Super Sunday?

The weekend is all about football in our house - watching football and occasionally playing football (more of this later). That said, I'm becoming increasingly disappointed with Sky Sports selection of matches for the Super Sunday marathon.

Todays programme includes another uninspiring choice of fixtures - Fulham v West Brom followed by Newcastle v Everton.

Tell me why, as a neutral football supporter, I would set aside 4 hours of my day to watch these games. The Fulham v West Brom game will, I predict, be a very cagey game with no more than a couple of goals at most. If pushed for a prediction I'd say 1-0 to Fulham. Next up will be what I predict will be an equally tight game at Newcastle where again I suspect we'll see a low scoring game with probably just one goal seperating the two teams: this time I predict a 1-0 win to Everton. In terms of impact on the league table I think it's fair to say Fulham and Newcastle will finish mid-table, West Brom will get relegated and Everton will finish sixth.

Having watched football now for 30+ years I know that you don't need a bag full of goals for a good game but the standard of football played by teams outside of the top 4 or 5 just isn't of a very high standard. To add insult to my apathy both games will be hyped up in advance by Richard Keys, Andy Gray et al and afterwards they'll try to convince me that both of the games were great examples of why the Premier League is 'the best league in the world' (sic).

I know thanks to online streaming I've got access to pretty much any game from any country around Europe (and beyond) for free but I don't want to go down that route. My solution would be to follow the Spanish television model - every weekend the top four games are shown on terrestrial and subscription channels (so we might see the games across BBC and Sky or Setanta) with all of the other games shown on Pay per View for around £8 per match. This way, the neutral gets to see the matches that matter - from the top of the table - whilst the club supporter who can't get to a game can see their team in the comfort of their own home.

Will it ever happen - who knows? A few years ago who would have thought that we'd have the choice of 8 Champions League matches on a single evening but thanks to Sky Sports (see, credit where it's due) I can choose to watch any game that I want and I just hope that in the next few years coverage of our domestic game will follow suit.