Second Captains

Beersmith

Mark is always good, they should defo bring him in more.

Say Your Number

I remember Murph & Ken alone did a decent job of filling in when Eoin was away on OTB a couple of times, yeah Mark did a good job and he wasn't fawning over the Golden State Warriors either, I'm getting tired of Eoin shoehorning them into every podcast.

BoJack Horseman

Say Your Number wrote: »

the Golden State Warriors....I'm getting tired of Eoin shoehorning them into every podcast.

More than ditto there!

Its pretty apparent that if its not basketball or baseball, US-Murph is not exactly that savvy.... so the time devoted to these sports bores me..... I almost skip past it..... almost.

buyer95

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

More than ditto there!

Its pretty apparent that if its not basketball or baseball, US-Murph is not exactly that savvy.... so the time devoted to these sports bores me..... I almost skip past it..... almost.

We've been down this road before. FYI US Murph has a very superficial knowledge of basketball. As a person who has followed the NBA my entire life, that much is obvious from listening to him talk for 30 seconds on his "beloved warriors." I still enjoy Murph's ramblings on the Warriors, he is entertaining, but I wouldnt describe him as "savvy."

Beersmith

Say Your Number wrote: »

I remember Murph & Ken alone did a decent job of filling in when Eoin was away on OTB a couple of times, yeah Mark did a good job and he wasn't fawning over the Golden State Warriors either, I'm getting tired of Eoin shoehorning them into every podcast.

Surely thats the whole joke?!

Say Your Number

Beersmith wrote: »

Surely thats the whole joke?!

Well at least he's stopped going on about Johnny Sexton's book.

Ol' Donie

"I think we'd all accept the melting of the polar ice caps, as long as we knew that Pardew's house would be flooded first."

Ken's the greatest.

BoJack Horseman

On air scumbag!!!

dr.kenneth noisewater

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

On air scumbag!!!

Really enjoyed having the "scumbag" on the show, actually loled in the office during the shower/bath discussion!

Booby Robson!

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000

Literally bust out laughing a few times over the two latest podcasts. Brilliant, Horgan is a good replacement host.

Loafing Oaf

Obvious segue missed from Tony O'Reilly's 'half-melons' to the Arseblog guy.:P

Still, Mourinho Augustus:cool:

BoJack Horseman

What's the story behind the "You cannot call a player a baby" sting?

batistuta9

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

What's the story behind the "You cannot call a player a baby" sting?

i'm not 100% sure who it even is, but i think it's adebayor, patrice evra called arsenal babies one time, adebayor speaking about that is my guess

styron

Q: After the game between United and Arsenal at the Emirates, Champions League semi final [May '09: 1-3 (1-4 agg)], Patrice Evra said: It was men against babies, what was your reaction to that?

A: "Yeah, I was a little bit upset at that, when you hear some players making that interview. No matter what happen we are players, we play football, we love playing football, but you cannot call a player a baby. Because it happen that some time we won against Manchester, if I can remember earlier in the season we won against them in the Premiership, and we never said they're a kid, or they're a baby, so those things I think is just disrespectful to the other team.

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?p=32492235

K-9

I think a Barca player came out with similar this week, basically saying Arsenal was an easy draw because, well, Arsenal. Poor old Arsenal, still it will be sweeter for their fans when they eventually do win the PL.

wnolan1992

K-9 wrote: »

I think a Barca player came out with similar this week, basically saying Arsenal was an easy draw because, well, Arsenal. Poor old Arsenal, still it will be sweeter for their fans when they eventually do win the PL.

It's just a shame most of them will be long dead and buried by the time that happens...




*ducks*

I kid, I kid. :P

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Interesting episode yesterday, thought I'd downloaded the wrong podcast for a minute.

Ken has some strong feelings about 1916.

Arghus

Interesting debate yesterday. I thought Murph acquited himself well.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Arghus wrote: »

Interesting debate yesterday. I thought Murph acquited himself well.

Yeah. I thought Ken was a little too definite in his opinions. He had some points but the thing about 1916 leading to there being two football teams was a bit weird. I don't know all the ins and outs of it but plenty of other sports didn't split so it seemed a bit of a strange comment.

Arghus

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Yeah. I thought Ken was a little too definite in his opinions. He had some points but the thing about 1916 leading to there being two football teams was a bit weird. I don't know all the ins and outs of it but plenty of other sports didn't split so it seemed a bit of a strange comment.

It's Ken's style really: grand pronouncements. These work really well within the confines of footballing talk. You can spout off about just about anything there. And because so much of of all football opinion is totally subjective you don't always have to be,or even attempt to be, factually correct in what you have to say and, sure, at the end of the day it's only a game, so whose feelings are you really hurting a lot of the time?

