Highlights of Noel Gallagher Watching the Football Highlights

Noel Gallagher, the ever opinionated satrap of nineties Britpop, featured as a pundit on football’s television institution Match of the Day last night, sitting alongside a footballer once known as Jermaine Jenas, a moustache now known as Mark Lawrenson and a vague grey silhouette which we’ve all come to refer to as BBC presenter Mark Chapman.

So was it any good? Well, Noely G doesn’t get challenged much in interviews these days, having reached a saturated level of fame that everyone seems to have agreed is beyond questioning; where every snippet of his quote-worthy and nonsensical ramblings are packaged into neat and luring news stories with headlines like “Noel Gallagher Wants to Write Songs with David Icke”, “Noel Gallagher Says He Declined Morgan Freeman’s Role in The Shawshank Redemption”, “Noel Gallagher Reckons The Taliban Would Enjoy Heathen Chemistry” and my very own “Highlights of Noel Gallagher Watching the Football Highlights”.

Obviously Match of the Day 2, a program that stokes about as much controversy as an undeveloped polaroid, wasn’t going to be changing that in a hurry. That said, the appearance of one of the UK’s most iconic musicians on one of its most iconic football programs still had its moments, mostly for the novelty of having someone relatively unrelated to football on the show, speaking about everything how normal proles like us would.

Noel’s main opening gambit immediately set the world of Twitter alight quicker than Harriet Harman at a van dealership, as he introduced the formal and prudish world of Match of the Day to the notion of “football banter”, exemplified masterfully when he shortened the Liverpool manager’s name Brendan Rodgers to “The Brodge”. As you can see, he used the Brodge joke numerous times to great effect, getting the entire studio laughing like a banquet of peasants dining with their mad and murderous king.

As if shit couldn’t get much more OUT THERE, Noel even had the daring gall to criticise a referee by calling him “psychedelic”, hurling yet another word into the MOTD football lexicon, and quickly establishing himself as the William Shakespeare of BBC sporting coverage.

Aside from that though, most of Noel’s moments were surprisingly quiet, as he sat listening to everyone else with a glaze of bewilderment, a little like a child listening to what adults talk about.

Using Twitter as a barometer, his appearance seemed to split the viewers in half, with some celebrating his appearance as “TV gold” and others asking why a musician who knows as much about football as a Sunday league linesman should get the right to be a pundit and cast judgment on professionals.

Truth is, whether you like Noel or not, the turgid analytical depths of Match of the Day were made much more palatable by the everyman japery of a fairly unrelated famous person throwing in cheeky one liners during debates about orthodox defensive formations. We'd happily see it happen again everytime Match of the Day ever occurs. If only there was another notorious and opinionated musician who openly expresses their passion for British football and could liven up the sofa next week…

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