Talk:Peter Jones (broadcaster)
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What utterly sentimental guff this article on Peter Jones this is. Though one never likes to be critical of someone who has sadly passed on, especially if there is any chance of family and friends reading it, enough time, one hopes, has passed for me to opine that Peter Jones was a desperately mediocre and tedious commentator, specializing in dismal melodrama - my version of the writer here's 'eloquence' and whatever 'word pictures' - and whose witless and overblown commentaries, when not simply bland and conservative, occasionally sycophantic, frequently caused me to switch off the radio in disgust. More technically, his bizarre affection for the use of the future tense in the present, cf, 'Mills will pass it back to Shilton who will kick long downfield...', constitutes one of the many appalling verbal practices of a breed of men who add little or nothing to one's enjoyment of sport. Sorry. Sadly, though the tendency has declined, it is still to be found on 5 Live.
Additionally, though Alan Green is far from being peerless, the negative opinion on modern development in sports commentary implied in the last paragraph should, in my opinion, be edited so it is strictly objective.
Given that Wiki is usually scrupulous in editing out opinion, I can only hope that someone out there takes the knife to this mawkish, romantic drivel, stripping it of bias and leaving behind a factual article that might actually be of some interest. Please start with the words on Hillsborough. A man unable to 'recover emotionally' from commentating on the Hillsborough Disaster? This has to be a case of ridiculously melodramatic overstatement.
As I said earlier, no-one wishes a person whose work one rates poorly to leave the job so suddenly and relatively tragically, 60 being young, but it's time someone threw a barb at the Jones reputation, who is always annoyingly referred to as 'the great Peter Jones' - I gag or run out screaming every time.
And for those in love with Peter's great word pictures, here are a few for you - this might help explain the apparent severity of the above comments:
Wallace, moving forward, his red hair always in the action' - PETER JONES
'It's always very satisfying to beat Arsenal, as indeed Arsenal would admit' - PETER JONES
'John Lyall, very much a claret and blue man, from his stocking feet to his hair' - PETER JONES
'So it means that, mathematically, Southampton have 58 points' - PETER JONES
'It really needed the blink of an eyelid, otherwuse you would have missed it' - PETER JONES
'Numero Eins, as they say in Germany' - PETER JONES
'We go into the second half with United 1-0 up, so the game is perfectly balanced' - PETER JONES
'It's Ipswich 0 Liverpool 2, and if that's the way the score stays then you've got to fancy Liverpool to win.' - PETER JONES
'They're floating up on a sea of euphoria, and hoping to drag themselves clear of the quicksand at the bottom.' - PETER JONES
'Poor Graham Shaw. It was there for the asking and he didn't give the answer.' - PETER JONES
'Ian Rush is deadly ten times out of ten, but that wasn't one of them.' - PETER JONES
'Arsenal now have plenty of time to dictate the last few seconds.' - PETER JONES
'Sporting Lisbon in their green and white hoops, looking like a team of zebras...' - PETER JONES
88.109.138.67 15:33, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
A ludicrous response, on the whole, though you're right to pick up on the subjective tone towards the end of the article.
Peter Jones reflected his times, just as much as Alan Green reflects his. His greater deference, his Received Pronounciation, his restrained, unhysterical tone were all indicative of his generation's attitudes.
It's also churlish to pick out individual quotes in the way you do. I may as well point to the individual grammatical errors in your writing and assume that invalidates the wider points you make. No doubt, in the heat of commentary, Jones got things wrong. But in the main, he was a brilliant describer of the action on the pitch: unruffled, precise and a good reader of the game. It is this that has lead to him receiving the accolades he does.
Joeboyle 20:01, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
