Iain Todd says there is no excuse for "Only An Excuse"

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IainTodd — By Iain Todd (@iainmacivertodd)

Congratulations to Chelsea who became the first club from London to win the European Cup. The big talking point of the game wasn’t the missed penalties, the negativity of Chelsea’s play or how stunning Chelsea’s physio is. On that note do check out Eva Carneiro on Google. I’ve currently got a groin strain and I’m sure she is the cause and cure of it.

The big talking point was John Terry, suspended for the final and forced to sit in the stand, turning up at the end on the pitch in his strip to collect the trophy. He should be ashamed of himself for stealing the glory from his team mates but he is a a man who [allegedly. Ed.] steals girlfriends from his team mates so shame is not a feeling he pays much attention to.

Eva Carneiro. Single-handledly rescuing the sexy image of a Chelsea shirt from the 20-year shadow of David Mellor.

Within seconds of this act the jokes had started.

John Terry has just turned up at my wedding. He’s wearing a grooms outfit and he ‘s trying to kiss the bride.
John Terry is going to his daughter’s sports day this week…. He’s wearing his full PE kit in case she wins

So why within seconds of an event happening can football fans write great jokes but with a whole year to prepare the BBC can’t come up with one decent joke for “Only An Excuse”.

“Only an Excuse” is a Scottish institution which is on every Hogmanay containing topical sketches about what has happened in football. Like most institutions it’s resolutely stuck in the past, has no relevance to most people, and is in shockingly poor condition. It is so bad that even Will Mellor, star of 2 pints of lager and a packet of crisps, would turn it down for lacking jokes. I rewatched a couple of old episodes and this is the best joke they do:

“Hello. I’m John Boyle the very camp owner of Motherwell.” This gets a huge laugh as the audience recognise it’s John Boyle the very camp owner of motherwell.
<John waves his arms in a camp manner.> The audience laugh again. Nothing funny has happened yet but maybe the audience came from a taping of Mrs Brown’s boys and thus have very low standards.
“I work with pat nevin.” This gets a huge laugh as the audience again recognize a name
<The camera cuts to Pat Nevin.> Another huge laugh as they recognise it is pat nevin.
bye now.

This sketch then generates wild applause from the audience. The applause can’t be for the sketch so it must be for themselves for either a) sitting through this nonsense or b) the fact they managed to recognizes two people based on the highly difficult clue of the persons name.

I did an unscientific straw poll of people to see what they thought of the show. Of the ten folk I asked (male/female and different ages) not one person said anything good about the show but they had all seen it! In fact they had all watched it every year even though they didn’t like it. The most common expression was “well. I thought this year it might be good!”

So this is a plea to football fans and non football fans. Don’t put up with dross. As the 1980’s children’s TV show said “Why Don’t You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go and Do Something Less Boring Instead?”

PS – Before we had “Only An Excuse” we had Rikki Fulton. So that this piece isn’t too negative lets finish with one of his great football sketches.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUXhW3JC9Zw&w=420&h=315]

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About the Author
Iain “Toddinho” Todd mistakenly believes he could have been a professional footballer if only the ‘The Claude Makelele role’ had been invented in the 1980’s. Unfortunately his ability to be neither a defender or a midfielder meant he could often be found on the bench. His greatest achievement was a match winning hat trick which the local paper reported as been scored by his twin brother and his brother wasn’t even playing that day. He recently celebrated 25 years of playing 5 aside footy and has nothing to show for it other than a dodgy hip.

Iain Todd graduated from Charlie Ross’s comedy class and has subsequently shown why Charlie should fail some students. He does open spots as one half of “The Brothers Todd” – the third best comedy twin
act in the world! Only three comedy twin acts are in the world so they are also the world’s worst. They make Jedward look talented.

He stalks celebrities at @iainmacivertodd

Iain Todd says there is no excuse for “Only An Excuse”

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