Football Betting: Live From Studio Five Is Dead From The Neck Up

Football Food For Thought / Dan Fitch / 06 October 2009 / Leave a Comment

The safest place for an ex-footballer - the golf course.

Alongside a page three girl and a runner up on a reality show, Wrighty looks at the water-cooler topics of the day… but only if you work at an office full of idiots.

Dan 'The Betting Man' Fitch has never understood why Ian Wright had managed to enjoy a TV career, but nothing had prepared him for the hideousness of Live From Studio Five and the quality of Football Behind Bars.

Something that always astounds me about football managers is the sheer number of chances they are given to screw up.

It seems as if no matter how many times a manager completely fails in a job, there's always some club out there willing to give them another shot. This is not the case in other industries. If for example, you ran three branches of Tesco into the ground, it would be unlikely that you'd find future employment as a supermarket manager.

The world of football punditry seems to have a similar 'jobs for the boys' employment scheme. The most uninspiring words ever uttered on television must be "...and his co-commentator, Joe Royle", yet they are still said with alarming frequency on Channel Five.

In the world of the television football pundit, a mediocre performance will get you plenty of work. You have to be really terrible to thrown off the list of revolving talking heads, which brings us to Ian Wright...

Despite the fact that the majority of the projects that Wright has been involved with have proved dismal failures, the commissioning editors keep flinging contracts his way. What's more, he's transcended football punditry and infiltrated the world of showbiz.

Following the end of his football career, 'Wrighty' was given his own chat show on ITV, titled Friday Night's All Wright. After two series of inane questions and shouting, Wright was poached by the BBC on a lucrative contract.

At the Beeb, Wright replaced Ant and Dec as the host of Friends Like These and his own variety show Right Here, Wright Now. When neither was a success and with the BBC unable to come up with any further puns involving his surname, Wright's career hit a sticky patch.

Wright then earned his license payer's crust in a more traditional way for an ex-footballer, by appearing on Match Of The Day and as a captain on They Think It's All Over. On both shows his main contribution was to make Gary Lineker seem really good in comparison.

Before very long the BBC replied 'It is now' to They Think It's All Over and put the flagging show out of it's misery. Wright quit Match Of The Day in 2008, complaining that the programme had used him like a 'comedy jester', whilst ignoring the fact that his tactical insight generally consisted of suggesting that Sven should bring on his son as a substitute.

You would think that would have signalled the end of Wright's broadcasting career, but then you can always trust Sky, Channel Five and TalkSport to come sniffing around the BBC's cast-offs.

Wright is now the new voice of 'Awooga' on the revived Gladiators and has a regular slot on TalkSport, but it's as the co-host of Live At Studio Five that Wright may have hit his career nadir.

Alongside a page three girl and a runner up on a reality show, Wrighty looks at the water-cooler topics of the day... but only if you work at an office full of idiots.

It's car crash TV and as I write they have just managed to get ten minutes of material out of the Anton Du Beke race scandal. I really hope that Harry Hill's TV Burp is back on air before this gets cancelled.

Surely even the most ardent Arsenal fan doesn't actually enjoy Wright's presenting style. The Gunners are the third favourites to win the Premier League this season at [7.0], but personally I think there's more chance of Wrighty being chosen to chair the proposed TV election debates.

Having said that, Wright has dipped his toe into politics on television before. Whilst at university I had the misfortune of having to watch a programme in which Wright interviewed Richard Blackwood on the subject of race in the media. Frost/Nixon it wasn't.

So you might get the impression that I'm not a big fan of the television career of Ian Wright, but to my surprise he's recently made a show that suits him perfectly.

In Sky1's Football Behind Bars, Wright features in a fly on the wall documentary about a group of young offenders who set up their own football academy.

Without all the whooping that accompanies his presenting, a calmer Wright shows real empathy towards the prisoners and acts as a inspiration for them.

It's a vehicle that really works for him. Let's hope the future for Ian Wright on television involves more realism and less autocue reading.