Voices of Football: Barry Davies, English football's renaissance man

Quick to criticise and economical with his language, Barry Davies was a unique voice within English football.

There has long been a strand of anti-intellectualism within football which can occasionally be somewhat distasteful, to say the least. It’s the culture that saw Graeme Le Saux labelled as “gay” because he read a broadsheet newspaper and collected antiques. It’s a culture that keeps professional footballers in a state of artificial infantilism until the end of their careers in the misguided belief that this will engender some sort of “team spirit”.

It’s a culture which often saw Barry Davies, the BBC football commentator, labelled as “pompous” and “superior” because he occasionally dared to use words of more than one syllable. It is perhaps appropriate, given football’s inherent uniformity, that one of Davies’ most fondly remembered moments of commentary came with a goal which acts as a twenty second long moment of beauty and elegance from such naturally gifted players, Justin Fashanu.