Mark Pougatch was mowing the lawn on a Friday afternoon when the voice from the radio described a goal that had gone in from around the grounds. A shocking defensive error. A gift. He didn’t catch the team, nor the player, but what rang in his ear was the word used to describe it.
It was a disaster.
Down went the mower and the veteran broadcaster fired up his social media.
‘Football reporters should never ever, ever, ever use the word ‘disaster’ in relation to giving a goal away,’ he posted on X. ‘We’ve just marked the Hillsborough tragedy. Check your language. Do much better.’
More than two million views later and his words caused quite a stir. His post sparked a backlash from fans online accusing him of not only taking the word out of context but also adopting a sanctimonious tone towards his industry colleagues.
If anything, he was simply reading from the Richie Benaud book of broadcasting. The legendary cricket commentator, who once admonished former Australia captain Mark Taylor for describing Shane Warne ‘tragically’ getting out on 99, sent an email to a journalist in 2012 listing his unofficial rules of the commentary box that included: ‘The Titanic was a tragedy, the Ethiopian drought a disaster, and neither bears any relation to a dropped catch.’
Mark Pougatch does not regret insisting football reporters should never use the word ‘disaster’ in relation to conceding a goal, but admits his post may have been interpreted as arrogant
The broadcaster’s post was viewed more than two million times and has received a backlash
Pougatch’s post came days after the 37th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster was marked
‘I don’t regret for a second what I said,’ Pougatch tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘I do accept that it came across a bit lecturing and might have been interpreted as arrogant. I take that punch on the chin and I apologise for that. It shouldn’t have been couched in that way. I won’t be so punchy next time, that’s for sure.
‘I wasn’t setting out to be so, I’ve just always felt that word in particular has so many connotations, which I think is irrelevant and inappropriate when it comes to sport.
‘I remember very clearly sitting on my sofa in my university holidays watching the Hillsborough disaster unfold. I’d watched football in the away end at Hillsborough. I’d watched football in the 80s, I knew how fans were treated. It had a big impact on me.
‘Language is powerful and meaningful. If we continue to use that word all the time in sport then it loses its meaning and becomes debased to the extent that when there is another disaster – a proper, human disaster – that word is in danger of losing all meaning.
‘I’d just heard it on the radio that day too many times, and particularly in the week of the Hillsborough memorial and I just went: no, no, no, that’s enough. I was very surprised by the reaction.’
The internet being the internet, of course, meant it also did not take long for old posts or videos to resurface: one of Pougatch after England’s defeat to Italy in the Euro 2020 final referring to Marcus Rashford’s missed penalty as being the ‘real killer’ and another when he wrote on his own X account in 2019 that the closure of a Cornish ice cream shop was a ‘complete disaster’.
‘I was thinking last week that killer word is good example, that after the Kai Havertz miss for Arsenal they need someone in front of goal,’ adds Pougatch. ‘Could you say that they need a killer in front of goal? Or an assassin? Would that be appropriate? It’s got me thinking about the language I use.
‘Whenever I’ve been on the air and something has happened in the world I’ve always said to the people I work with to please mind their language. We should mind our language every single day.
After Kai Havertz miss against Man City, Pougatch wondered whether saying Arsenal need ‘a killer in front of goal’ would be appropriate after using similar on a previous broadcast
Pougatch admits he has been thinking about the language he uses and has already thought about the words he would use if England go out of this summer’s FIFA World Cup
‘I always think you can contextualise things. Someone asked me would it be a financial disaster if Tottenham went down and I said, well, you’ve put it in the context of finance, haven’t you? It’s the finiteness of it which I’ve always found really uncomfortable.
‘I know not everyone agrees with me. That’s fine. If it makes us think about the language we use, that’s probably not a bad thing. I’ve already thought about what words I would use if England lose in the last 32 of the World Cup.’
He wonders whether he’d framed it in a more gentle, open manner – ‘should we be having a debate about this sort of language’, for example – it would have had the same sort of impact. That’s social media for you.
That brings us to the shifting landscape that is broadcast media. Pougatch has been in the game for 35 years and will soon start a role presenting the drive-time slot on new digital station Track Radio, returning to the airwaves for the first time since leaving BBC Radio 5 Live, that launches on May 4 to rival his old station and talkSPORT as part of a team that includes Daily Mail Sport’s Charlotte Daly.
