Lord Beefy has ruffled feathers with his comments on England’s schedule and he has a point – just not the one he thinks he’s making
I
t was a shock to hear, this week, that Ian Botham had launched a new podcast. But only because I had assumed he already had one. It seemed impossible that the life peer was the last purveyor of strong opinions to have no permanent platform on Acast. Perhaps he has simply been too content to vent: after all, Brexit is a triumph and cricket is racism-free.
But perhaps he was cannily waiting for the dadcasting trend to peak and usher in the age of the granddadcast. This new venture with his old Question of Sport buddy Bill Beaumont will, undoubtedly, appeal to a certain demographic (myself included) who grew up watching the pair josh with each other across a perennially indulgent David Coleman.
In that sense, the show practically commissions itself, even if the title – Old Boys, New Balls! – seems rather anonymous (and, since the ICEC report, we all know how Botham feels about anonymity). Was “The Rest is Balls” already taken? Or maybe dub it “Lord Botham and Sir Bill” to entice Radio 4 listeners hoping for a previously undiscovered medieval epic.
