Andy “Neville” Halliday Is Everywhere, But Which Version Are We Supposed To Believe?

I’ve got a question, and it’s one that’s been bothering me for a while now.

Why the f**k is Andy Halliday everywhere?

Seriously, is there a Scottish football programme left that doesn’t feature the former Rangers midfielder?

Turn on Sportsound, there’s Andy. Settle down for Sportscene, he’s there again.

Clyde 1 Phone In? Hi Andy can I talk to the panel.

Stick on Open Goal, and you’ll find him sitting alongside Si Ferry and the boys.

At this rate, I’ll open the fridge looking for milk and find Halliday standing beside the butter explaining why Celtic’s midfield isn’t functioning.

It’s getting ridiculous.

Before anybody gets carried away, I’m not demanding that Halliday be removed from broadcasting. The guy is perfectly entitled to earn a living, and fair play to him for carving out a successful career in the media.

All I’m asking is whether we could possibly get through one Scottish football weekend without hearing his opinion.

Surely that’s not unreasonable?

From Open Goal To Absolutely Everywhere

During lockdown, I remember watching Halliday on Open Goal alongside Si Ferry, listening to some of the stories he’d accumulated throughout his career.

Some of it was absolutely hilarious.

The man was an absolute goldmine of dressing-room stories. Every time you thought he’d finished revealing something that probably should’ve stayed behind closed doors, he’d casually launch into another tale.

I remember thinking, f**king hell, does anybody who’s ever shared a dressing room with Andy Halliday have any secrets left?

You wouldn’t dare tell him what you were getting somebody for Christmas. By the time you’d wrapped the present, he’d have told Si Ferry, Slaney and half of Scotland what was inside it.

But that was the beauty of those appearances. Halliday was entertaining, refreshingly unfiltered and seemingly incapable of keeping a good story to himself.

He was often outrageous and certainly not somebody I expected to see presenting himself as one of Scottish football’s leading analytical voices.

Yet here we are.

Somewhere along the line, the entertaining former Rangers player became a permanent fixture across Scottish football broadcasting.

He’s now rapidly turning into our very own Gary Neville.

Believe me, that’s not a compliment.

When Sky Sports Became Gary Neville TV

If you watch enough English football, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Sky Sports has practically become Gary Neville Sports.

You tune in for a big Premier League fixture and there’s Gary Neville doing a pre-match interview in the tunnel.

Then the match starts, and he’s on co-commentary.

Full-time arrives, and you think you might finally get a break from him. Not a chance.

He’s wandered into the studio, where Roy Keane and the rest of the panel are sitting, and before long Neville has taken over the post-match debate as well.

Just when you think you’ve heard his final word on the game, there’s the Gary Neville podcast waiting for you.

It’s relentless.

And that’s before you even get to The Overlap, where Neville has established another enormous platform for himself.

Gary Neville has become such a dominant personality in football media that escaping his opinion is practically impossible.

Pre-match, during the match, post-match, podcasts, interviews, debates. Everywhere you turn, there’s another helping of Neville.

Scottish football really doesn’t need to copy that particular broadcasting model.

Is Andy Halliday Heading In The Same Direction?

Now, I’m not suggesting Andy Halliday possesses anything like Neville’s influence, financial resources or standing within the broadcasting industry.

The two situations are clearly different.

Neville has built an enormous media operation and carries the sort of profile that allows him to shape conversations across multiple platforms.

Halliday, I suspect, is simply making the most of the opportunities being offered to him.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Football careers don’t last forever, and if somebody can turn their playing experience into a decent living afterwards, good luck to them.

However, from the perspective of somebody actually consuming all this football coverage, the end result is starting to feel remarkably familiar.

Halliday is on Open Goal, Sportsound, Sportscene and seemingly every other programme that requires somebody to discuss Scottish football.

You can watch him having a laugh with Slaney one evening, then hear him delivering serious analysis on the BBC the next.

At some point, you begin wondering whether there’s anybody else available.

But the sheer volume of appearances isn’t actually my biggest problem.

There’s something else about this arrangement that doesn’t sit particularly comfortably with me.

The Social Chameleon Of Scottish Football?

