As far as stepping into someone’s shoes goes, ITV’s new football presenter, Mark Pougatch, did not exactly face the same pressure as the bloke who replaced John Squire in the Stone Roses. Adrian Chiles was not all bad and attracted a curious amount of criticism for someone who was just trying to be likable, but he will not, shall we say, cast a huge shadow.
Pougatch, a familiar presence from years on BBC radio, made his Champions League debut on Tuesday and ITV certainly threw him in at the deep end, helming its coverage of PSG v Chelsea and, perhaps more intimidatingly, putting him in charge of a returning Roy Keane.
Hosting a live broadcast must be tricky enough at the best of times but doing so next to someone who looks as if he could and would pull your arms off just for sport if the mood took him makes it an even more imposing task. Keane, for his part, gave a passable enough impression of a man who wanted to be there, even though his latest autobiography might suggest otherwise. Keane wrote: “I don’t like easy gigs. When I heard, ‘I liked your commentary last night’, I knew I was only talking bullshit … I wanted to do something that excited me. TV work didn’t excite me.”
Excited or not, the murderous glare was missing from Keane’s eyes this time, cutting a relaxed figure and the closest he came to unleashing a vocal reducer on anyone was to dismiss the idea of Chelsea being “a great team” as “nonsense”. Disappointing? Maybe but the idea of ‘Keane as angry man’ could quickly become a cartoon, an aggressive football version of Howard Stern whom people just watch to see what outrageous thing he says next.
Perhaps this was because he was alongside a presenter he did not hold in open contempt. Pougatch gave the sense that he knows football, his presenting style one of assured authority rather than an extended wide-eyed shrug that says “I dunno, I just work here!” in an attempt at amiable everymanness.
Pougatch does not try to be likable. He just is likable. He is unfussy but engaging, with no forced quips, no sense that he is trying to be the star and furthermore understanding that is not his job.
He is a facilitator, for the pundits and more importantly the actual football. At one point Pougatch posed a question to Lee Dixon who, arch banter-merchant that he is, made some quip or other then paused for laughter. Pougatch simply repeated the question, as if to say: “Look, mate, I’m supposed to be helping you say something intelligent but I can’t do all the work.”
This being his first night, Pougatch occasionally seemed as if he was nervously rushing through some carefully prepared words, like an edgy best man. Of course, this suggested he had actually prepared, that some thought had gone into this, as opposed to many other knee-slapping pundits who seem to regard such things as just for squares and sissies.
One could argue that Pougatch is a bit dull but perhaps that is no bad thing. There is a bit in Ocean’s Eleven where Brad Pitt tells Matt Damon, about to embark on a con, that his “mark” has to “like you, then forget you the moment you’ve left”.
That is basically what presenters should be as they will rarely attract people to turn on a football match but they might make a few turn it off. If the worst one can say about Pougatch is that he will not do that, then he has done his job.
