This week, MikeTV has been watching:

This was part two of a three part documentary series which aims to track the changes in the environment surrounding English football over the last decade and a half. Part 1 took us from the Heysel riot in 1985 to Arsenal’s league win in 1989. This second programme covered the development of the Premier League and the rise to popularity of Ryan Giggs duvet covers.

MikeTV watched for nostalgic reasons - he had forgotten about Chris Waddle’s mullet - and also to find out something he didn’t already know. In this, he was somewhat disappointed. Perhaps the most impressive nugget of wisdom emerged from David Platt. In the context of the emergence of football as hip at the 1990 World Cup, he described his winning goal against Belgium: “We had been playing for almost 2 hours, when you consider the 90 minutes normal time and the 30 minutes extra time”. You’ll have no argument there, Platty. Maybe MikeTV is being just a bit unfair - he was surprised to learn that Sky was losing £10 million per week in 1992 when it won the rights to the Premier League. It is also too easy to castigate Manchester United for hyping and over-merchandising football - the man who grew their merchandising income from £1 million to £30 million in 5 years was recruited from Tottenham Hotspur. How they must have laughed at his ideas for Gary Mabbutt lampshades! Sky and football have worked hand in hand also - their glitzy coverage was matched by the emergence of players with, shall we say, exuberant personalities: Eric Cantona, Ian Wright & co.

All in all, this is a harmless enough series lacking the depth you would expect on BBC2 on a Tuesday. Oh yeah, Fever Pitch got mentioned too.

The philosopher-king of football (you know, the French bloke with the turned-up collar) appeared in this clip from a French TV chatshow. Some TV boss with a black sense of humour put Cantona at a table with half a dozen journalists - needless to say, Eric launched into his spiel about how nobody in France understood or respected him. Much shouting and finger-pointing ensued and a couple of journalists walked off - MikeTV suspects that they thought he didn’t have sufficient opportunities to work off his anger playing for his beach football team.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of the whole thing was Cantona’s defence of Belmardi, a Marseille player. Last weekend, Belmardi took exception to a certain section of the crowd behind the goal, took his boot off and lashed it into them, hitting a small boy. Eric doesn’t understand why the boy’s father wants to prosecute - the player was 20 metres away and the boy was only caught in the neck, after all. Plus ça change ….

MikeTV likes football. MikeTV likes comedy. MikeTV likes the colour blue. MikeTV likes biscuits. MikeTV likes quizzes and game shows.

Therefore, as he settled into his favourite blue chair with a packet of fig rolls to watch Jumpers For Goalposts (a football game show with a comedic bent), he was in hog heaven. Unfortunately, not for long. This programme sucks donkeys and other assorted farmyard animals. This is the expansion of a Fast Show sketch, and not one of the funniest at that, into a series. The joke is too lame and is not helped by the fact that the key participants are too clever and smug by half, relying on the viewer’s presumed knowledge of their characters for laughs rather than saying and doing things that are funny - MikeTV finds that this can sometimes be a successful ingredient in a comedy programme. Its Nationwide League panel of guests doesn’t bode well either - David Essex, John Fashanu, a guy from STEPS and a woman from Eastenders who isn’t Mel (MikeTV likes Mel too - he has a fantasy involving her and some chocolate Hob-Nobs, but that’s for another day). However, like The Men Who Changed Football, it was instructive in demonstrating the impact of money on the game. In a Through-The-Keyhole style round they visit players’ homes and it was astonishing to see how an average player like Robbie Savage at an average team like Leicester can have a Ferrari and such appalling taste in interior design.

It was really out of a sense of duty to his readers rather than a passionate interest that MikeTV tuned into Sky’s weekly round-up of Australia’s ninth most popular sport.

MikeTV cannot say for certain how popular soccer is down under, but it is certainly a long way behind Aussie Rules (the national game), cricket, rugby union and rugby league (all sports made more attractive by the likelihood of giving the Poms a hiding every now and then). This week was a good week to tune in - Woollongong Wolves beat Newcastle United 9-4 in the highest scoring match ever. MikeTV admired the Wolves for their tenacity - 5-0 up at the interval, they never really let up and chased the game right to the end. However they did concede three in the last five minutes, despite the best efforts of a defender who went to block a shot on the line with his face in injury-time, only for the rebound to be knocked in. Newcastle’s fourth did undoubtedly make the scoreline more respectable - it was their highest score away from home all season.

There was also a heartwarming story about 16 year old Trent McLenahan from Parramatta. Apparently, he’s “living proof that dreams come true”, on account of having won a three year “scholarship” with West Ham. Awww, bless! He’s a defender by trade, so expect to see him soon when Winterburn and Pearce finally give up the ghost.

Ever since Chris Morris played for Ireland, MikeTV has been wary of making fun of a national catastrophe. If there is a positive spin-off from the crisis, it has been for Derek Davis’s media career - it’s a kind of Live at 3 for sheep, only now his audience are being slaughtered in their thousands. Derek did advise that “when down the country, avoid moving from one place to another”. MikeTV wants to do his bit to help prevent Foot and Mouth, so when he was visiting MammyTV this weekend (down the country) he attempted to avoid driving her to the shops on the basis that it required him to get out of bed (thereby moving from one place) and go to Dunnes Stores (another place). MammyTV failed to see the logic in this argument.

What has this got to do with football? Derek said that football is still banned on pitches where there has been grazing since February 1st. MikeTV is a city boy, but it doesn’t seem to him a good idea that there should ever be grazing on pitches. There’s the risk of infection if you have an open cut and are sliding around where animals have left their steaming calling cards. Also, what happens if you turn up for your game and the cows say “Sorry lads, we have the pitch booked”. MikeTV can tell you that you’ll get nowhere trying to reason with livestock.