Negotiating a way through the robust challenges of British celebrity is seldom an easeful task. Few in the public eye escape censure and even fewer manage to avoid succumbing to bitterness or the kind of acute sensitivity known only to those who have had their inner lives splashed across the outer pages of the press.
A rare exception is Gary Lineker, who returned last night for his 18th season as the Match of the Day presenter. If he has come of age in the job,
Bryan Bickell Authentic Jersey the former England striker seems to have retained a boyish enthusiasm for life in the spotlight, albeit weighted with a just-so amount of irony and self-deprecation. He also holds the affection of a sizable chunk of the nation. The two are probably not unrelated.
Last month, Lineker found himself at the centre of heated debate when the BBC released figures showing that he was the corporation’s second-highest earner, with an annual salary some loose change under £1.8m.
In these days of wage freezes and belt-tightening, that’s a number that could easily trigger the kind of envy that is often indistinguishable from raging animosity. But Lineker performed a characteristically disarming manoeuvre via the social medium of Twitter.
http://www.officialcarolinahurricanes.com/Adidas-Cam-Ward-Jersey “This whole BBC salary exposure business is an absolute outrage…” he tweeted. “I mean how can @chrisevans be on more than me?”
In one half-cumbersome, half-deft move, Lineker had cleared the air, sent himself up and roped the presenter Chris Evans into the bargain. It’s the same trick he employs in his Twitter bio, which reads: “Once kicked a ball about. Now talk about kicking a ball about. Still flogging spuds”, the latter referring to his long-term and lucrative contract as the face of Walkers Crisps.
All of this ingratiating humility is in a sense not unlike his defining skill as a footballer,
Authentic Bobby Ryan Youth Jersey which was to score in or around the six-yard box while in the act of falling over.
The effect was to lend Lineker the look of a player who was not fully in control, less than poetic in his movements, but invariably decisive in his actions. Moreover, in the course of a 16-year career, he garnered not so much as a single yellow card. The ungainly finishing and lack of aggression encouraged opponents to underestimate him – at their peril.
It’s a confounding gift that has since taken him to the pinnacle of the BBC big-earner league.
http://www.officialottawasenators.com/Adidas-Andrew-Hammond-Jersey While detractors may focus on his mugging expressions and tortuous puns, Lineker has got on with mastering the deceptive art of TV presentation.
He learned from the master himself, Des Lynam, who used to anchor Match of the Day when Lineker started out as a slightly plodding pundit, in 1995. At that time, having just hung up his football boots, he came across as gauche and rather too keen to be liked.
But Lineker studied Lynam’s casual charm and unflustered authority, the manner in which he put others at ease, not least the audience at home. “I used to ask a lot of questions about the little things that he did,” Lineker later recalled, “and picked up some of his nuances.”
