A talent beyond question

Two British sporting institutions drew neck and neck this week. A Question of Sport has taken 45 years, three hosts, 16 captains, a million high-fives and several makeovers to bring up 1,000 not out.

Ryan Giggs has clocked up 22 years, 25 major trophies, a handful of injunctions, one manager and a few reinventions of his own to keep pace.

Both milestones ended in disappointment.

Even though QoS mustered a strong selection of former captains and drew heavily on the solace of the archives for Monday night’s landmark, the spectacle soon dissolved into the cacophony of buffoonery that has characterised Sue Barker’s 16-year dereliction of duty at the helm.

The following evening, Giggsy delivered a very literal interpretation of his modern role as Fergie’s representative on earth. Having selected identical mimes to whip up the Old Trafford atmosphere in the wake of Nani’s dismissal, both men have since been accused of opting for histrionics when a demand for composure might have offered United better prospects of plotting an escape from the tight corner they found themselves in.

Unfortunately, histrionics are something we’ve long come to expect from QoS.

The show’s heyday came under the stewardship of David Coleman who, despite giving his name to the enjoyable business of commentator gaffes, exemplified the dignity BBC once brought to most of its dealings.

It helped too, that in Bill Beaumont’s tenure from 1982 to 1996, QoS employed perhaps the least suited individual ever assigned a post in light entertainment. Beaumont’s broadcasting style was part police constable struggling to lighten the mood at a post-mortem, two parts concerned treasurer addressing an EGM to investigate a sudden hole in the rugby club’s accounts.

This was an ideal counterbalance to the screeching, childlike enthusiasm of Emlyn Hughes and later the prodigious self-regard and competitiveness of Ian Botham.

Under Coleman, there was a genuine bite to the quiz, with scope for an amusing anecdote if the guests had one in their lockers. Alas, the Barker era coincided with the arrival of John Parrott and Ally McCoist, maybe the founding fathers of the dispiriting modern-day phenomenon that is sporting banter. Sorry, banta.

Now the show gave an open-mic to amateur comedians, whose largely witless yelping invariably split the sides of Barker, used as she was to a centre court crowd helpless with mirth if a ball stuck in the net.

In truth, QoS was one of two pillars of British sport to be relegated to irrelevance with McCoist’s help, an honour marked on Monday during the traditional Home or Away round, where players are quizzed on their own sport or an unfamiliar one.

“Do you have questions on Scottish Third Division football?” roared Parrott. How they laughed.

Some of the fault for QoS’s decline can be laid, as it can for most things, at Nick Hancock’s door. The arrival of They Think It’s All Over in 1995 upped the ‘banta’, with built-in comedy performed — notionally, anyway — by comedians.

And soon the Sick as a Parrott era would look like a golden age, as QoS was dragged to its knees by the tired, wideboy laddery of Phil Tuffnel and beaten senseless in Matt Dawson’s charisma vacuum.

Realistically, QoS was probably never as good as we remember, while Giggsy didn’t turn out quite as good as everyone thought. But while QoS dealt with competitive setbacks by exaggerating its most objectionable qualities, Giggs took the opposite approach.

Having begun his professional life as a flamboyant, dribbling pin-up with a taste for high living, he has evolved into a frowning yogic master of economical touches and sensible passes. Giggsy canned the laughter.

Maybe the turning point came 10 years ago when he was booed by United fans and had to stop buying a new sportscar every few months because the stiff clutches were wrecking his hamstrings. Since then, self-indulgence seems to be confined to the bedroom.

Once, they thought he would become the new George Best — a guest on the very first QoS. Giggs never quite hit those heights, but in the end trumped both — his career comfortably outlasted George’s and he matched QoS without ever becoming a laughing stock. In front of the cameras, anyway.

Fed-up ‘Famous Five’ storm off the pitch

Not for the first time, an Off The Ball incident made big news this week.

So what will I miss most from Newstalk’s departed five? Maybe that ever-so-slight pause — not dead air but perhaps concussed — you got now and again from Eoin McDevitt, as Ken Early led him down a tangent he hadn’t expected and left him there without a map.

Always, always, with the composure and professionalism that should make one of the great broadcasting careers, McDevitt found his way home.

I won’t miss Graham Hunter, presumably because he will still be there most nights, reeling off an impressive 10-minute monologue when somebody only asked him what time the match was on. Though I will miss Ken’s occasionally quizzical probing — perhaps the only man on these islands prepared to call Hunter on it if he sometimes packages conjecture as fact.

But for all the great work McDevitt, Early, Murphy, Hick and Horgan have produced over the past decade, perhaps most impressive is the way they made their exits.

As everyone about this land squabbles and blames and turns on one another, we can never scoff at five lads who presented a united front at a tricky time.

They have shipped some criticism in recent days — some suggesting their demand for a prime slot was a sign of swelling egos. Maybe it is. Sport at drivetime would certainly be a leap of faith, like turning the paper back to front.

But having helped us get to know better so many driven sportspeople over the years, these guys should be aware, more than anyone, that without big ambitions and the will to constantly improve, you can quickly lose your edge, grow stale and frustrated. That’s when those niggly off the ball incidents creep in.

Eamo makes his own rules

At half time on Tuesday night, Roy Keane produced more or less what we have come to expect from him on any night when we haven’t annoyed him by singing a song. He was as ITV as any of them.

Roy’s old book-writing partner was one of the first to mine the lucrative contrarian seam.

Sometimes, mind you, Eamo skimps on the logic.

“Intent has to come into dangerous play, Bill. I’ve done a referee’s course.”

But then Eamo has always made his own rules.

Heroes & Villains

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

George Hamilton: God knows, he owes us one, after all his chicken-counting has cost us over the years, but his bold call to write Fionnuala Britton out of the medals at the bell last Sunday certainly reaped handsome dividend.

Alex Ferguson: Why hasn’t anyone given him more credit for rushing from the dugout to make sure Arbeloa hadn’t been killed?

HELL IN A HANDCART

Daniel Day Lewis: Did you know he used his right foot and a mirror to pull off some of the trickier scenes in My Left Foot? If that includes the penalty, surely the Oscar must be rescinded. No Santi Cazorla.

Carlos Tevez: We know he will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid playing football. Getting jailed for driving offences appears to be his next option.