They Are Spartacus - Where to Now for Off the Ball?

The Off the Ball team seem to have had an “I am Spartacus” moment. Resignations are rare in Ireland, not least when it’s so very hard to get another job. Principles don’t pay the rent or put food on the table.

For a mass resignation like that of Eoin McDevitt, Ciarán Murphy, Ken Early, Simon Hick and Mark Horgan (MMEHH from here on in) to happen is either an inspirational show of solidarity, or else a mad moment of hubris that the people involved may live to bitterly regret.

The fans of Off the Ball, and they are legion, will hope it’s the former. Off the Ball was like no other sports show on radio. That said, the path ahead is difficult for MMEHH  - Ger Gilroy kept the show on the road last night and paid the missing members a lovely tribute. And then Gilroy did what a good pro does, and got on with business as usual. If they were listening, did a cool chill run through MMEHH’s bones as they realised just how easily business can go on as usual?

The big plus for MMEHH is that thing called chemistry. Nobody knows what creates it or destroys it. We only know it when it’s there.

Chemistry was present in spades on Off the Ball. The diverse mix of the MMEHH presenters complemented each other perfectly, for no reason other than the fact they just did. But once that spell is broken, neither all the king’s horses nor all the king’s men can ever put it back together again.

Just last week, the BBC arts show, The Review Show, was moved from BBC2 to BBC Four and will now broadcast monthly, instead of weekly. When it started twenty years ago The Review Show, then know as Late Review, was essential watching.  Panelist Tom Paulin represented the highbrows, Tony Parsons the low and Alison Pearson the reasonable middle. The debat was chaired by Mark Lawson, and it was perfect.

And then the team split up and it was never the same. The BBC moved different people in and out, but they could never bottle lightning again. Newstalk are currently emphasising the fact that Ger Gilroy is the man who invented the Off the Ball format in the first place, but everybody knows there’s a void there, and it’s a void that will be hard to fill.

For MMEHH, there is a question of where do they go from here. In Newstalk’s worst-case scenario, a deal has already been made with a competitor and there will now be a battle royal between the official and continuity Off the Balls. This will be about who gets the regular contributors – will they stay loyal to the brand or the boys?

Newstalk is not a station that makes money but it is powerful because of its ownership. If MMEHH thought that the contributors would prioritize personal over professional relationships, they could be in for something of a rude awakening.

There also the issue that media organisations tend to hire singly, rather than a group. If MMEHH hope to replicate the format intact on some other station, there is then the question of exactly which media organisation will sign up for that. Bear in mind it’ll be broadcasting against the Newstalk Off the Ball, which will sounds very, very familiar to MMEHH version. A Continuity Off the Ball will require listeners tracking them down by moving the dial, something that Irish radio listeners are surprisingly reluctant to do.

There is also the fact that there aren’t many stations that could broadcast the show. Newstalk, Today FM and Dublin 98 are all owned by the same entity. Will this resignation be held against MMEHH by Newstalk’s sister companies?

What about RTÉ? Tweeters are clamouring for Off the Ball’s appearance on the national broadcaster but, amidst all this speculation, your correspondent will lay you Carnaby Street against a China lemon that there is no way on God’s green Earth that RTÉ sport will throw open their arms to welcome the smart arses who’ve been laughing at them for years. Life’s not like that.

There is also the question of what happens when individual approaches are made. Does a man hold out with his comrades or does he think he’d really like to pay the mortgage this month?

In a time of clouded media ethics we can only admire a resignation that’s been made on principle. But we also only have to look at how effortlessly Savage Sunday replaced Sam Smyth’s show on Today FM to find out that Irish media is not a sentimental business.

We won’t know until we hear their side of the story, but MMEHH’s own personal situation is precarious in a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately industry. Off the Ball as we knew it could never have gone on forever but nobody could have expected its end to be so sudden. The best of luck to Eoin, Ciarán, Ken, Simon and Mark in their future careers. They made housework painless for a generation of men, and there are very few things that can achieve that miracle.

The Exemplary Interviewing Skills of Newstalk's Eoin McDevitt

It’s not easy to interview someone. The really interesting stuff is often what the interviewee doesn’t want to talk about. This means that the trickiest job the interviewer faces is coaxing that bit of news out of the interviewee without the interviewee getting upset over the extraction, thus putting the interviewer’s career – and possibly life – in danger.

Newstalk’s Eoin McDevitt is the best sports interviewer on Irish radio today. He is astonishingly good and, a little like Al Pacino in The Devil’s Advocate, his skill lies in the fact that you never see him coming.

An RTÉ commentator badgered Ollie Canning on the radio recently about whether or not Canning would ever hurl for Galway again. Bad. Ollie wasn’t on trial for his life, and was left in a no-win situation.

If Canning said no, he was never playing again, ever, it would close off forever whatever spark is left in him, that may kindle yet after the harsh and lonely winter, and if he said yes, he would play again, he would look like an idiot. Nothing gained there for anyone.

Of course, the commentator was a commentator, not an interviewer, and there is a difference. McDevitt’s own recent attempt at athletics commentary highlighted that difference further. But purely as an interviewer, McDevitt is outstanding.

