Colemanballs

I shamelessly nicked the headline from Private Eye. They nick my stuff, so I thought 'Sod it!'...

Anyway, with this magnificent summer of sport before us - Euro 2012, Wimbledon, The Olympic Games - I thought it as a good time to reflect on the absolute drivel that commentators subject us to when we wish they would just shut the fuck up and let us watch in peace!

Here's a few gems - all real, I promise...

First, the man himself :

• That's the fastest time ever run - but it's not as fast as the world record
• A truly international field, no Britons involved.
• The Republic of China - back in the Olympic Games for the first time
• And the line up for the final of the Women's 400 metres hurdles includes three Russians, two East Germans, a Pole, a Swede and a Frenchman.
• Ingrid Kristiansen then has smashed the world record, running the 5000 metres in 14:58.89. Truly amazing. Incidentally, this is a personal best for Ingrid Kristiansen.
• And there's no 'I love you' message because Steve Ovett has married the girl
• We estimate, and this isn't an estimation, that Greta Waitz is 80 seconds behind
• He is accelerating all the time. That last lap was run in 64 seconds and the one before in 62.
• He's 31 this year. Last year he was 30

Here's a few in honour of Euro 2012 :

• He's a player you only miss when he's not playing - Graham Taylor
• Fourth spot is what we are aiming for.  We don't want to be second best. - Phil Neville
• Gary Neville was the captain and now Ryan Giggs has taken on the mantelpiece - Rio Ferdinand
• Football is like a roundabout. Sometimes you are up and sometimes you're down - Radio 5 Live reporter
• And now we have the formalities over, we'll have the National Anthems. - Brian Moore
• The last player to score a hat-trick in a cup final was Stan Mortenson. He even had a final named after him, the Matthews final. - Lawrie McMenemy
• I felt a lump in my mouth as the ball went in. - Terry Venables
• It slid away from his left boot which was poised with the trigger cocked. - Barry Davies
• We have been saying this, both pre-season and before the season started. - Len Ashurst
• But as you know, the result for City is not as bad as it sounds on paper. - Steve McIllwenn
• Well actually we got the winner up there with three minutes to go, but then they equalised. - Ian McNail
• Ian Rush, deadly ten times out of ten, but that wasn't one of them. - Peter Jones 
• It was a fair decision, the penalty, even though it was debatable whether it was inside or outside the box. - Bobby Charlton
• Believe it or not, goals can change a game. - Mike Channon
• Ian Rush unleashed his left foot and it hit the back of the net. - Mike England
• You'll be hoping that this run of injuries will stop earlier than it started. - Andrew Gidley
• Ian Durant has grown both physically and metaphorically in the close season. - Jock Wallace
• It will be a shame if either side lose, and that applies to both sides. - Jock Brown
• Peter Shilton conceded five, you don't get many of those to the dozen. - Des Lynam
• Everything in our favour was against us - Danny Blanchflower
• I think everyone in the stadium went home happy, except all those people in Rumania. - Ron Greenwood
• Butcher goes forward as Ipswich throw their last trump card into the fire. - Byron Butler
• John Lyall, very much a claret and blue man, from his stocking feet to his hair. - Peter Jones
• Who ever wins today will win the championship no matter who wins - Denis Law

A few for the Olympics :

• Britain's last gold medal was a bronze in 1952 in Helsinki - Nigel Starmer-Smith
• She hasn't run faster than herself before - Zola Budd
• The Americans sowed the seed, and now they have reaped the whirlwind - Sebastian Coe

And finally, some miscellaneous classics :

• For those of you watching who do not have television sets, live commentary is on Radio 2 - Ted Lowe (Snooker)
• Steve is going for the pink ball - and for those of you who are watching in black and white, the pink is next to the green - Ted Lowe (Snooker)
• Born in America. John returned to his native Japan - Mike Gratton
• It's raining and the track is wet! - Murray Walker (Grand Prix)

And in the words of Ian Dury : "Now that we've had some, let's hope that there's lots more to come..."