Panel beating

A month watching the World Cup on television confirms that the cult of celebrity is ruining the game. There’s fellas picked for panels who wouldn’t get within an ass’s roar of the action if talent and form were the only criteria. But they are A-list celebs, and nobody has the nerve to tell them they’re out.
Can anybody seriously argue Dunphy’s still selected on merit?
Gilesey’s trading on the glories of Italia ‘90 and USA ‘94. No way will he be fit for South Africa four years hence. But no sign that RTÉ management is looking to the future.
This is World Cup football, people. Let’s try to look on the negative side.
Irish media analysts, old pals with typewriters for the most part, won’t hear a word against the current ‘star’ panel. Blithe nationalism kicks in the instant their fingers flex over the keyboard. No feature piece is complete without bombastic insistence that our squad is altogether superior to their competitors. No fault is ever admitted.
Within minutes of the shoot-out against Portugal which sent England packing, Dunphy and Giles were boasting in two-part harmony that they’d long ago recognised that England were a bunch of curly-toed chancers. Hadn’t they been shouting out for ages about the need to dump Beckham?
True, that. I seem to remember an occasion when they were also in full agreement about the identity of the obvious replacement, the inspirational winger with terrifying pace whose absence from the starting 11 more than anything else epitomised the total stupidity of the Ericsson regime – Shaun Wright-Phillips.
Hear either of them suggest this time round that Wright-Phillips would have made the difference if Ericsson had had the sense to select him?
Naw. But no mention of that in the ecstatic reviews. Being a celeb means your gaffes will always be occluded by media fans.
The prize for the most risible remark of the tournament (all channels eligible) went to Gilesey, who, when his final, portentous polemic against Beckham was diffidently interrupted by Graham Souness reminding him that Beckham’s early free kick had been the difference between the teams in the Paraguay game, that his wickedly-whipped inch-perfect cross had given Crouch the 83rd-minute breakthrough against Trinidad and Tobago, that his glorious free against Ecuador had carried his side into the quarters, replied, “But what else did he contribute..? And, How long did that free kick take, anyway – 10 seconds..?”
I am old enough, just, to remember Rocky Marciano, of whom Gilesy would no doubt have asked, “OK, 43 KOs out of 49 – but how long did those knock-outs take – 10 seconds?”
The absurd dislike of David Beckham is a more accurate reflection of the celebrity culture of the age than Beckham’s own pop-star status. The thinking seems to be that he’s forever on the front pages of Hello and OK, advertises aftershave, and is married to a modestly talented singer from a trite pop band – so, he cannot be a proper footballer...
David Beckham has been one of the best things to happen to British football in the past decade. When he was sniggeringly asked to comment last year on Ian McKellen describing him as ‘a gay icon’ and ‘a beautiful man’ he replied that he was “really flattered” being a fan of The Lord of the Rings. I saw that reported as an example of Beckham’s comical stupidity. I thought that of all the English footballers I could think of now or recall from the past, none other would have given such an exquisitely apt answer.
Three years ago, when England arrived for a friendly in Durban, a number of the players Eamo and Gilesy admire as real pros. – Gary Neville, Paul Scholes – couldn’t be arsed travelling to Jonannesburg to meet Nelson Mandela. Beckham sat beside the great man, actually slightly beneath him, introducing each of the players who’d turned up in turn, then led them in applause when Mandela had finished making his pitch for the 2010 World Cup.
“He has such an amazing aura," Beckham said afterwards. "You feel relaxed and at home as soon as you are in his company. Meeting Nelson Mandela has been one of the greatest moments of my life."
He’s a fine footballer, a decent man and an excellent role model for the young.
In the aftermath of his team’s floundering exit from the tournament, one Brit tabloid gleefully regurgitated the business, first published in the News of the World, of his inoffensive, if silly, texts to a woman who’d shared a fling with him. It put these together with his sickness on the field after scoring against Portugal and sneered: Some role model!
I have to say on mature consideration that if I had to select between David Beckham and the editor of the News of the World for a role model for a child or a grandchild, I wouldn’t have a split second’s hesitation. David Beckham every time.
The other thing the boneheads cannot stand about Beckham is that he’s beautiful. You could gaze at his picture for ages. Not right in a footballer, that, eh lads?
And another thing. Anybody Richard Littlejohn says makes him ashamed to be an Englishman is AOK by me.  
I wish him well. I hope he has a brilliant next season at Real. You can come back in now, Dunphy.

“England came with their overwrought retinue of tabloid followers and their poor lovely brainless WAGs. They saw, they were seen and they were conquered. They leave nothing behind except bar bills.” – Tom Humphries in the Irish Times, July 3.
Humphries wasn’t alone in regarding the wives and girlfriends of the English players as free-range targets for sneering practice. But few were as blunt and deliberately insulting as to say ‘brainless.’
Cheryl Tweed brainless? I think of her as much of a muchness with other Girls Aloud – like Nadine Coyle with whom I am every-so-slightly acquainted. On which basis, if Tom Humphries reckons Ms. Tweed brainless, he’s a bonehead.
On the town in Germany, the players’ partners were presented as low-lifes. In the pictures I saw of them supposedly behaving badly, they looked like a crowd of women out on the razz. And so?
Colleen McLoughlin brainless? Two months ago, I watched her documentary on the need for respite for families caring for disabled children. It was pegged on her own family experience in working-class Liverpool. It was an eloquent, professional piece of advocacy journalism. I happen to know that it was received with huge enthusiasm on both islands by thousands of those whose predicament it highlighted and who feel with good reason that they have been entirely left behind by State services. Her own personality shone through every inch of the footage. She seemed a bright, funny, kind and altogether lovely young woman.
What gives Humphries to believe he has the right publicly to dismiss her with such contempt? Would he write in such terms about the wives and girlfriends of a bunch of Irish sportsmen? Would he be let away with it if he did?
But then, Tom isn’t just a journalist these days, but a celebrity journalist.
As I say, the cult of celebrity is ruining the game.