by Rab Bruce’s Spider

Mastodon: @RabBrucesSpider1@Mastodon.Scot

X / Twitter: @RabBrucesSpider

As a blind football fan, I rely on radio coverage to cover matches which others can watch on TV. I do have a lot of grumbles about radio commentary because, although you can hear some interesting comments and statistics, you also get to hear a lot of nonsense about things which are not related to what is happening on the pitch.

My main gripe today, though, is about the need for Scots to listen to English media reporting of games. Yes, we have Sportsound which will cover games involving Scotland, and there is a weekly TV programme rounding up SPFL fixtures, but if we want to listen to any other game, then we are forced to tune in to an English station. And yes, I include Radio 5 Live in that. They may give a passing nod to Scottish games, but their focus is almost entirely on England. This first became glaringly obvious during the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow where I listened to 5 Live for afternoon events, where the focus was very much on English competitors. When I switched to BBC Scotland who began covering events in the evening, the focus was entirely different.

And on Saturday, after England had scraped through against Switzerland thanks to what was admittedly an excellent set of penalties, I wanted to listen to the last quarter-final involving Netherlands and Turkey.

I tuned in to BBC 5 Live only to hear that they were about to spend the next two hours talking about England’s magnificent performance, and if I wanted to hear commentary on the Netherlands vs Turkey match, I’d need to do that via the BBC website. Now, the BBC website is fully accessible, but it’s not nearly as easy to navigate with a screen reader as the BBC Sounds app, so that was a major disappointment.

I decided that I’d try Talksport as I have the ap on my phone. Again, Talksport 1 was devoting a three-hour programme to discussing England’s magnificent performance. Fortunately, I was able to get the commentary I wanted because it had been relegated to Talksport 2.

Now, I know Scottish sports pundits can be just as biased as broadcasters from any country, but I’d much prefer to have commentary from my own country than be compelled to listen to commentators who support our greatest football rival. You may think that is petty, but imagine you are trying to listen to commentary on an SPFL game your team is playing, but you need to listen to the commentary provided by your opponents. It’s not a great experience, especially if you lose.

What all of this complaining boils down to is that Scotland is short-changed when it comes to media coverage of sport. Other small nations have a plethora of radio stations, but we are stuck with the BBC when it comes to covering major sporting events. If only there was some sort of solution.