Danny Murphy: The co-commentator who leaves us wanting more

Stories, stories everywhere at this World Cup, especially now, with the knockout stage finally raging. Jeopardy! Heartbreak! Redemption! “You couldn’t write the script, could you?” Gabby Logan breathed from the BBC’s Salford studio, after Erling Haaland had scored the goal to send Norway through against Ivory Coast.

Actually, let’s not get carried away with that last one. Haaland does score quite frequently, after all, and if a plot-twist is actually odds-on at the bookies I’m not sure we need to wonder whether Hollywood’s finest creatives would have baulked at its conception. Later that night, Kylian Mbappé scored twice for France and we seemed to have reached a confusing place where “you couldn’t write the script” meets “it had to be him”. So is this stuff completely unforeseeable or entirely inevitable? Football commentary can never quite decide.

Perhaps Danny Murphy can help. Murphy, we should state here, is a notably independent observer of the game who, on these big tournament occasions, is rarely confused with a cheerleader. Indeed, his claim to the title of ‘Pundit Least Likely to Join in with Norway’s Viking Row’ has never looked under threat out there in the Americas, even from Lee ‘I’m not a big fan of that’ Dixon, whom many had backed to give Murphy a run for his money this time round.

But call off the contest forever, frankly, because here was Murphy saying, in an even tone, as Oscar Bobb of Norway came into view: “We used to have a cat called Bob. He jumped in the back of a Royal Mail van and they lost him. Quite sad, really. Anyway.”

Now that, I would contend, was something you genuinely couldn’t have scripted. I don’t mean the story about Bob. You could script that easily. ‘Bob’s Incredible Journey’: accidentally shipped to the other end of the country by careless postal operatives, Bob the cat has to find his way home across a sequence of increasingly intimidating terrains with only the unlikely assistance of an eccentric travelling mouse who hooks up with him along the way before leading him to a tear-jerking reunion with his future football star owner. Bosh.

No, the part you couldn’t script was Murphy telling us about Bob, right there, midway through a World Cup knockout game between Ivory Coast and Norway. This was, to put it lightly, a radical re-imagining of the co-commentary role on Murphy’s part. You think, at this point in the competition, that you understand pretty clearly what that job’s requirements are: a lot of redundant counter-pointing, the odd correction of your original impression after a look at the replay, and maybe every now and again (quite a lot, actually, if you are Ally McCoist) a foray into mildly tiresome bantz with the commentator alongside you, probably involving your own abilities as a former player or something the commentator is wearing that day.

Few practitioners, I think I’m right in alleging, have looked at the co-commentary seat and seen a potential couch on which to open up abruptly about their childhood traumas, nor really, if we’re being honest, to open up any kind of conversation worth having at all.

Yet was Murphy praised for having the courage to think outside the commentary box, as it were, and find this new path? On the contrary: he was roasted for it. Headline in The Sun: “Paw Form: BBC viewers have World Cup clash ruined as Danny Murphy tells depressing story about his cat.” Random online reactions: “@bbcsport charging TV licence for this”; “Even the cat couldn’t stand listening to this man any more”; “Send him home.”

Harsh on Murphy. As if losing Bob wasn’t enough. Poor Bob. Obviously, most things that get in the back of Royal Mail vans end up lost, but Bob wasn’t to know that, was he?

I have to say, thoughts about Danny and Bob rather coloured the rest of my week, and, far from accusing the former Liverpool midfielder of ruining the game, I’m saying hats off to him for going there. If nothing else, it left those of us at home in a highly unusual position in relation to remarks made by co-commentators at this World Cup: keen to hear more.

Feature image – BBC