Sport

Presenter perplexed as legendary ‘sheroes’ line out for posterity

TV View: Women’s History Month wheeze leaves Jonathan Pearce needing some air

Serena Williams aka Crystal Dunn and Beyoncé aka Mallory Pugh during the SheBelieves Cup match between USA and England in Nashville on Saturday. Photograph: Frederick Breedon/Getty Images

Mary Hannigan's face
Mary Hannigan
Mon Mar 4 2019 - 08:30

It was quite a sight. Mother Teresa warming up on the touchline as a possible substitute for Beyoncé, while supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG) was stretching her limbs in case JK Rowling needed replacing. And Maya Angelou hopped off the bench too on the off-chance that Serena Williams was tiring.

If you’d just come in from the pub you’d have done a treble take, and then taken the Pledge, the Pioneer Association thus enjoying a significant spike in its membership.

Jonathan Pearce, though, was in need of a drink. A stiff one, too.

“This is a nightmare,” he told the BBC’s viewers, explaining that the United States football team were wearing the names of women who inspired them on the back of their shirts, rather than their own, in honour of Women’s History Month.

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Jonathan had no clue, no more than ourselves, who 66 per cent of these sheroes were

So, Audre Lorde, the writer and civil rights activist who died in 1992, put the USA 1-0 up against England in their SheBelieves Cup meeting in Nashville, but after going 2-1 down they needed a goal from Doris Burke to dig out a draw.

“Doris is a TV analyst on NBA. It says here.”

Jonathan had no clue, no more than ourselves, who 66 per cent of these sheroes were. If he could even have said during his commentary that Shirley Temple had sent in a peach of a cross for Hillary Clinton, who nodded it down for Lady Gaga to fire home, he’d have been grand, but such is the age profile of this United States team they were choosing hip-hoppy people and women born in or around 1997 as their inspirations. Jonathan, therefore, was lost.

Size of a bee

But, while your heart could only go out to the fella, the bulk of the sympathy for our telly people over the weekend had to go to David Gillick, who had to retain his composure while interviewing Norway’s Karsten Warholm after he triumphed in the 400m at the European Indoor Championships in Glasgow.

“Good man – 44.05, you’ve equalled a long-standing European record, how are you feeling?” asked David.

“Ah, it’s cruel to equal it,” Karsten replied, “there was just a bee’s dick in it.”

David: “------”

There was, as it proved, less than a bee’s dick between Everton and Liverpool, the Merseyside derby ending in a scoreless draw, the delicious and ever-increasing crankiness of Graeme Souness over Liverpool’s somewhat stuttery pursuit of the Premier League title a joy.

Ciara Mageean of Ireland celebrates her third place in the women’s 1,500m final at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow on Sunday. Photograph: Valdrin Xhemaj/EPA

Second only to his tetchiness is that of Jurgen Klopp’s, who is coming perilously close to giving us a Kevin “I would love it” Keegan moment. Not that he was making any excuses after the latest blip. Well, apart from . . .

“We had a wild opponent,” he told Sky, “and I know people don’t like it when I say it, but the wind came from all different directions, the ball was in the air a lot.”

Pogba’s wobbly bits

David Moyes giggled back in the studio, while Graeme just wished he could blame Paul Pogba for the wind. And then he complained about Sky highlighting Mo Salah’s somewhat ineffective efforts in front of goal, when the same fella would be happy to devote 17 hours of air-time to Pogba’s wobbly bits.

Peter Collins battled manfully to put a more positive spin on the Championships

Back at the European Indoors we had ourselves two bronze medals, Mark English and Ciara Mageean putting the nation on the podium, bless them.

Jerry Kiernan was chuffed, while all the time reminding us – more or less – that anyone who medals at the Indoors could be beaten by our zimmer-frame-wielding great-granny come the outdoors ahead. Peter Collins battled manfully to put a more positive spin on the Championships, but Jerry isn’t one for positively spinning anything. He’s kind of the Graeme Souness of athletics, in that respect.

How could you not love him?

Ciara, it should be noted, ran as Ciara, not Mother Teresa, Beyoncé or even Countess Markievicz.

The sound you hear is a cyclonic “phew” from George Hamilton.

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