IT’S been a bad year for commentators and I’m getting twitchy.

First we lost Bill McLaren, undoubtedly the Voice of Rugby Union, and a man who was universally popular. Now Harry Carpenter has gone.

’Arry, as ’Enry Cooper used to call him, is another man of the microphone who was accepted by one and all, as a true professional.

Harry was 84 and nobody in the broadcast industry had a bad word to say about him – ditto McLaren.

Both worked way past the recognised retirement age, and that’s the way it has always been in our game, partly I suppose because commentators love what they do and don’t want to give it up.

That’s certainly my excuse for saying yes to everything I’m still offered at the ripe old age of 67 – still young compared to the afore- mentioned icons.

There’s probably only Peter Alliss of the old breed left, and sadly we only hear his dulcet tones spasmodically.

In days of yore Dan Maskell, Brian Johnston, John Arlott, Murray Walker, Peter O’Sullivan, Henry Longhurst etc seemed to go on for ever. They were institutions and just as famous as the sporting stars they were talking about.

Sadly geniuses like Arlott and Johnston wouldn’t get a job in this age of commentating clones.

Arlott, who I had the privilege of producing on Test Match Special and Gillette Cup finals, refused to wear headphones. He couldn’t cope with talkback in his ears – a necessary evil I’m afraid, and used to throw his ‘cans’ on the desk and just talk until somebody tapped him on the shoulder to inform him it was someone else’s turn.

His style was inimitable, his choice of words, and fruity voice distinctive to the point of making him a legend.

‘Jonners’ added ‘ers’ to everybody’s names so today’s England team would have included ‘Swanners’, ‘Cookers’ and ‘Finners’. It used to be ‘Titters’ in the days of Fred Titmus, which was somehow appropriate, and with every reference produced a schoolboy fit of giggles in the commentary box.

Juvenile maybe, yet Johnston was adored by listeners and producers alike.

Atherton and Co wouldn’t get away with that style today which is somehow sad, as is the passing of Harry Carpenter. Frank Bruno, for one, would certainly agree.

NOW here goes with the weekly reference to the insanity of modern football.

Portsmouth didn’t pick Aruna Dindane for their Premier League fixture against Hull City, because his next appearance in the Pompey blue shirt will cost them £4m as a result of a clause in his contract.

That sort of money would keep my club Bradford (Park Avenue) going for two decades!

Hull are reputedly offering Iain Dowie £1m to keep them up – that’s over NINE games.

This is a man who has been sacked at Crystal Palace, Charlton, Coventry, QPR and Newcastle in the space of three-and-a-half years!

I imagine Thierry Henry gets paid a peseta or two (sorry euro these days) at Barcelona, so I was gobsmacked to hear him say he doesn’t want to play against Arsenal in the Champions League.

“I can’t imagine wearing a different colour shirt and scoring a goal against Arsenal. I can’t play against my friends,” he said.

I suspect his employers might have different ideas.

COULD you imagine Lincoln City playing in the quarter-finals of the Europa League in just 14 years time?

No, neither can I.

Yet they are 17th in League II, exactly the position occupied by Fulham in 1996, and now the Cottagers are through to the last eight in Europe after that historic triumph over Juventus.

Roy Hodgson has proved himself a miracle worker at Craven Cottage, and it must be wonderful for Fulham’s fans to be able to crow about still being in Europe, while their neighbours at the other end of the King’s Road – you know Drogba, Terry, Lampard et al – are out on their backsides.

Wasn’t it one of their most famous, Jimmy Greaves, who coined the phrase ‘Funny Old Game?’