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Looking out from Port William
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
I was delighted to read Gerry Hassan’s weekend essay ‘The fall of BBC’s Sportscene and why it matters’ (18 April). It is surely time that BBC Scotland looked seriously at the quality of its sports productions. Sadly, the criticisms that Gerry Hassan properly levels could equally be levelled at Radio Scotland’s efforts.
When I was a child – I confess long before traffic wardens were invented – my father always encouraged me to listen to the radio, and in those days that meant the BBC. A child could learn to speak properly from the radio: grammar, pronunciation, sentence construction, syntax etc – all these things were correct. Nowadays, I am sure he would give me no such encouragement so far as Radio Scotland is concerned.
We hear from some contributors to Scotland’s national radio such gems as ‘I have saw’, ‘I seen’, ‘he done’ etc. Glottal stops are the order of the day; the letter ‘t’ has disappeared; gerunds and gerundives end in ‘in’ and not ‘ing’. It would appear that a sine qua non for an ex-footballer is a total ignorance of past participles.
Let me make it clear that I approve totally of regional accents. They are part of our heritage. However, accents are to be sharply distinguished from slovenly speech. Sadly, the latter is commonplace especially in football programmes on Radio Scotland. Every Saturday it broadcasts a programme where you will hear the most slovenly speech imaginable. I for one would never want any grandchild of mine to speak in that way. The obligation of a broadcaster to be a role model in speech is lost on our national broadcaster. I have already complained to the controller of BBC Scotland and inquired what he proposes to do about it – I am still waiting to hear. I suspect I shall have a long wait.
Leonard Murray
I agree entirely with Gerry Hassan about the low quality and direness of Sportscene. But my complaint lies at a more basic level. It ought not to be called Sportscene but Footballscene as there is never any reference to any other sport. When you think of all that goes on throughout the country on a Saturday over a huge range of sports there is surely a case for a genuine Sportscene and not just the boring stuff we get served up as ‘sport’.
David A Keddie
Gerry Hassan would like to see ‘some of those Joe Jordan headers’. So would I, especially the one he appeared to head in with his fist to scupper Welsh qualification for the World Cup. We were living in Dollar at the time and even our Scottish neighbours sympathised with us.
Edgar Lloyd
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