Sky Sports’ Alan Irwin’s attempts at providing transfer deadline reportage took a bit of a hit Monday, specifically a blow to the head in the form of a purple dildo. The Guardian’s Barry Glendenning witnessed the attack, writing, “if we’d known that’s all you had to do to wring cheap schoolboy giggles out of an audience of football enthusiasts, it would have saved us an awful lot of effort down the years.”
“Millions of viewers followed our coverage of transfer deadline day, which included over 270 live reporter updates from outside football clubs over the final 24 hours,” said a Sky Sports statement you could kind of tell was hoping to divert attention towards the 269 live reports that didn’t feature a fearsome looking bedroom aid. “We apologise to those whose enjoyment was spoiled by a small number of incidents and we’re looking into ways to avoid this happening again in the future whilst ensuring fans remain a key part our live coverage.”
While the Fiver can appreciate that having their put-upon reporters surrounded by gurning delinquents shouting abuse and making rude hand gestures only enhances the Sky Sports News deadline day party for viewers, one way “to avoid this happening again” might be to ask football clubs to set aside a wee corral inside their stadia or training grounds so the poor sods can go about their thankless task safe in the knowledge that the next loon to attack one of them won’t be brandishing something steelier, sharper and even more penetrative than that purple monstrosity. Indeed, it seems they’ve already done that but the clubs in question have declined to co-operate on the perfectly understandable grounds that they’d rather the Sky troops weren’t deployed anywhere near their stadia and training grounds on deadline day at all.