Quote ="BarnetFC"I don't know who produces that Humberside post game show but they're on the wrong career path whoever they are.
Those saying "I want to hear from fans who've been to the game" are missing an important problem with this - nobody rings in. They put a guy on the air after the Catalans game who was clearly drunk and on a very bad phone line so you couldn't hear a word he was saying. Gollum then tried to go back to him on four seperate occasions. That's how desperate they are for people to ring in. The Welsh bloke, who talks a bit of sense sometimes, gets on every week because he's the only one calling in.
So the programme then essentially becomes 30 minutes of fill while they wait for Gentle to be interviewed - which as said usually happens about five minutes before the end of the programme so has to be cut short. Ten minutes of that fill is now taken up by an interview recorded before the match, so already dated. The only time that worked was when it was Pearson. The rest of the time it's been, one example, Richard Whiting talking about his hopes for the rest of the season after a match in which we've all just seen Richard Whiting leave the field injured.
After that we have 15 minutes of Gollum reading out the phone and the text number (usually incorrectly), then asking Richardson what he thought of the game, then the numbers again, then asking Richardson about the performance of a specific player, then off to the studio for a round up of texts and Tweets and - again as they don't get any - we get puerile nonsense like "great result for the boys today, Briscoe for England, come on you Hull" and "referee bad but two points is all that counts come on you Hull" then it's back to Gollum and those numbers again.
It's criminal that a broadcaster of his experience is as bad at filling now, after all these years, as he is but it's also ridiculous that he's required to fill for so long. A phone in show should always be planned around the worst case scenario that nobody phones in. What are we going to do? What are we going to talk about?
Paul Cooke is actually a decent start. Forthright opinions, controversial figure, he'll not only get people ringing in to disagree with him but he's actually capable of starting something resembling a debate with the other "experts" in the meantime. I'd get rid of Gollum (would have done so a long time ago to be fair) and replace him with somebody who can first and foremost host a radio show (he can't) and secondly ask some proper questions. Then get somebody else alongside Cooke (possibly Murdoch but definitely not Richardson) who will go at it with him and have a proper debate/row that will then encourage callers to ring in.
TalkSport is a vile horrible thing but they do this trick of having one presenter with one view and one presenter with a diametrically opposite view (whether they believe it or not) really well and callers flood in to tell one he's talking nonsense. Cooke is ideal for this.
And while I'm ranting, Craig Murdoch and James Smailes please note that asking for the thoughts on today's game, then asking if anybody is injured, and then running through each player one by one saying "Yeaman went well today didn't he?", "Manu went well today didn't he?" Did you think Westerman went well today Peter?" Is not an interview. You can hear the disdain in Gentle's voice as he replies "Oh yeh, you know, Kirk/Willie/Joe/Bruce/Brian is a good player. Look, we've just get to get that consistency into our game" and then repeats the same thing for every player.
Ask him a question for the love of God.
Sorry, it's my line of work, and it's cringeworthy to listen to it done that badly.'"
I think I love you
Maybe an approach for RH would be for them to tee up a couple of articulate and sober fans in advance, say a miserable fecker and a club apologist, to call in post match to get the ball rolling. Someone independent (e.g. Cooke, but not necessarily him) to pitch in. A presenter there to moderate/summarise, not stick their two penneth in. No texts to be read out of the facile type you describe above. The post match interviews are the same every week, but I wouldn't expect much insight from these beyond comments on rotation, injuries, referees etc. What I would like is better stuff in the week - features on the academy set-up, say, who's emerging, pathways to first team. Maybe a weekly player profile - say Danny Houghton on his journey to pivotal first teamer, what he learned off Berro, insight on his dedication to fitness etc.
