Nostalgia, they say, is a dangerous form of comparison. Take transfer deadline day, for example.
Was there ever really a time when the mere sight of Jim White in a yellow tie provoked a frisson of excitement? Did I really once guffaw as a loitering member of the public assailed a poor reporter’s ear with a plastic purple phallus outside a training ground?
Ok, perhaps I did. I may have matured a little since those days, though that seems unlikely. Maybe the fact that it is usually a nightmarish day of pressure and stress at the end of a nightmarish month of pressure and stress for those in my profession has sucked the joy from it somewhat.
Whatever the reason though, no matter how much Sky Sports News tries to polish up the proverbial, the whole circus seems to have lost its lustre.
Maybe it’s their fault, come to think of it. In the dim and distant past, the monotony of their wall-to-wall coverage of subjects as mundane as six-month loans of journeymen between lower league clubs, or the peculiarities of doing business by fax machine well into the 21st century, was punctured by the odd spot of levity.
A dad joke from Jim, for example, delivered with a trademark twinkle in the eye. The customary interview with ‘Arry Redknapp, hanging out of the window of his car. Wondering where Peter Odemwingie was going to pop up and attempt to gaslight a club into believing they had signed him.
There was a slightly ramshackle quality to it all. That it was all being done on the hoof, and that subsequently, anything could happen, that gave it an endearing quality.
Once he had agreed to make the move from Bayern Munich, the only jeopardy remaining was whether it was going to be a loan with or – and hold onto your hats - without an option to buy. A thrilling saga, the twists and turns of which had you on the edge of the sofa (not really) for 12 hours or so.
No detail was too humdrum. We were informed by Nick Powell, for instance, that Tel had landed at Farnborough Airport, ‘a favourite airport of elite sportsmen’. If that wasn’t bad enough, the next pundit they went to for his tuppence worth was talkSport ‘geezer’ Jamie O’Hara.
He was paired with former Scotland and Arsenal favourite Jen Beattie, with our Jen perhaps wondering what she had done in a previous life to deserve such a fate.
Whatever attempts at fun there were, seemed as forced as the cliches about the window ‘slamming shut’ and the clock ‘ticking down’. Paul Merson and Tim Sherwood were railroaded into playing a game called ‘guess the transfer’, which somehow made you pine for the camera to cut back to O’Hara.
Mercifully, and to Sky’s credit, there was at least plenty of input from their proper reporters like Kaveh Solhekol and others dotted around the country such as our own Gordon Duncan, stationed in Ibrox. And unlike much of their standard coverage these days, there was a distinct lack of input from partisan Youtubers named Yeezy-Utd, GoonerzLad, or some other such nonsense.
Much like the institution that was Soccer Saturday, a freshening of the cast of presenters and guests may have been a necessary evil to move with the times and appeal to a younger audience, but as a relatively new member of the grumpy old man demographic, it does nothing for me.
So, fair play to the broadcaster for that. On the whole, while the excitement was mainly manufactured, the input from their journalists and at least some of their pundits was largely informed.
Maybe it’s me, then. But these days, I find the grotesque sums being thrown around - often on players who are distinctly middle of the road - has contributed to the whole thing becoming one big turn-off.
Earlier in the window, a Saudi club chucked £71m at signing Jhon Duran, a striker who wasn’t even a nailed-on starter at Aston Villa. Manchester City spent a comparatively paltry £33.5m on Uzbekistan international Abdukodir Khusanov, a centre half who sold the jerseys to concede a goal three minutes into his debut against Chelsea.
Here, north of the border, you can’t help but feel like the poor relation. Whether it is a loan deal from Crystal Palace to Celtic or from Harrogate to St Johnstone, it all just feels a little bit small-time in comparison to the splurge from our friends to the south.
Man City have spent £180m in this window, Solhekol pointed out late on, as he debated their transfer business at a roundtable with the likes of Clinton Morrison, Kris Boyd and Sue Smith.
“They should have spent more!” squawked Michael Dawson.
With that, I had seen more than enough. It was time for the laptop to ‘slam shut’.