It gets a bit more problematic when you are talking about a historical event that's still pretty politically "hot" and open to interpretation, even a century later. I love the free form nature of Second Captains but you'd have to wonder if it was the right place for this particular discussion. I love Ken and all, but I think he might be exactly the wrong type of person to talk about something like this. Not because he made no sense - he made a few points that I agreed with - but that his style of argument is so definite and yet kind of speculative all at the same time. That's all well and good when you're speculating about something like the content of Louis Van Gaal's thoughts, but when you're coming down hard in favour of the surity of potential alternate histories versus - as Murph rightly said - the reality of what actually happened... well then there's a danger you can sound like a Jackass and, I think, at times he did.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

^ Exactly.

He was throwing out random alternative histories like they were certainties and was pretty dismissive of Murphs attempts to argue that it's impossible to know. I was glad Murph mentioned the Ulster Covenant which for me always guaranteed a divided island. It seems highly unlikely we wouldn't have got to that eventually, one way or the other. Ken seemed 100% sure that it was all 1916's fault.

Also I think at one point he was kind of comparing the Rising to ISIS?

Arghus

It also felt weird that after such a heated debate, that he was totally absent from the very next segment; which had overlapping subject matter with what he and Murph had just finished arguing about. I know Ken always scoots off whenever the GAA bit rears it head, but if he's going to bring up a contrarian point of view about that particular historical era - seemingly just to get it off his chest - then he should have stuck around to have a chat with a fellow journalist, who has done the research and the writing about that time. I know it would have broke from the established routine, but, as it was, they were already getting hot under the collar about politics and history, why not push the boat all the way out?

Has there ever been a reason given forwhy Ken never, ever participates in The GAA or Rugby segments? He doesn't seem shy on voicing an opinion on just about anything else, so why is he muzzled when they come around?

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Arghus wrote: »

Has there ever been a reason given forwhy Ken never, ever participates in The GAA or Rugby segments? He doesn't seem shy on voicing an opinion on just about anything else, so why is he muzzled when they come around?

I'd assume he doesn't have an educated enough opinion, if that's the right way to put it, to actually join in the conversations when they go beyond something very general. He sometimes joins in at the start or end when they just briefly touch on something GAA or Rugby related. I find that annoying sometimes too though as he will often have a really strong opinion on something but pretty much admit he doesn't know that much about what ever it is they are discussing.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Also I assume the podcast is not recorded in the order it's presented in. Some of the guest bits maybe have to be recorded in advance whenever the person is available. The interview with the GAA guy may have already been recorded minus Ken before himself and Murph duked it out.

Ol' Donie

Just listened to the Ken & Murph bit.

Didn't seem like a big deal to me.

Say Your Number

They've managed to get another free trip to America, fair play to them!

wnolan1992

TBH guys, I think Ken was trolling initially.

In the opening segment of the show, if you listen back, Ken almost sounds like he's got a big smirk on his face as if he knows this is going to wind up a lot of people. He was making some valid points, but he was injecting his customary hyperbole for effect.

The second half of the discussion which came after the GAA guy interview sounded far more genuine.

At least that's how it sounded to me.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Also I think at one point he was kind of comparing the Rising to ISIS?

That's a common comparison tbh. I'm not sure I fully agree with it, but I definitely see where people are coming from when they say it. ISIS feel Islam is being oppressed by the west, are using violence to unite the world under Islam. 1916 volunteers felt Ireland was being oppressed by Britain, used violence to unite Ireland under their banner.

That's obviously a HUGE oversimplification, and I don't really think this is the appropriate forum for discussing it, but I can see where the comparison would come from.

K-9

Ah yeah, Ken was being controversial, I'd say he got some nice tweets about it!

Off the ball had a good one about the GAA and the Rising as well. I think it is better to focus on the writer who obviously knows far more about it than listeners do. Plus people who do these things thing usually are nuanced and not definitive on it because well, it's history.

Without getting too much into it, the modern day example is probably N.I. Could we have had ceasefires and the GFA earlied? Most definitely. How likely was it considering the different sides involved? Who knows!

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Say Your Number wrote: »

They've managed to get another free trip to America, fair play to them!

It'll be in or around the time of the NBA playoffs, I think?

I hope Golden State don't make it that far, just so they have to talk about someone else

Mr.Prodston

Ken was obviously at the Martin O'Neill press conference during that chat anyway or preparing for the football show in some capacity. The same way Murph is never on during the football show interviews bar perhaps when Richie's in.

Ken being Ken isn't a bad thing and it's good to hear other points of view anyway. All he did was challenge the conventional wisdom in the manner we've come to know and love. I think he made some good points that you wouldn't usually get to hear.