Football out of focus

A review of Dan Walker's BBC blog

This is a slightly tricky one – critiquing a blog, via a blog… Perhaps I should state up front my awareness of the more irritating aspects of this medium – self-indulgence, congenial tone and the belief that people actually care about the inane crap you write.

That out the way, I can now go full steam ahead with my review of Dan Walker’s blog, which can be found on the BBC website (link below). And I’ll make it clear now – I’m not a fan.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/danwalker/2010/03/winning_hearts_and_minds.html

I’ll primarily base my observation on the latest edition, but may delve into previous entries too if you’ll excuse my decadence. To start with, Walker writes about possibly the most boring subjects ever related to football. His latest draft concerns the hilarious, fascinating, thought-provoking topic of taking girls who don’t normally like football to a game. What a wonderfully original concept. I bet you can’t guess what route this goes down. I didn’t really need 500-odd crass anecdote filled words from Walker to inform me that a midweek Sheffield Wednesday-Doncaster fixture is unlikely to convert a football sceptic.

Although this brings me nicely along to another exasperating aspect of Walker’s style. At every point the man is desperate to tell you how much of a decent, everyday bloke he is – that he’s one of us. You just know he thinks being presenter of Football Focus is the best job in the world, yet he wants to ensure that any idiot out there reading this rubbish (yep, I know that includes myself) is aware that he hasn’t forgotten his roots, that he likes nothing better then watching real football with real people. It’s not only pathetic and insecure; it’s also incredibly tedious.

Another technique Walker uses to reassure us that he’s a top bloke is to rather bizarrely refer to regulation confectionary at every turn. You can almost see the cogs turning – “if I talk about my chocolate bar preferences everyone will think I’m a normal bloke and not a superstar television presenter”. You’re neither I’m afraid Dan. Most football fans couldn’t care less about whether the BBC canteen serves Double Deckers, and making top five lists of irrelevant drivel is not something we all do to keep occupied during our mundane office jobs. Plus presenting a rather dull, middle-of-the-road football programme (whilst admittedly a very nice way to make a living) does not exactly have Jeremy Paxman green with envy. Walker is so out of touch it’s frightening.

At one point, Walker regales us with a dreary tale of watching Crawley Town as a boy – in case you weren’t sure why, this again demonstrates what a man of the people he is. I assume that’s the reason anyway, as there is absolutely nothing else of note about this account. Oh, and he mentions purchasing a Snickers for 20p too. Sorry, a Marathon. Don’t forget Walker was around in the good old days when we all watched non-league football for tuppence and there was no commercialisation. Even though he looks about 14 years old.

Walker’s ‘footie fan’ dialect is also nauseating. Phrases such as “pre-match tucker” are everywhere. And even his box-out introduction blurb is infuriating. “Hello there. Dan Walker here reporting for blogging duty”. Clichéd military parlance – how witty Dan. “Hopefully this blog will give you an insight into what happens on the other side of the famous sofa”. Personally, I’m not sure what exactly is famous about an identikit, cheap, cream IKEA sofa set in the middle of a generic BBC studio in White City…

At the end of his blog, Walker helpfully informs us that we can follow him on Twitter too. To be fair, this is probably a good idea. Twitter posts have a limit of 140 characters. Anything that reduces Walker’s word count sounds good to me.