Larry Ryan: Can James Maddison transform the post-match interview?

Leicester City’s James Maddison celebrates scoring his side’s first goal against Chelsea. Has he revolutionised the post-match interview with his candid pitchside chat after the game?

Presumably, you’ve a spring in your step this morning, propelled by the week’s ‘breath of fresh air’— a landmark address that banished dark clouds of the past and promises a much brighter future.

Yes, James Maddison’s interview after Leicester’s win over Chelsea went down quite well.

They acclaimed Madds from all parts of the spectrum. “A shining example,” trumpeted the Daily Mail. “Interview perfection,” gushed the Telegraph. “Was it the most honest and natural a footballer has ever been?” wondered Guardian Football Weekly host Max Rushden.

Now we have our figurehead, dare we dream of a better world for the post-match interview, beyond weighing up how pleasing the three points are, or calibrating the size of the ask?

We are, to be sure, proceeding from a low base. It was in 1969 that the famous Monty Python sketch first aired, with John Cleese as the monosyllabic footballer, impervious to the intelligent probing of Eric Idle, parroting a single response: “Well Brian, I hit the ball and there it was in the back of the net.”

The same year, a bout of handbags erupted in the Wembley tunnel between rival broadcast staff after the BBC reportedly paid £1,850 for exclusive post-match interviews with FA Cup winners Manchester City, while ITV claimed to have their own deals in place with individual players.

In the five decades since, it has rarely been argued that anyone has got full value from one of these contractually obligated debriefs. And it is hard to imagine anybody fighting over them.

The genre’s chief contribution is the evolution of a tricky to master tense — football’s answer to the modh coinníollach: ‘It’s come across and I’ve caught it nicely, and luckily enough it’s gone in.’

Indeed, these tooth-pulling exercises often resemble an oral Irish exam with a pass candidate, the examiner gently feeding the answers: How important? How disappointing? How frustrating to see the flag go up?

Much of it is television’s own fault, beginning with its preoccupation with winners, its glory-hunting. It is always the man of the match wheeled out first, or the goalscorer, rather than probing hurt while it is fresh.

Occasionally, that approach hits the jackpot, triggers an emotional gusher like Ryan Christie’s tears following Scotland’s Euro qualification. Or Adebayo Akinfenwa’s ebullience after Wycombe’s play-off win. Or even a bottle of Asti Spumante poured over George Hamilton’s head.

But generally, the winner’s trained instinct is to play down, to ‘not get carried away’, to keep their ‘feet on the ground’, and confirm that it is now ‘all about the next game’.

Perhaps the greatest disappointment has been those post-match group interviews where the hero of the hour is tackled remotely from studio by the assembled pundits. A promisingly awkward situation where most mortals would be sufficiently rattled to blurt out a clanger or two. A scenario ripe for a rogue bad cop on the interview panel throwing in a sticky one: ‘What’s your biggest weakness?’ ‘Are you a hunter or a gatherer?’

Instead, they take it in turns to lob softballs: ‘Hi Jamie. Graeme Souness here, how good was it…?”

John Giles has long argued there should be no post-match interviews of any kind, that this is not an arena suitable for sense to emerge. But at least manager chats have become their own melodrama, where there may well be a team of speechwriters tasked with sending messages and weaving narratives and airing grievances and conspiracies.

On Tuesday night, Madds was very much on the undercard to the main event, Lamps, whose interviews have lately become appointment TV, as he manfully tries to maintain a mastery of deflection that distinguished his playing days.

And yet Madds stole the show. So what was good about it?

There was a little bit of everything. Most notably, the Foxes schemer seemed to enjoy the experience, unusual in itself.

There was just enough tactical detail about how Leicester shapeshifted out of possession and targeted Chelsea’s laziness at corners to suggest we had just seen a masterclass. In this, Madds was Brendan Rodgers’ perfect representative on earth.

To underline an operator at the top of his craft, the England man acknowledged the previous failings of his people with a knowing apology for the limitations of the brief, which meant he had to play down title talk, and was obliged to tell us it was all about the next game.

And he further endeared himself to the punditocracy by revealing he’d taken on board Jamie Carragher’s criticisms from earlier in the season and worked on improving his ‘numbers’. This could be the final frontier the punditry game has been waiting for — official recognition as a part of a feedback loop that drives standards.

Indeed, where Madds deviated most sharply from accepted post-match norms was focus on his own numbers. Most products of the media training machine would hear the alarm bells at this stage, and urgently remind us that it is all about the three points, and that it really doesn’t matter who gets the goals.

Not Madds, who craves more goals and assists because he wants people “to be talking about me”.

So, given the reaction since, he will undoubtedly be content with his work in front of the mic. The question now is, will more follow suit? Has a penny dropped? Might the opportunity to get people talking about you be considered a fair reward for talking honestly to Geoff Shreeves or Des Kelly?

“It was like he understood broadcasting,” said Rushden on Football Weekly.

With no fans in the grounds, players have heightened their already keen awareness of the camera positions. On Tuesday, Madds was on target again when pointing to the name on his shirt after his goal. With no handy stunts on offer to attract attention, no shirts being thrown into the crowd, might the post-match mics be the next key battleground as players seek to reach their base?

With Madds at the vanguard, could the whole power dynamic be turned on its head and we reach a stage where players are ready to audition for these open mic slots?

“Pick me, Shreevsie — I’ll give you two tactical insights, full details of a training ground spat, and a vow that we’ll definitely win it from here.”

Jerry Kiernan had it all as a pundit

How unfair that it should overshadow his sporting achievements, given the standards he reached, but Jerry Kiernan’s name will forever be associated with a golden age of punditry, certainly in RTÉ.

It’s an age many regard to be over now, though there are the likes of Dalo still keeping it pucked out. So it might be no harm to consider what made Kiernan so good at this job — and how well he ticked the three essential boxes.

Passion and knowledge were his bread and butter, the two traits everyone he taught or coached says Jerry brought to every aspect of his life.

His RTÉ colleague, Joanne Cantwell, summed up the power of this combination well, writing in this paper five years ago.

“I love sport, but it’s actually people who draw me in. Jerry Kiernan, one of the most passionate, caring, and wilfully misunderstood sportsmen in the country, seemed almost ill watching Thomas Barr in the final of the 400m hurdles. They’re not necessarily directly involved themselves, but they know each individual and, more to the point, know the impact such global success would have on their sport and numbers partaking in it.”

Jerry was invested alright, but he also had in abundance the third key constituent of punditry gold — unpredictability. You never knew quite where he’d go, who he was going to rattle.

You’d like to think Billo is throwing one at him up there today, just to see where it takes them. RIP.