Declan Olley's blog

On a seismic night of football which saw Bayern Munich hammer the golden boys of European football, Barcelona, 4-0, the talk of the Twitterati should’ve been on the German’s demolition job, but instead they were focussed on ITV co-commentator Andy Townsend.

“If only we were able to mute Andy Townsend”, said one tweeter. Another was a little more drastic in his opinion: “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...Andy Townsend is commentating #MUTE”. The consensus was clear: Townsend was not up to the job.

Whilst reading The Secret Footballer’s book (I am the Secret Footballer: Lifting the Lid on the Beautiful Game), I came across the player’s thoughts on the media and journalists. There was one line in particular that grabbed my attention: “I’m uncomfortable when journalists rely on shorthand rather than dictaphones, because it ends up becoming your word against theirs when a questionable story appears.”