A Tribute To Sexist Old Andy Gray

After a long, hard night staring into the bottom of a whiskey glass, listening to Blood on the Tracks and wondering how it all came to this, The Spoiler reached an epiphany at around four o'clock this morning…

Let's remember the good times, shall we? From the garish early '90s suits through to the giant iPads and starship studios — Andy Gray, you really weren't that bad (at your job; the sexist stuff was bad).

Gray was there at the start of the Premier League/Premiership along with Martin Tyler and they formed a lovely double act. With Tyler unable to summon any kind of emotion above a "Lawrenson-meh," Gray was an excitable foil. He seemed happy to be there and was always on hand to shout something like Take a bow, son!"

TAKE A BOW, SON! It was brilliant. Far better than anything Little Britain or Catherine Tate ever came up with. It's entered the football lexicon, kids run up and down the street screaming it at each other while kicking an empty tin of pop — you can't move without hearing it. Great stuff.

He was one of the few to do proper analysis of the game. Whether using magnets on a blackboard or MASSIVE touch screen super-computers, he did provide some very good insight. He was more than happy to look at the movement of players and offer an alternative when a mistake was made, rather than a MOTD-endorsed "should have done better there."

But perhaps our favourite thing about Andy Gray was when his inner-schizophrenic came out and he imagined conversations between players: "Kevin Richardson has looked up there and Saunders has gone ‘Okay, son, stick it on my chest.' Richardson has gone ‘alright, boss.' Tony Daley bursts through…" Lovely, lovely stuff.

Anyway, after all that glowing praise, here's our favourite Andy Gray moment. It's basically him screaming.

This post, written by Richard Anderson, is republished with permission from The Spoiler. Go there often if you like soccer stuff.