Legends #1: Andy Gray & Richard Keys

First off I think I should clarify what the legends category is about. In order to qualify as a legend an individual must do something morally dubious and either intentionally or unintentionally hilarious. At least that is one of the definitions. When I say morally dubious, that precludes actions that are outright wrong but cannot exclude any comment, belief or ideology held by a person. The actions of the individual don’t necessarily have to be hilarious either although it helps if they are, they merely have to create some kind of furore or controversy. In sunny Sheffield, we use the word legend constantly when talking about people but I’m still not sure exactly what the meaning of the word is when we use it in this context. Legends can be good or bad people and usually cause some sort of schism in the population as to whether they should be admired or vilified. The dictionary would define the word legend when used to describe a person as ‘one who inspires or achieves legendary fame’ but for some reason we seem to use it in a much wider context and it can include an ordinary Joe at the pub who has just done something hilarious that does not necessarily deserve respect and isn’t necessarily going to make him famous. Over the course of this blog’s life I’ll list people who I definitely know to be legends and see if I can pin down the new meaning of the word.

So first up as stated in the title – Andy Gray and Richard Keys. They are legends in much the same way as Ron Atkinson – for those who don’t know, all three are were football commentators. Ron Atkinson caused controversy in 2004 by calling Marcel Desailly a lazy nigger during a live broadcast. He erroneously believed his microphone to be off at the time but the microphone was in fact switched on and broadcast the comment to rest of Europe and the Middle East. Whilst this caused widespread condemnation by anti-racism groups and the rest of officialdom, most people found it to be absolutely fucking hilarious that someone had committed such an epic failure of a gaffe. This kind of illustrates what the word legend means, the mans morals are questionable, he did something hilarious and caused a controversy but he didn’t do anything outstandingly evil. 

Ok so now I’ve at least tried to explain what the hell the word means in the context I’m used to using it, here’s why I’ve listed Andy Gray and Richard Keys as legends. Because they reiterated in a private conversation what every male in the UK believes to be true – that women don’t understand the offside rule. Yeah sure it’s a sexist generalisation but most women don’t! I might add they didn’t do this live, the recorded conversation was leaked to the press. And then of course everything got blown massively out of proportion because their comments offended too many people and caused some kind of scandal about sexism in the game of football. Did it cause controversy – yes, and did anyone find it fucking hilarious – yes the entire fucking country – that is apart from a few overly sensitive people from political correctness pressure groups. So henceforth Andy Gray and Richard Keys shall be known as legends for their epic work in pissing off the PC brigade. Listen to their brutal conversation below. Peace!