Friday 30 September 2011

Tim Russon's Greatest Moments

As Oxford prepare to make the relatively short hop to Hereford tomorrow, we thought we'd pay homage to Hereford's vice-chairman Tim Russon, who is now into his second year as a club director after taking over in June of last year. Perhaps a director of an opposing team is an odd choice of subject matter for a blog to choose, but Oxford fans will be familiar with Russon from the many years he spent as the face of Central South TV sports round-ups throughout the 1990s. With reports characterised by elaborate and frankly ridiculous metaphors and cheesy puns, Tim Russon provided the voice to some of the most hilarious football highlights packages ever to grace local news.


 Here are a few of our favourites:

Russon was never one to let a good pun escape unmade and matches played over the Christmas period are ripe for punnery. Every year they managed to slip something in, with references ranging from wishbones to jingle bells. This one, complete with references to 'bags full of presents', 'Christmas crackers' and 'Christmas cheer', has to be the pick of the bunch.




Derby day is usually a big story for local news and with Oxford and Swindon meeting regularly there was ample opportunity to milk it. This video, from United's trip to Swindon in 96/97, is my personal favourite. Tim Russon clearly shares Oxford fans' anger at some blatant Swindon cheating, but the exasperation with which he delivers his final line is truly the icing on the cake of this report.




Bonfire night provides yet another excuse to crack out the puns, and in this classic a ridiculous firework metaphor is somehow sustained over two minutes of highlights, with references to sparklers and jumping jacks left, right and centre.




A trip to the coast is the perfect excuse to pull out the big book of maritime puns; a book which must have been looking fairly tatty after the rigorous use it would have received while writing the voiceover for this highlights package. I count six puns in 30 seconds, which must be some kind of record.



0 comments:

Post a Comment