An open letter to ESPN: your soccer broadcasts overfloweth with British accents

Dear, ESPN

How’s it going at the Worldwide Leader Mothership?  I do hate to bother you chaps … you are probably nibbling on fish and chips while knee deep in a marathon of The Office at this very moment. (British version, of course!)

But I was hoping you could tell me what this means:  “That might be worth a bob if you’re having a little bit of a plunder on it!”

I heard that today on one of your networks, from Tommy Smyth. You know the guy. Thick glasses. Lots of opinions. Some of ‘em right. Anyway, what the eff does that mean, mates?

I suppose Smyth is saying that such-and-such is a good bet. OK. Fair enough.

But here’s my point:  He knows the ESPN audience is primarily in the United States, right?  Well, we don’t talk like that!  We don’t  “buy petrol for the motorway,”  we buy “gas for the highway.”  We don’t go to the loo, for piss sakes, we go to the freakin bathroom!

“Hey, mate, would you run up on the lift and fetch me torch and me mac? It’s frightfully dark and wet out!”

Go say that around the auto assembly plant in Michigan or around the weekly Tuesday meeting of the local fraternal order in the heartland and see if you don’t get sacked with an atomic wedgie.

I’m on this British accent thing again because you guys just announced your lineup for World Cup broadcasts. Talk about a kick in the nads to the American soccer establishment! Here’s the opening line from your announcement:

“ESPN's World Cup telecasts will have a British accent.

Adrian Healey, Derek Rae and Ian Darke have been hired by ESPN for its U.S. broadcasts at this year's World Cup and will join Martin Tyler to give the network British play-by-play announcers for all 64 games beginning June 11.”

Man, that’s a fine “How Do You Do” for Yankee viewers …and announcers.

(FYI: If you’re wondering how a guy like little ol me, who started writing for your Disney sister outfit ESPN Soccernet back in 2005, has the brass ones to go biting the hand that feeds him … well, stay tuned, boys ….)

If I’ve got me facts right, I believe Healy, Darke and Tyler are English. Rae is Scottish. I know that Rae often works side-by-side on ESPN soccer shows with Janusz Michallik, who is Polish. That’s when he’s not working with Shaka Hislop, who isn’t fooling anyone with all those Trinidad and Tobago caps. He was born in London. He played professionally in England. He’s as English as Daniel freakin’ Craig, bless is 007 heart.  

They are fine announcers, all. They know TV and they know which end of a soccer ball is up.  Hell, I’d love to invite ‘em round to the pub sometime, as I’m sure they have a fortnight worth of tales! This isn’t meant to impugn any of these good fellows.

Besides all that, I love England. Just got back, in fact. I even drove a bit on this trip. It was a bit of a challenge, steering wheel on the right, stick shift on the left and all. But I stuck to two golden rules of UK driving. “Stay left. Try not to die!”

But couldn’t you guys at ESPN squeeze an American voice into the play-by-play lineup?  Is American soccer such a craphole wasteland that a guy like JP Dellacamera can’t get a bite of the play-by-play mic?

You remember Dellacamera, right? He’s the gentleman of abundant knowledge and fine voice who brought many, many U.S. national team and other pro games into America’s living rooms.  (Slightly off subject, he’s a good dude, too. And one day I’m gonna hunt down the rascal who stole the periods in the JP, and I’ll give that dude a good talking-to.)

I’m going to help spread the word to everyone: if they want to catch some of JP’s good work from South Africa this summer, they’ll have to tune into their regular local, uh, soccer radio station.  Such a thing doesn’t really exist around where I live. And probably anywhere else. But never mind that.

I see that JP has been relegated to ESPN radio. I haven’t talked to him about all this, but I could bet a bob that he ain’t happy about it, if I was up for having a bit of a plunder on it. (See what I did there? Hee-hee.)

You guv’nahs over at ESPN did manage to wedge in one American voice. Former U.S. captain John Harkes will handle some of the analyst duties. (So will Efan Ekoku, a Manchester-born former Nigerian national teamer. Apparently at ESPN, “diversity” means a lot of English guys who managed to play for other nations.)

OK, so you tossed us a bone with Harkes. But he’s not even the top U.S. analyst!  He’s gotten more comfortable behind camera and the mic, but he still defaults to trite soccer truisms and coach-speak way too often. You could play a drinking game with Harkes’ favorite go-to phrase, “cover and balance.”  I don’t think anybody else has actually said “cover and balance” since Harkes was playing at Sheffield Wednesday back in the early 1990s, but never mind that for now.

But where is Glenn Davis, who does good work for ESPN platforms when he isn’t gigging on regional networks? Where is Kyle Martino, who seemed like such a natural when he retired early and went right into the booth a couple of years ago?  Or what about Brian Dunseth, who just keeps getting better and better in his analyst work? Greg Vanney, who picked up some regional work last year, shows a lot of promise as an analyst.

Well, if I run into any of those American soccer voices, the ones you guys like to marginalize, I’ve got a tip for em:

Try to spend some time abroad. Best bet is England. Try to pick up a trace of an accent. Maybe even write a note to the suits at ESPN when you do it.  Tell ‘em what’s up.  And it probably wouldn’t hurt you to mention that you ate a lot of bangers and mash and sticky toffee pudding while there. Oh, one more thing! Spell “colour” and “glamour” with the extraneous “u.” They eat that stuff up.

Cheer-io!

Your good mate, Steve