The reason McDevitt is so good is the same reason Michael Parkinson was so good. McDevitt always knows that his role is second banana. That people want to know what Darragh Ó Sé’s opinion, and not Eoin McDevitt’s. Whatever ego fulfilment McDevitt gets, he does not attempt to get it by telling Brian O’Driscoll what it’s like to win a Grand Slam. He is aware that insight travels in a contrary direction.

McDevitt’s personality type is particularly suited to Irish sportspeople, combining as it does the best traits of two icons of Irish life – the undertaker, and the former Lieutenant Columbo of the Los Angeles Police Department.

We saw McDevitt’s undertaker schtick on Setanta over the weekend when McDevitt was chairing an hour’s cheap blather with Brian Kerr, Ken Early and Big Joe Kernan. It was up to McDevitt to ask Big Joe why he wasn’t manager of Galway any more, without ever being able to raise any unpleasantness over that green stuff that makes the world go around, the world go around, the world go around.

And nor did he. Summoning the combined sorrows of Pippi Longstocking and our own Deirdre na mBrón, McDevitt heaved a heartfelt sigh and asked Joe if the deceased had been suffering long. Joe told his little scéal and McDevitt nodded mournfully in time with Joe’s pain. A double check to see if the departed would be buried in the blue suit or the brown, and McDevitt faded back into the wallpaper again. Genius.

An interview with Lovely Derval O’Rourke after Derval’s silver medal in Barcelona showed the Columbo side to McDevitt’s technique. Lovely Derval had a tiny crack at the AAI (as opposed to the big root in the bottom that they need so badly) when she got back from Barcelona, but by the time of Monday’s Off the Ball Derval didn’t want to get mixed up in a shouting match and was all for backing off.

Not enough for McDevitt though. He went back over what she said, gently but thoroughly, and Derval expanded a little more on what it’s like for Irish athletes trying to compete on a world stage. She did not have rant, but simply expressed what it’s like for her and what it’s like for others, with McDevitt leading her along without ever trying to trap her or be sensational in any way.

In the matter of bringing the truth to the light, it was like when Columbo would call around to the suspect's house, apologise for bothering the suspect, and just wonder – because he couldn’t sleep last night, wondering, and it just just this one other little thing – why was it that, if your secretary was in New York on business at the time of your wife’s murder, the ashtray in the summer house contains menthol cigarettes butts. Your wife only ever smoked Camels. And Columbo would stand there, in the raggedy coat and the cheap cigar like the biggest gom in the world, while the suspect paled beneath his tan.

McDevitt has the advantage of three hours of radio to kill, of course, and that gives him the time his particular technique needs, but still. It’s a pleasure to hear a master going about his work – not least if you are taking the iron around the chicanes and have another four shirts to do for the week. Long may he reign.

FOCAL SCOIR: Speaking of Parky, here's one of his finest hours, getting cosy with Miss Piggy in the 70s. Fantastic.

The Domestic Miracle of Newstalk's Off the Ball

While Off the Ball, Newstalk’s evening sports show every weekday, has received much critical acclaim, its true achievement has never really been identified. It is this: for the first time, gentlemen may face the unspeakable horror of housework, knowing that at least they can listen to Off the Ball while ironing shirts or doing laundry.

Off the Ball’s success is due to its positioning – the notion of any radio worth listening to after seven o’clock in the evening is a revolutionary one – but also to the remarkable teamwork of the show’s most notable presenters, host Eoin McDevitt and soccer correspondent Ken Early. The remarkable nature of the partnership seems lost on Newstalk management, as stand-in presenters rarely match McDevitt’s calibre, and can fall distressingly below it – sometimes to the extent of the gentleman laying down his iron to give LA Woman one more spin on the trusty CD player.

McDevitt’s particular gift is one that seems simple, but its rarity on the radio suggests that it may be more difficult than it appears. McDevitt listens. He is interested in what his contributors have to say, rather than giving the impression of a man simply sitting through a lot of yak waiting for his opportunity to put his own splendid oar in, and delight an eager nation with his pensées.

The quality of the contributors on Off the Ball is exceptional – hurling analyst Daithí Regan is a particularly standout – and the sheer length of the show means that they have a lot of time to discuss an issue, rather than simply tick off boxes. McDevitt can bring a slightly embarrassing level of awe to his weekly interviews with John Giles but then, which of us could be calm in the presence of that great man?

Early is a horse of a different colour. An Spailpín Fánach hardly ever watches soccer anymore, the cheating and cowardice having become too monstrous to ignore at this stage, but Early is a man capable of making converts. Early is that rarest of creatures, a soccer savant. In a game where “well, the lad’s a bit special” is considered seeing life steady and seeing it whole, to hear Early riff on comparisons between a player and Field Marshall Von Blucher, the man who out-Napoleoned Napoleon at Waterloo, is heady stuff indeed.

Soccer savants give the impression that the game of soccer is a precise and detailed metaphor for life itself. The most notable example of such a savant we had here was Eamon Dunphy of course, before Dunphy became a caricature of himself in his mean-spirited attacks on Giovanni Trapattoni. Early is now the inheritor of that mantle – more rapier than Dunphy’s broadsword, and always worth listening to.

McDevitt is aware of Early’s talents and, in his best form, acts as agent provocateur to Early, egging on Early to greater flights of fancy. It doesn’t always work, of course, but when it does it’s sublime. Thank God for Off the Ball – imagine how rumpled shirts would be at those eleven o’clock meetings if it were no longer on the air?





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