Love Them or Loathe Them Part 1: Tommy Smyth

Welcome to a new feature here on Football Is On, "Love Them or Loathe Them". This blog is about watching the beautiful game, so logically it follows that we should talk about the various faces and voices you will run into while watching games. For Part 1 we will start off with an easy target, Mr. Tommy Smyth. Tommy has been working for ESPN since 1993, calling Champions League and World Cup games here in the States and various other leagues for ESPN international. So why do people

Loathe Him?

- His accent, the man has been here for 46 years, yet somehow his accent continues to grow more Irish. To me, it's a demonstration of ESPN's line of thinking 16 years ago, "Oh he's foreign, he must know the game."
-His sayings, "The auld onion bag", "That's Smyth with a y" , grate on people to no end.
Strangely, the reasons people loathe him are much the same as those who

Love Him

-One of my friends from school, whose soccer watching is limited to Champions League on ESPN, loves Tommy Smyth. He loves the accent, and claims Tommy really knows the game

-The same friend also uses the phrase "Auld onion bag" regularly when talking about the game

-I did a search of "Hate Tommy Smyth" in writing this post, and there was a surprising lack of vitriol out there towards the man. Yes, people certainly dislike him, but there were far more defending him than I would have thought.

So how do you feel? Please vote in the poll below.

Tommy Smyth, Love or Loathe?

Love Him?

Loathe Him?

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