SkyDaz Banter: Pre-Villa

At the start of our Premiership campaign I brazenly informed Sky that I would be unavailable for Fanzone on home games as I had a season ticket and had waited a long time to see Birmingham in the elite league. I didn’t fancy travelling to East London from Great Barr to commentate on a game taking place up the road. Except of course for Aston Villa at Villa Park in March. That was worth the trip.

On arrival at Sky I was introduced to my co-commentator Craig Cochrane. Poor old Craig had had the indignity of suffering on Fanzone for the St Andrews 3-0 battering. He was determined that the Villa Park leg would be totally different. I spent the early part of the evening taunting him mercilessly just in case our closest rivals levelled the series. He tried to argue back with the usual ‘the first goal was offside, the second goal never touched Enckelman, Vassell’s goal was unjustly ruled offside, etc’. He recited the full repertoire of excuses. By the time the game started we had almost exhausted ourselves with friendly banter. The producer feared that by kick off we would both be spent of our rivalry. He needn’t have worried.

The first half was generally forgettable. Not much happened although Craig and myself found plenty to abuse each other with. The ill feeling towards Robbie Savage was born from jealousy that not one of their players showed anything like the passion he brought to the game. As the game went on it didn’t take long before Craig started slaughtering his own team. This seems to be a typical Villa trait with certain players constantly receiving abuse from their own fans. In the end Craig was giving them more stick than I was!

Then Kenna was round the back and Lazaridis was stooping to conquer. I went mental! 1-0 and at Villa Park. Dion Dublin lost the plot by nutting Savage and Gudjohnson launched an awful challenge on Upson. I thought it should have been a straight red card and not an additional yellow. There was still time for the comedy to continue with Enckelman assisting The Horse to poke one in. Cue ‘Enckelman’s a Blue Nose’.

Craig was crestfallen. He had suffered the two worst ninety minutes of his football life live on television. His team had been embarrassing, shown no passion, a complete lack of professionalism and to a worldwide audience as well. It was hard to ridicule him too much because he is a genuinely nice guy and I felt sorry for him. He was quite ill sometime after the show but thankfully fully recovered now. We still meet on a Monday night at Sky for the weekly reviews of the weekend’s action. I always look forward to seeing him but he always groans when I arrive. Don’t know why, I hardly mention it. Much!

Same again all round would be nice!

Article reproduced with kind permission of the BCFC official matchday programme.