Radio WM

[dave.woodhall]

I could never understand why anyone took George Gavin seriously. He was a clown who would come out with ever-more hysteria and hyperbole, his shock jockism was so clearly faked as to be embarrassing and above all he was a coward who could dish it out but was totally unable to take even the mildest criticism. That he's been doing the Sky Sports graveyard shift for twenty years sums him up.

I quite enjoyed your dissection of his criticism of H & V in one of the early editions. So whilst he stuck up for the Villa he was indeed the paupers Tony Butler of local radio.

He would often devote large chunks of his programme to slagging us, although never saying why. He went through one issue page by page, but missing out the page where he was criticised. I don't think he ever understood what good advertising it was.

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

I could never understand why anyone took George Gavin seriously. He was a clown who would come out with ever-more hysteria and hyperbole, his shock jockism was so clearly faked as to be embarrassing and above all he was a coward who could dish it out but was totally unable to take even the mildest criticism. That he's been doing the Sky Sports graveyard shift for twenty years sums him up.

I think everyone knew he was a wind-up merchant, but at least it was directed more towards Blues/Tom Ross, and was somewhat entertaining.  Better that than the "Bronx Hat Request Show" or whatever WM are serving up.

Personally, George Gavin was the voice of Villa's European adventures in the early 80s, and match reports and sports forums (fora?) thereafter; so my memories are mostly positive. 

[AV82EC]

I could never understand why anyone took George Gavin seriously. He was a clown who would come out with ever-more hysteria and hyperbole, his shock jockism was so clearly faked as to be embarrassing and above all he was a coward who could dish it out but was totally unable to take even the mildest criticism. That he's been doing the Sky Sports graveyard shift for twenty years sums him up.

I quite enjoyed your dissection of his criticism of H & V in one of the early editions. So whilst he stuck up for the Villa he was indeed the paupers Tony Butler of local radio.

He would often devote large chunks of his programme to slagging us, although never saying why. He went through one issue page by page, but missing out the page where he was criticised. I don't think he ever understood what good advertising it was.

I remember listening to that show and getting more annoyed as he went on. I particularly loved the irony in his comment "criticise the club they pretend to support".  What an idiot.
 

[dave.woodhall]

And next day we sold out. Thanks George.

[Exeter 77]

Didn't he call fanzines, and specifically H&V, 'sycophantic' and 'parasites'?

[dave.woodhall]

Didn't he call fanzines, and specifically H&V, 'sycophantic' and 'parasites'?

And we called him the poor man's Tony Butler. You could hear the nerve being touched in outer space.

[Richard E]

I'm struggling to see how you could be simultaneously "sycophantic" and "criticising the club you claim to support" but then I don't know as much about football as George Gavin, nor does anyone else in the West Midlands.

[dave.woodhall]

The daft thing was that he'd come from the Guardian, or some other broadsheet, and he was a good writer. He had a column in the Mail for a couple of years and it was way better than anything else they printed.

[Nev]

I enjoyed him ripping the piss out of Ross on a Friday night, who was making the sort of outlandish claims about what Small Heath were going to do that almost seems to define every 'nose I've ever met.

"The coconut king of fantasy island!"

[Clampy]

I didn't realise he wrote for the Mail. I liked him on BRMB, I thought him and Tom Ross were fairly entertaining back in the day.

[simon ward 50]

I'm not saying we are obsessed with WM, but 80 pages really?

[Gareth]

I could never understand why anyone took George Gavin seriously. He was a clown who would come out with ever-more hysteria and hyperbole, his shock jockism was so clearly faked as to be embarrassing and above all he was a coward who could dish it out but was totally unable to take even the mildest criticism. That he's been doing the Sky Sports graveyard shift for twenty years sums him up.

I kind of subscribe to the theory that commercial radio stations like Talksport & BRMB (or whatever it is called this week) that type of shock jock stuff is fair game because they are all about the listener numbers and generating the 50p a txt responses and the type of nonsense an Adrian Durham spouts does this.

The BBC on the other hand should hold themselves by a standard of producing quality rather than hyperbole....the one eyed pathetic output of WM brings that way into disrepute for me, when you do a phone in 5/6 days a week presented by the same clown the quality will inevitably dilute - always presuming there was ever a quality there.

[Damo70]

Didn't he call fanzines, and specifically H&V, 'sycophantic' and 'parasites'?

And we called him the poor man's Tony Butler. You could hear the nerve being touched in outer space.

He was great when he covered the Villa in his earlier days but when he took over from Butler he tried to be like him. To say he was  poor imitation of Butler would be an understatement. Butler was naturally bombastic, it was obvious Gavin was trying to create a character for himself.

[Damo70]

I'm not saying we are obsessed with WM, but 80 pages really?

Wait till someone asks if a mini cheddar is a crisp or not. 10,000 pages and then the internet explodes.

[joe_c]

I could never understand why anyone took George Gavin seriously. He was a clown who would come out with ever-more hysteria and hyperbole, his shock jockism was so clearly faked as to be embarrassing and above all he was a coward who could dish it out but was totally unable to take even the mildest criticism. That he's been doing the Sky Sports graveyard shift for twenty years sums him up.

I quite enjoyed your dissection of his criticism of H & V in one of the early editions. So whilst he stuck up for the Villa he was indeed the paupers Tony Butler of local radio.

He would often devote large chunks of his programme to slagging us, although never saying why. He went through one issue page by page, but missing out the page where he was criticised. I don't think he ever understood what good advertising it was.

I might be wrong but doesn't Gavin's antipathy towards H&V stem from asking for and being refused a free copy when it was 50p?