‘If you open the Daily Mail this morning, there’s, there’s county cricket, there’s racing, there’s tennis outside of Wimbledon,’ says Pougatch. ‘There is sport every single day that people are really interested in. Football has become such a behemoth that unless you are careful we in the media can allow it to squash and obscure everything. If you’re a very broad church, which is what we want to be, that we think there’s an audience out there.’
The main difference from when Pougatch first started out on the waves of Greater London Radio is that people consume their sport in so many different ways. You no longer need to wait to find out who scored against whom and how. Goals are beamed to your device within seconds on social media. Pougatch is on TikTok now. You simply cannot get left behind. ‘You cannot be King Canute, you cannot turn back the tide,’ he says.
This, he thinks, is perhaps part of the reason why Football Focus, a show he presented during his career, has been brutally axed by the BBC after 52 years on the air.
‘I was sad to read it,’ he says. ‘I loved it but, maybe, I was sad to read it because that’s another part of my childhood like, you know, On The Ball and Sportsnight and Grandstand.
‘The truth is I hadn’t watched it for such a long time and there’s no particular reason why I hadn’t. When I was growing up, it was the place to be for goals as much as anything but it was also the place for those interviews too. I could never quite work out whether the collision…’
Pougatch was sad to read that the BBC have decided to end Football Focus after 52 days, suggesting that coming up against the 12.30 kick off may have been a crucial factor
The broadcaster will lead ITV’s coverage from the FIFA World Cup, where he will look to get the best out of their punditry team, including Roy Keane
Pougatch stops himself. ‘There’s another word. Should we use that word?’
‘…whether coming up against the 12.30pm kick-off meant that people aren’t as interested in watching a preview show. Well, the figures would say that people just don’t particularly want to watch it.’
One event that millions will want to tune in to watch, however, will be the World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada. Pougatch will once again lead ITV’s coverage across the pond where the broadcaster will base themselves in a New York Studio with dramatic views of Brooklyn Bridge while rivals BBC will use their studio in Salford and do not plan to send pundits out until the quarter-finals. For the group stages, Wayne Rooney and co will give their thoughts from Greater Manchester instead of the Big Apple.
‘I have no idea why they’re not going to go out for a bit but, from our point of view, to tell the whole of experience of a World Cup in America, it’s a lot easier when you’re in America,’ he says. ‘It’s certainly a lot easier for the pundits to _feel _that we’re in America. This is different. These are the stories. We’re a commercial organisation. We’ve got to sell advertising and they want to be associated with something that looks fun and exciting and, I suppose, glitzy.
‘The most important thing is it’s free to air. Everyone can watch. That’s significant. The men’s World Cup is the biggest show on earth and this one will be absolutely huge. I’ve worked on every World Cup this century
‘I remember when England played Denmark in Euro 2020 at Wembley. My mate Ben text me to say good luck and that he’d be watching it from the pub. I replied: “Ben, but you don’t like football!” and he came back: “I know, but this is England”.’
The key, he thinks, is that it’s in our nature for us all to want to feel a part of something and nothing unites a nation like England doing well at a World Cup. He felt something similar at the weekend when, like thousands of others, he lined the streets to cheer on his daughter Isobel running the London Marathon to raise money for a cancer charity Treatment Bag. Two runners in front of him came to the aid of a woman who was struggling with a few miles to go and carried her along with them.
‘I was thinking, without being too worthy, there’s so much crap going on in the world, I was reassured by the sort of instinctive human goodness,’ he says.
When the World Cup comes around, Pougatch alongside fellow anchor Laura Woods will be the ones tasked with getting the best out of ITV’s pundits or, to put it another way, to keep Roy Keane in check.
‘It’s not a question of keeping him in check, it’s just thinking about what I’m going to ask him,’ laughs Pougatch. ‘He’s been there. He’s played in a World Cup in America. What’s the impact of the heat? Take us inside the dressing room.
‘He’s a great team player. Great company. Loves talking about his dogs. So do I, so we bond on that.’
When he has a morning off, other than thinking about Solo the labrador and Bambino the Jack Russell, Pougatch will wander the streets of New York as he does at every tournament he’s covered for the last 25 years. Absorb the way of life, the rhythm and the bounce and the customs of the country you’re in. Listen to the radio, get a feel for the people and the place.
And, of course, to consider what language he might use if England do triumph – and the words he won’t if they don’t.
