"DIGITAL viewers, don't forget you can press the red button for a host of interactive World Cup features," Jonathan Pearce screamed hysterically at an ear-drum splitting pitch nudging towards the end of the audible spectrum that suggested a last gasp leveller was imminent and sparked a frenzied network of dogs barking across Acklam.
Never dare a fool. I pressed it and crossed into uncharted territory on BBC's digital dark side.
Select audio channel? Yes, you can switch between the main terrestrial BBC commentary team, BBC Five Live's microphone men and - get this - no expert hand holding at all. Excellent, one hardcore option is to blank out the pin sticking punditry from the press box and listen to the crowd noise instead.
But less is not neccessarily more. While cutting the crap and whacking up the volume to savour that authentic like-you-are-actually-there passionate matchday atmosphere may sound like a sure fire winner when it comes to the rival roars of England against Germany in the semis, it barely scrapes a point from the less hostile, almost gentile, supporting soundtrack of a one sided group game featuring Saudi Arabia and Ukraine.
And of course it was not real crowd noise, not as we know it anyway. There wasn't a single cry of 'Blokhin out!' or opinated airings of the Chickenrun consensus that "you're a lazy get Shevchenko, pull yer finger out." Not that I heard anyway, although admittedly my knowledge of the cyrillic tongues is a bit rusty.
Yes, the sound of the crowd can be brilliant, engrossing and insprational on those rare, pulsating, never-to-be-forgotten occasions but the reality is that, like the football, it is mostly soul-sappingly humdrum, dull and unimaginative. Generally it is a background crackle of ringtones, sarcastic comments, abuse directed at the referee and people mumbling 'scuse mate' in Ukranian as they nip off for an official five-minutes-before-the-break Mondial 2006 Burger or for a quick sly drag in the toilets.
It was all oppressively ordinary so I pressed the red button button and tuned into Five Live. Now I like Five Live and listen to a lot of football there, especially when decorating the backroom or driving back from midweek Northern League clashes betwen Synthonia and Tow Law and suchlike, and I have a lot of time for the likes of Mark Pougatch and Mark Saggers who bring an informed and analytical approach to the coverage.
But it must be said that radio is very different medium from television and rightly takes a different approach. There is an assumption on the wireless for instance that the audience can't actually see the action unfold and so the pace and the language are geared to paint a picture with strokes sometimes broad and sometimes deft to illustrate movement and shapes and patterns. Television commentary is about adding to what the audience can already see for themselves, confirming and setting in context, hence Motty's legendary status rests on his battery of stats rather than descriptive powers. To weld the two mediums together is clumbsy and disjointed and makes the familiar seem alien, like Fawlty Towers dubbed into Spanish. "Él es de Barcelona".
So it was the red button again and back to Pearce hyper-ventilating over a dramatic throw-in on the halfway line. Still it could be worse, I could have pressed the button marked Zzzzzz and been patched into Mick McCarthy.
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