Ian Brown once explored the idea of the social chameleon, somebody who changes to suit the company around them within his track “Corpses In Their Mouths”.

That description came back to me when I started thinking about Halliday’s increasingly varied broadcasting roles.

Let me explain.

On Open Goal, Halliday is perfectly comfortable embracing his football allegiances, enjoying the rivalry and having a laugh when Celtic are struggling, at times the staunchness is in full flow let’s be real.

Recently, he and Slaney were involved in a live watchalong for Celtic’s trip to Benfica.

As a Celtic supporter, I don’t particularly enjoy watching somebody take pleasure in my team’s difficulties, but I understand the attraction for that audience.

Nobody is forcing me to watch it.

What bothers me is what happens when I turn on the BBC.

Suddenly, I’m supposed to approach Halliday as a completely different broadcasting personality, listening to his assessment of Celtic as though I’ve never seen the other side of him.

Why should I have to do that?

I’m still watching Andy Halliday.

The television channel has changed. His surroundings are different, and the tone of the conversation might be more restrained.

But the person offering the opinion hasn’t changed.

I don’t want to spend my evening working out which version of somebody I’m supposed to be listening to.

If I’ve watched a pundit openly enjoying Celtic’s misfortune in one setting, that experience doesn’t simply disappear from my mind because he’s now sitting in a BBC studio.

Nor should I be expected to pretend it does.

That’s not an accusation that Halliday deliberately misleads anybody. Plenty of former players manage to separate their personal allegiances from their professional responsibilities.

Perhaps he’s perfectly capable of doing exactly that.

However, audiences are entitled to form their own opinions about a pundit’s credibility based on everything they’ve seen and heard from that individual.

For me, those appearances don’t exist in separate little boxes.

The Andy Halliday on Open Goal and the Andy Halliday on BBC Scotland are the same person.

And I’m not convinced broadcasters always appreciate how difficult it can be for supporters to ignore that distinction.

Scottish Football Has More Than One Pundit

To be fair, Halliday has played the media game brilliantly.

He’s comfortable in front of a microphone, understands what gets people talking and clearly isn’t frightened of offering an opinion.

His association with Open Goal gave him a platform, and he’s managed to turn that into regular broadcasting opportunities.

Good luck to him.

What I don’t understand is the apparent obsession among producers with booking the same familiar personalities for absolutely everything.

It’s bizarre as well as lazy.

Somebody becomes popular on one programme, so another broadcaster signs them up. Before long, they’re appearing on three different shows discussing the same incident from the previous weekend.

Eventually, you begin to wonder whether there’s anybody else left in the building.

Scottish football has plenty of former players, coaches, journalists and personalities capable of offering something different.

There must be people out there with fresh stories, alternative perspectives and opinions we haven’t already heard four times since Saturday.

Would giving a few of them an opportunity really be such a terrible idea?

You might even discover somebody who’s entertaining without already having spent half the week talking into a microphone.

Enough Andy For One Week

As a player, I couldn’t stand Andy Halliday, albeit his ability never offended me, we all know why.

That’s hardly a revelation. He represented Rangers, embraced the rivalry and was never going to be particularly popular among Celtic supporters.

None of that prevents me from acknowledging that he’s been entertaining in the media.

His early Open Goal appearances were genuinely funny, and there are still occasions when I enjoy listening to him.

The problem is that there’s a difference between enjoying somebody’s contribution and wanting them involved in every football conversation imaginable.

Personally, I’ve reached saturation point.

I don’t need the full Andy Halliday broadcasting experience across television, radio, podcasts, live shows and whatever else somebody decides to launch next week.

Of course, the man isn’t personally responsible for every producer deciding to book him.

If broadcasters keep offering you work, you’re hardly going to turn around and tell them to stop phoning.

Somebody somewhere, though, needs to consider giving the rest of us a night off.

The Gary Neville experience has already shown us what happens when one personality becomes practically unavoidable.

Halliday might not possess Neville’s broadcasting empire, but he’s certainly threatening to match him for the number of times we hear his voice in a single week.

And frankly, I’m getting a little tired of it.

Andy, take a night off, mate.

Even just one.

I’ll happily watch the football without you explaining what I’ve just seen.