Bafta in the bag, surely. If the big broadcasting awards don't flow for the coverage of transfer deadline night by Sky Sports News, Martin Cranie hasn't joined Charlton Athletic on a year-long loan and Sone Aluko is still a Birmingham City player as we speak. Incredible doesn't begin to describe the energy, imagination and sheer viewer-engrossing vim that the channel brought to what is, let's face it, an evening during which nothing really happens apart from a few men in shirtsleeves faxing sheets of paper to each other behind closed doors.
Yes, obviously, there was a digital clock counting down to midnight in a strip across the screen. Did you really think for one second that they wouldn't have one of those? But, much more than that, there were the shots of London's most famous clock face marking time's inexorable march towards the witching hour and, with it, Jason Shackell's inexorable march to Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Hands up if you thought that Big Ben was a useful Croatian centre back attracting the attention of Hull City. Wrong, it's the emphatic timepiece that announces the end of a frantic night for Sky Sports News - although not, sadly, with the bongs. Maybe those are contracted to ITV.
“Even though it's nowhere near that time,” Jim White, the newscaster, said, “I feel like wishing everyone a happy new year.” There were moments throughout the evening when one thought that White might be about to cry with the emotion of it all. Ditto his partner, Sam Matterface, whose name, if it didn't exist, would have to be invented by Chris Morris and The Day Today team.
Feeding them the breaking stories was Andy “Three Mobiles” Burton. His triple-ply electronic arsenal was lined up on the desk in front of him. If you can't get him on the mobile, try him on the other mobile. Or the other mobile. Is he ever on all three at once? You'd like to see him have a go. He's potentially the only man in Britain who can phone out for a pizza, a Chinese and an Indian at the same time.
Peter Snow, eat your heart out. General election nights wish they could be half as exciting as this. Robinho looked a certainty to be voted in at Chelsea, but an unexpectedly high turnout of cash in the Eastlands constituency of Manchester brought about a massive swing to the north for the tearful Brazilian. Alan Myers was live in the borough, improvising the part of a returning officer, while a group of about 40 City fans pogoed on top of him, honking: “We've got Robinho, we've got Robinho.”
“It was never like this for David Dimbleby,” Myers must have muttered to himself as he briefly became the filling in a replica-shirt sandwich.
Back in the comfort of the studio, White dryly remarked: “Good to see Alan and so many members of the Myers family out so late at night.” It's easy for him to talk, though. On these occasions, all that White has to look out for over his shoulders is a thick plate of glass, screening what appears to be Mission Control in Houston - rank upon rank of monitors. Amazing the amount of technology required to keep tabs on Antoine Sibierski's situation at Norwich City.
Yet, for all Myers's physical discomfort, he had it easy by comparison with the reporter dispatched to stand outside the Tottenham Hotspur training ground in Chigwell. It looked pretty closed, as training grounds tend to at that sort of hour, and the only source of light was the one falling on our reporter's face, making it appear that he had just levered himself out of an escape tunnel at the request of a guard with a torch.
“I've been joined by a few Tottenham fans,” our reporter said. Two, to be precise. Neither of them seemed to be in a party mood (“I just feel disappointed, in the main”), but nor would you be in the circumstances. You've lost your best player to Manchester United and you're being questioned at the bottom of an abandoned lane in Essex at midnight. Those kinds of things can bring a person low.
Who will forget, though, the sight of Sir Alex Ferguson and Dimitar Berbatov looming chillingly behind frosted glass at Old Trafford and David Gill, the United chief executive, closing his blind (finally)? Or Rob Dorset, in Stoke, insisting that, somewhere behind him, “Tony Pulis is running from one office to the next” - a memorable image.
Or David Craig in Gateshead, in a room full of old television parts. What was he doing indoors? Are you telling me there were no Newcastle United fans standing outside St James' Park becoming photogenically angry or happy about something? If so, it was the only night of the year on which this could have been the case.
Unless, of course, they were at home, watching it on the telly. Good move, if so.
FROM: TIMESONLINE
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