Perils of picking the best pundit

Richard Keys is a man so hirsute that even his five o'clock shadow has a five o'clock shadow

As Big Ron said "in a funny old way it's been an excitingish game". For Big Ron, this counted as unusual coherence. Big Ron's command of the language is not unlike the command exercised by the later Roman emperors over their more distant legions - despite enormous logistical problems, and the occasional rebellion, in Big Ron's case by a recalcitrant verb and a troop of disaffected nouns, sheer force of personality invariably prevails.

As Big Ron said "in a funny old way it's been an excitingish game". For Big Ron, this counted as unusual coherence. Big Ron's command of the language is not unlike the command exercised by the later Roman emperors over their more distant legions - despite enormous logistical problems, and the occasional rebellion, in Big Ron's case by a recalcitrant verb and a troop of disaffected nouns, sheer force of personality invariably prevails.

Who else but Big Ron could have taught us to say "early doors"? Who else would have said, after his Sheffield Wednesday side of three seasons ago conceded a controversial goal to Chelsea: "If that was a penalty, I'll plait sawdust"? Nobody, that's who. Indeed, the prospect of Big Ron's slick one-twos with Clive Tyldesley, on ITV's extended highlights of England v Finland, actually persuaded me to eschew live coverage - one of the few occasions I have willingly forsaken the pleasures of a Sky Sports production available in widescreen, Dolby Surround sound and interactive too, as promised so seductively by Richard Keys.

Instead I taped Sky's coverage and watched it later. The studio pundits were Jamie Redknapp and Peter Reid, both of whom seemed to be togged out for a funeral. I presumed I had missed something, and that they were paying their respects to some 97-year-old worthy at Fifa who, despite being one of Fifa's more sprightly and indeed younger executives, had sadly expired in the night. Either that or they feared that England's chances of qualifying for the 2002 World Cup would end the afternoon dead and buried.

For a while that terrible spectre hovered over the Anfield pitch, but by the final whistle there was something approaching merriment in the Sky studio.

Keys even started chuckling at something whispered off camera, but then he was entitled to be happy. A man so hirsute that even his five o'clock shadow has a five o'clock shadow has every reason to welcome the arrival of British Summer Time. For the next seven months it will at least be a more respectable six o'clock shadow.

But back to those ITV highlights, which I watched with my friend Steve, who had brought his family round for lunch. Unaware of the result, Steve and I sat in mounting self-inflicted tension as highlights time approached. Would the continuity announcer give the game away, as he had before England v Spain at Villa Park? He didn't. But then we had to contend with Des and Tel.

Was Des smiling in a 3-0 or a 1-1 sort of way? That glint in Tel's eye - did it mean that England had won, or that Eriksson had made a balls of the job that was rightfully his? It can be an agonising business, avoiding the result of a football match.

Besides, we might just as well have watched the whole thing live on Sky in widescreen, Dolby Surround sound and interactive too, for all that we could hear of most of Big Ron's little aperçus.

Steve is a Liverpool fan and is working hard to indoctrinate his four-year-old son Sam. So there we were, door closed, well away from the nuclear-style fall-out caused by six young children playing hide and seek, and with rare wifely dispensations excusing us from the washing-up, when Steve decided that an international at Anfield featuring Michael Owen, Steven Gerrard, Sami Hyypia and Jari Litmanen, was something little Sam simply had to see. And Sam was followed into the room by my five-year-old Joseph, who despite (or very possibly because) everything I have told him about the School of Science, and Dixie Dean, and Ball-Kendall-Harvey, and the epic League Cup final replays of 1977, and Kevin Campbell's aerial power at the far post, seems to be tilting towards Chelsea in his affections.

Anyway, Sam and Joseph joined us and after asking such pertinent questions as "daddy, are England playing Everton?" and "daddy, is that Uncle Martin?" (it was Sven Goran Eriksson) starting playing soldiers. Now don't get me wrong. I'm all for inculcating in my children, and for Steve inculcating in his, a love of football. I have another son, not yet three, who already has a rudimentary understanding of the offside trap. And I am looking forward immensely to taking my kids to Goodison Park to see where I passed my formative years, even if it is by then a Tesco superstore.

But a vital World Cup qualifier, with England up against it, is a time for decorum. My own earliest memory, not just of football but of life, is of watching the 1965 Liverpool v Leeds FA Cup final on television. I was only three, but I'm sure I was respectful, asking quietly: "Daddy, are Liverpool the ones in dark grey?" On the other hand, the important thing to remember is that for Sam and Joseph, it's still very early doors.