DON'T MENTION THE SCORE! (From Warrington Guardian)

DON'T MENTION THE SCORE!

WILL football commentators never learn? Five minutes to go, and between them Clive Tyldesley and Sir Bobby 'Leslie King has had a good game' Robson are already acclaiming a hard-fought English victory in Euro 2004 (ITV1, Sunday).

Meanwhile, millions of us are shouting at the screen "Don't tempt fate, you imbeciles!" Sure enough, the footballing gods decided to teach them a lesson, and we all know what happened next.

If there was an international competition for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, of course, the England football team would win it every time. Give us a first half lead and we can always lose it in the second half - however long it takes!

Just like the result of Sunday's game, the coverage of Euro 2004 has been hugely disappointing on both channels. The first problem is the lack of a memorable theme tune. The BBC has a classical piece that's instantly forgettable - probably appropriate given that the anchorman is Gary Lineker, who has no screen charisma at all. No matter how much he tries to be Des, the jug-eared crisp seller just comes across as a cheap imitation.

Des, of course, is slumming it over on ITV with Tel and 'Tactic Truck' Townsend. He is handicapped further by a theme tune that doesn't appear to be a tune at all. Whatever happened to those grand, stirring anthems for sporting events, like 'Barcelona' and 'Nessun Dorma'?

The pundits on both channels also started off poorly - they are either characters with no verbal skills or lucid experts with no character. Why hasn't the BBC snapped up Danny Baker for the panel after his appearance on the FA Cup Final programme? Here is a real footy man with the vocabulary and imagination to communicate exactly what fans are really thinking about the things that happen as the tournament progresses. An opportunity missed, I think.

ITV, of course, think they have sewn up the 'lads' and ladettes' footy entertainment' angle with Baddiel and Skinner's 'Fantasy Football' format. This can either be hilarious or totally wide of the mark, and of course it has the drawback of David Baddiel being one of the co-hosts.

BBC fought back pre-tournament with Alastair McGowan's flight of fancy on how Nancy is the footballing brain, with Sven unable to pick a team to save his life.

In this amusing piece of froth, Nancy was kidnapped by Chelsea's new owner to try to force Sven to accept the manager's job in place of Claudio Ranieri. But even Roman lost interest in the Swede when Nancy pointed out that he had selected Heskey in his Euro 2004 squad. As the clumsy forward made that lumbering tackle to gift the free kick from which Zidane scored on Sunday, I for one was wishing Nancy had picked the team!

Joking apart, good luck to the boys this evening (Thursday) against Switzerland.

SOAP POSER:

NICK told Leanne in Corrie that he had left Canada after falling out with his uncle. Surely he was deported because they have more than enough wood in Canada already!