last two years or so. This is his thing now all the time: pure speculative psychoanalysis at a distance. It's awfully lazy and feels like the product of someone totally jaded.

Well, I wouldn't necessarily agree with anything Ken Early says about football.

Ivefoundgod

For everyone complaining about the lack of daily pods and TFS being free, have any of you actually listened to those pods? They have been consistently terrible, 10-12 minutes of chat in total about the 3/4 games of the day before a rushed preview of the following days games. I usually really like TSF but these daily pods are far too rushed and are really quite poor. They have decent guests on from random countries but it’s all so rushed it’s pointless. Even the sound quality is unlistenable at times.

Football weekly daily’s have been much better, much more relaxed and decent run through of the games.

Ol' Donie

Hunky Monster wrote: »

I heard it myself tonight and to be fair it wasn't great. It's normally way better but they are on for three hours not the half hour pod's the last do or the ten mins Ken is on for.

It's not really 3 hours, it's closer to 2 because of all the ads.

And they usually have prerecorded interviews, as far as I'm aware.

Not starting a row, just making the point.

Also, team OTB is about 20 lads at this point.

Ol' Donie

Ivefoundgod wrote: »

For everyone complaining about the lack of daily pods and TFS being free, have any of you actually listened to those pods? They have been consistently terrible, 10-12 minutes of chat in total about the 3/4 games of the day before a rushed preview of the following days games. I usually really like TSF but these daily pods are far too rushed and are really quite poor. They have decent guests on from random countries but it’s all so rushed it’s pointless. Even the sound quality is unlistenable at times.

Football weekly daily’s have been much better, much more relaxed and decent run through of the games.

I've enjoyed every one, until I turn it off at the odds bit, which I f*ckin hate.

I've also enjoyed every Football Weekly/daily.

gormdubhgorm

Smell the glove wrote: »

First off I'll say that I enjoy second captains a lot. Listen to most of the pods but what annoys me about the football pods is they spend the first twenty minutes with Ken giving his take on Klopp or mourinho or pep and then they have a journalist on to talk about said manager for the next twenty minutes. What's the point in that. Also they spend way too much time fixated on either Utd Liverpool city or Chelsea. No problem with them talking a good bit about these clubs or whatever but give us more niche subjects. We are paid subscribers so you would imagine we are fairly knowledgable already on these clubs and would have interest in lesser known thing like stories in foreign countries. Like things in Seria A, La Liga etc and even the smaller leagues once there's an interesting story there.

You should listen to Danny Kelly's Trans Europe express podcast from Talksport.
They discuss all sorts of teams around Europe.
And it is free!
https://tunein.com/podcasts/Sports-Talk--News/Danny-Kellys-Trans-Europe-Express-p855004/