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The BBC had a nice little idea for Football Focus last weekend, getting Manchester City fan Noel Gallagher to interview Mario Balotelli. We have a lot of time for Noel, who is an engaging presence when talking about football or indeed anything else. We loved his regular appearances on Russell Brand's radio show, and enjoy how he uses his power and celebrity to do the things he loves doing and hang out with the people he wants to meet, which is exactly how it should be.
He clearly had nothing but affection for the young Italian superstar/headcase, and the 15-minute chat - which you can watch on the BBC website here - was warm and, occasionally, funny.
However, Noel didn't get nearly as much out of Mario as everyone must have been hoping, with the guileless striker shooting down tall tale after great urban legend (no, he didn't give a tramp a grand; no, he didn't buy everyone in a Wythenshawe pub a pint; no, he didn't drive around dressed as Santa Claus). Noel looked visibly disappointed.
Turns out, that no matter how famous and likeable you are, or how much fun your subject is supposed to be, interviewing people is a both a skill and something of an art form; and even very experienced interviewers sometimes turn up a dud. We're not saying that a professional TV person might have got more interesting stories out of the shy and rather baffled Balotelli. He might not even have agreed to do the programme were it, say, Dan Walker asking the questions. But sometimes, even in our celebrity age, the professional might still be a better choice than the starry amateur. It's a shame almost no-one in TV with any power seems to believe this.
On a similar note, the BBC recently found itself in the firing line yet again when it engaged the former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan to do interviews and colour pieces from The Masters golf. Vaughan has been widely praised for his sharp and personable analysis on the BBC's Test Match Special cricket coverage but, in his own words "had a stinker" at Augusta.
He drew criticism for asking Rory McIlroy and Sergio Garcia - who had spontaneously hugged on the course after they both hit third-round birdies on the 12th - to repeat the cuddle for the BBC cameras afterwards, which does indeed sound a bit cringey but hey, it's not like the lad is a professional golf commentator or live TV director, is it?
Vaughan was also vilified for saying to Tiger Woods "...so Tiger, as a three-time winner of the event..." Woods, with the charm and good grace for which he isn't known, immediately interrupted with "I've won it four times, actually."
To judge from the vicious needling and criticism Vaughan received, you'd think he'd pushed Arnold Palmer in the lake or made an on-air joke about Darren Clarke's dead wife. Jeez, it was only a tiny mistake. Big effin deal. Had he appeared naked with a sand wedge up his bottom we'd not have cared too much. It is, after all, only TV.
In part, this is the world we live in now: everyone's a critic, everyone could do everything better than the bloke presenting/writing/talking about it, who is at best a fraud and a clown, and at worst a scumbag parasite moron who deserves to die for having a different opinion or style than their assailant. Everyone's got a hilarious vicious comment on the tip of their Twitter finger.
These days, there is no quarter given to anyone, and the rich, famous and successful are as fair game as the rest. Indeed, fame, money and success are often cited as reasons to be really unpleasant to and about people. As though it is part of the deal, a free hit, and not actually just vulgarity and nastiness.
Everyone can do someone else's job better in their own mind. We often felt it would be dead easy playing lead guitar in Dire Straits, for example. But just because you can take photographs, that doesn't make you a photographer. Just because you can type, that doesn't make you a writer. And just because you can stand in front of a camera and talk, that doesn't make you a presenter.
Yet increasingly it would appear that being on TV is the only qualification for being on TV. Once you're on, you're on. It becomes a self-feeding circle jerk. So Noel interviews Mario. Why not Gregg Wallace talking to Ashley Young about thermo-dynamics? David Walliams presenting the history of electric Chicago blues pioneers, The Butterfield Blues Band? Or Gary Lineker fronting a programme about ice cream retailers in Bridlington. Expertise matters not at all, name recognition is everything.
This is why we have ex-pros on our TVs to talk about football. Occasionally they're brilliant, mostly they are less than interesting and sometimes they are quite thick. But we've heard of them as opposed to Joe Nothing from Billingham, who we haven't heard of, but might be the world expert on Newcastle United or some other aspect of football, and be able to properly inform us.
No matter how much it should be in principle, British life and society is not a meritocracy. If it were we'd not have a Royal Family and David Cameron, fourth cousin of the Queen, wouldn't be PM. It would probably also be the case that so many TV presenters wouldn't have famous media/sporting parents (more of which next week).
Personally, we'd rather hear the expert than the name, indeed we feel we've heard too many bloody names. Names seem to matter so much to so many. They act as a brand endorsement and football, in this as in much else, assumes that we just want to spoon in the simplest babyfood on offer.
So does this Noel on Mario-style addiction to celebrity in sport serve us well? We'd argue not, but we also feel that almost no-one is bothered, that we are out of step with the modern celebrity obsession, and that this is a problem that really only annoys a small minority of people of which we are but two.
John Nicholson and Alan Tyers
Alan's new book is called 'Gin And Juice: The Victorian Guide To Parenting' and you can check it out here.
And read John's new book, 'The Meat Fix.'
Follow Alan on Twitter here or Johnny here.
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