Gp Commentaries

[tigerhart 0]

Would anyone like to join me in starting a movement to get the appallingly vocabularyly challenged Tony Millard removed from the rota of GP commentators?

He is, and has been for some time, an acute embarrassment - which is the kindest thing I can say about him. He ruins for me every GP at which he commentates.

Now, I've done a bit of commentating myself, so I know it's not easy, but this bumbling buffoon peppers his commentaries with well-worn cliches, but he does not have the endearing eccentricities of a Murray Walker to make them enduarble.

He trots out things such as: 'The starting marshall moves away . . '. when we can see that he is, but he does it nearly every race. 'Wheel perfect . . . that man . . . pillar to post . . . the battle is joined . . . and, god help us, we all know that Leigh Adams comes from Mildura and is goodness knows how many times Australian Champion. Millard just won't stop talking, believing that repeating the name of a rider is good commentating - oh, another of his threatbare sayings is: 'disappointment for . . . ' when someone has just finished last. At the Mallilla GP he did not even know which year it was that Phil Crump had been on the World Final rostrum, and then he got it wrong. Crump was third in 1976, not second. Unforgiveable!

I know some of Millard's colleagues consider him a . . . well, if I say I might get banned from the Forum. I wonder if there are any others who feel the same as I do. Actually I'd like to get him on a charge of bringing speedway into disrepute. Telling people that speedway machines have no brakes and no gears (the sport is nearly 80 years old, for heaven's sake) is like telling people cricket is played with a wooden bat and a leather ball.

And we could, while were about it, get Steve Brandon and Sophie Blake onto a training course to learn how to interview.

Edited August 12, 2007 by tigerhart

[The Cat 0]

I thought it was great when he called Kelvin Colin last night, Kelvin did not seemed best pleased and sharply corrected him!!!

[rabbit 1]

I played the 'Tony Millard disappoints' game last night, - it was originally going to be a drinking game based on how many times Millard says disappointed, disappointing and disappointment but seeing he said it over 20 times before I got bored tallying after heat 16 perhaps best not. I'd have been trollied after heat 8.

 

And Agree the Cat, when he called Kelvin Colin - quality moment and not even a flicker from Millard when Kelvin quickly and very smoothly corrected him.

[norbold 7,116]

I thought the best one last night was when he complained that Scott Nicholls had been left off the overall standings caption at the end of the programme, because, by his reckoning he should have been in 9th place with 50 points. The fact he was shown as 8th with 50 points seemed to have completely passed him by.

[SCB 0]

I sat there all night waiting for "Thriller in Mallila"and guess what? He said it about heat 15 Great stuff

 

Tony is needed for the crap GP's just so you can play Millard bingo to pass the time.

[Ron Butler 0]

Millard's, ladies and gentlemen, a great arsett to televised speedway! I think he could justifiably be introduced as the Man of Mildewra.

 

Still he's not bad for a man who so ably demonstrates his lack of knowledge about the sport.

 

Ron.

Edited August 12, 2007 by Ron Butler

[jackson 0]

I agree he certainly grates after a while.

 

As for Colin...oops i mean Kelvin... have you all noticed how many super races he comments on or how many super riders he watches, in fact he thinks its all quite super.....maybe apart from Millards commentary!!!

[John Leslie 3,213]

The Millardism that bugs me more than any other is "line abreast".

 

One race last night three riders went up the back straight side by side and Kelvin said they went into the back straight 'three abreast'....fair enough....three in a line.

 

But Millard says they've gone into the back straight "line abreast". what the hell is that supposed to mean?

[piratewoman 0]

According to Collins Dictionary, line ahead or line abreast means 'a formation adopted by a naval unit for manoeuvring'. How that can apply to four individual speedway riders is anyone's guess.

 

Edit: found another definition online - 'A line abreast is a line of bearing in which the relative bearing from one ship to another in the line is either 090 or 270 (i.e., the ships are side by side).'

 

So, side by side then. (Why not say that?)

Edited August 12, 2007 by piratewoman

[heathen79 6]

So, while we're on the thread, how about a definitive list of Millard-isms...

 

"line abreast"

 

"Thriller in Manilla"

 

"xxx will have to come again"

 

"Disappointment for xxx"

 

etc

[tigerhart 0]

I'm indeed gratified that there are so many like-minded people when it comes to Millard's mangling of the language - or what little grasp he has of it - at GPs. I must confess I didn't catch the Colin for Kelvin . . . but then I don't get SkySportsXtra, so was up at 3am to catch the Thrilla In Mallila on Sky Sports 3, so may not have been fully awake.

I used to think it was just me who was reduced to cowering in the corner chewing my fingernails . . .

But the big puzzle is: Why does Sky keep him on?

I think I'll have some SACK MILLARD! badges and T-shirts made.

Edited August 12, 2007 by tigerhart

[screm 8,057]

I thought it was great when he called Kelvin Colin last night, Kelvin did not seemed best pleased and sharply corrected him!!!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Millard is a disaster but we will have to get used to him for GPs as now the football season has started Nigel Pearson will be with Talk Sport.So its more wrong riders in races,ding dong battles and battle is joined comments.Also stupid stats,by the way where was Jason Crump born ?Plonker

[tigerblues 10]

Disappointment at the back.. (for argument's sake) Chris Harris has got work to do.. dong-dong battle.. Jason Crump born in Bristol.. the man from Mildura.. and as already mentioned, Thriller in Malilla Our Millard eh, I think he fitted them all in a good few times last night. Complain all you like and call for him to be sacked or whatever else, but boring GPs and not much to shout about makes me think, how bored would I be without him

Edited August 12, 2007 by tigerblues

[colincooke 0]

I'm indeed gratified that there are so many like-minded people when it comes to Millard's mangling of the language - or what little grasp he has of it - at GPs. I must confess I didn't catch the Colin for Kelvin . . . but then I don't get SkySportsXtra, so was up at 3am to catch the Thrilla In Mallila on Sky Sports 3, so may not have been fully awake.

I used to think it was just me who was reduced to cowering in the corner chewing my fingernails . . .

But the big puzzle is: Why does Sky keep him on?

I think I'll have some SACK MILLARD! badges and T-shirts made.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Does anyone know who the heck Chris Nicholls is by the way???

[SCB 0]

Bucking and rearing,

XXX leads, and XXX has passed YYY for 3rd (XXX was never leading!),

Like a knife through butter,

Man from Mildura,

Bristol born Aussie,

XXX goes marching on (it's an old one now with the knock out format no longer used)

 

 

Some where in the yahoo lists archive is a list of about 30 Millardisms that someone compiled for people to play Millard Bingo with.