TalkSport Hires Andy Gray And Richard Keys To Host Radio Show

Inspired by Andy Gray and Richard Keys joining TalkSport radio, I am about to present a new theory of memtics that I believe to be vital to the understanding of the universe at large. The ramifications of said theory will touch the lives of humankind across the planet, and, I hope, provide meaning to billions of lives.

Bearing all of the above in mind, I think it’s pretty clear why Gray and Keys are now on TalkSport.

Alas, neither Andy Gray nor Richard Keys remained unemployed for long following their dismissal from Sky Sports. TalkSport, a UK radio station with a fairly poor reputation, has picked up the two, presumably in their talking-about-football-not-women capacity, and I’m sure they’ll form a strong partnership on the radio.

For those not in the know, Gray was fired from his job as a Sky Sports pundit following misogynistic comments towards assistant referee Sian Massey several weeks ago followed by further evidence of workplace misconduct. Keys resigned shortly thereafter after in similar circumstances, alleging ‘dark forces’ were attempting to bring him down.

It appears as if a week later Sian Massey cannot just move past the sexist comments made by Andy Gray and Richard Keys, even if she wants to. After being withdrawn from her assignment to a League Two match on Tuesday, Massey will supposed to return to officiating on Saturday for a Conference North match between Corby Town and Eastwood on Saturday. That return is being put on hold though after the Professional Game Match Officials group withdrew her from the assignment after speaking with Massey.

“The focus needs to be on the match not the officials,” a PGMO spokesman said. “It would be unfair on the clubs.”

Massey was scheduled to officiate a League Two match on Tuesday, but stood down after the comments caused controversy and intense media scrutiny. Gray and Keys said that Massey didn’t know the offside rule because she is a woman and the comments eventually led to Gray losing his job and Keys resigning.

Graham Drury, the Corby manager, told BBC Radio Northampton: “If they’ve dropped her to our level [because of the row], that’s a shame. She stamps her authority on the game and she interacts with players well. We’ve got a top referee for this game. The sex of the person in the middle doesn’t affect me. I don’t mind whether it’s a man, woman or even an elephant refereeing a game of mine – as long as they do it properly. We’ve had Sian before and she had a fantastic game.”

With the news of Richard Keys’ resignation, another ignominious section of the Sky Sports’ crisis management manual is finished, a manual that every company with a significant public face should devour before adopting their media policies. Sky has reacted with fecklessness in the face of a call to action, something that has made the company the third, complicit man in the booth for Sunday’s exchange regarding Sian Massey. When people serving as the public face of a company act reprehensibly, your continued association with them is cause to think the company reprehensible.

For two days after Andy Gray shared his wisdom, Sky allowed that link to persist, terminating him only after more footage emerged, footage that strengthened the link between the company and Gray’s prejudice. Two sexist faces of our company not enough for you? Here, here’s a third, one more concerned about whether Sian Massey’s a looker than anything actually relevant to the coverage. Still, the Andy Burton tape gave Sky an out - the ability to argue Gray’s surreptitiously recorded off-air comments were more than an isolated occurrence. Unfortunately, the perceived need for more evidence leaves the lasting implication that some sexism at Sky can be mildly tolerated. Again, another chapter of the crisis manual to study, for all the wrong reasons.

Richard Keys has followed Andy Gray out of Sky Sports today, but unlike his former partner, Keys has chosen to leave of his own accord rather than simply being dumped by the sports network giant after a series of tapes featuring rather controversial - and undeniably sexist - comments from both men have come to light over the past few days. Although Keys had attempted to smooth things over with a rather baffling public apology, which included an attack on the ‘dark forces’ conspiring against him and a defence of his comments as mere laddish banter, he was as blundering today as he had been during the weekend, when off-air conversations between he and Gray revealed their beliefs that there was no way female official Sian Massey could be competent enough to work the lines during a match.

New footage has come to light which only paints Keys in a worse light - being caught referring to women as ‘it’ isn’t going to do him any favours at all - and to be honest there wouldn’t be much of a shock if the studio crew had decided that enough was enough regarding this sort of behaviour. Certainly, the leaked footage came from inside Sky, which rather lends credence to an internal conspiracy forcing Keys and Gray out.

Keys, who ‘could not believe the frenzy that has blown up,’ is talking about quitting of his own accord, and he might as well fall on his own sword before Sky gives the baffled man the axe. It comes as no surprise to anybody that Keys isn’t aware that perpetrating a culture of bullying, sexism, and demeaning lad humour in a workplace is something that might be considered wrong in any way - he’s busy apologising for individual comments (he had some good banter with Sian Massey later, he claimed, which makes it all better I suppose) and not the whole being a loud mysogynist bit. In other words, he doesn’t get it.

Sky Sports was one day too late in firing Andy Gray. That Richard Keys still has a job hints that a certain level of sexism (one incident, surreptitiously exposed) is acceptable, ironic considering Sky used the term “unacceptable” when describing their views. And unfortunately, as Graham points out, the retaining of Keys may be but a footnote in the list of unacceptable aspects of English football culture implicitly highlighted by this incident.

It’s a state of affairs Graham has no tolerance for, even if the Gray-Keys affair creates an opportunity to unveil the ills a “[f*cking] stupid” football culture. Vitriolic and with no taste for word-parsing, Graham lets loose his frustrations in a must read at We Ain’t Got No History, SB Nation’s Chelsea community blog.

Gray was a mainstay of a culture of institutionalised homophobia/racism/sexism/anti-intellectualism that permeates football’s old guard, so, again, it’s not particularly surprising that there was more nastiness to be found under the hood. Many will dismiss his comments to Keys (and to reporter Andy Burton, whose leaked conversation with Gray has gotten him a telling off from Sky as well) as mere macho banter, which rather misses the fact that Gray sounded deadly serious about these views in the recordings.

Ultimately, this is a good thing for football. While we may disagree about how this came to light - leaking private conversations is a deeply, deeply awful thing to do - it’s about time the culture of English football was exposed for what it is: A fetid, stinking, prejudiced mess.

Sky Sports will leave out presenters Andy Gray and Richard Keys for today’s Premier League match featuring Chelsea’s trip to Bolton after the two were heard making sexist remarks. The remarks in question which were caught on tape by the Mail on Sunday concerned West Ham’s vice-chair Karren Brady and Premier League official Sian Massey who featured as lineswoman in Saturday’s early match between Wolves and Liverpool.

Regarding Massey, whose performance was flawless on Saturday, Keys and Gray agreed that “females don’t know the offside rule”, while Keys added in assumption that Massey would commit a huge error by stating: