Two Michael Owens but there's only one Barry Davies

Philip Reid/TV View:Let's be honest about this. Sports commentators, by their nature, are more prone to errors than most other broadcasters.

It has all to do with the speed of a game and, of course, mistaken identity occurs regularly in live situations . . . what you don't do, though, is to draw attention to your mistake.

In such positions, what you do is gloss over the error and get on with the commentary as if the blooper never happened. Have a hard neck, if you like.

You'd think that Barry Davies would know better at this stage, wouldn't you? But no, the man who has given us such immortal utterances in the past as: "Poland nil, England nil . . . though England are now looking the better value for their nil"; "Lukic saved with his foot, which is all part of the goalkeeper's arm"; "the crowd think that Todd handled the ball . . . they must have seen something that nobody else did"; "Cantona's expression is saying the whole French dictionary without saying a word"; and "the Dutch look like a huge jar of marmalade," was up to his old tricks again in the BBC's live coverage of the Liverpool-Newcastle match on Saturday evening.

Of course, if Barry had been watching Sky Sport's live FA Cup match earlier in the day - Chelsea's visit to non-league Scarborough - he could be excused for his case of mistaken identity, or for seeing double.

On the pitch at the McCain Stadium was a man, with a Page Three girl (Nicola and Joanne, we were told) on either arm, who looked for all the world like Chelsea's billionaire owner Roman Abramovich. Except it wasn't, because the Russian oil magnet was away on a cruise somewhere and this interloper was in fact a "double" who had been hired for publicity shots for the day.

There were more cases of double vision. The match commentator informed us that one of Scarborough's players - Ashley Sestanovich - had, once upon a time, been hired for a television commercial because of his uncanny resemblance to the Arsenal and French striker Thierry Henry.

All of which might explain why poor Barry was seeing double just one minute and 11 seconds into the encounter at Anfield, a game that got off to a whirlwind start and, for a time, looked set to live up to all the pre-match hype that the Beeb (desperate the FA Cup should not be relegated to a bit competition) had invested in the game.

Barry's mistake was not in making a mistake - everyone is human, and errors occur regularly in sports commentary - it was in repeatedly drawing attention to it.

Anyway, here's what happened. Barry made the mistake of crediting Liverpool's first goal to Michael Owen. ". . . good double block and Owen scores," he shouted into his microphone. Then there followed a pregnant pause, followed by a muttered, "Cheyrou scores." Too late!

Now, what Barry should have done was to leave it at that. Get on with it because, to be honest, most people wouldn't have noticed that he had initially credited Owen with the goal. But Barry's problem is that he is too honest.

So, Barry being Barry, he had to tell us why he could make such a mistake in the first place and, in doing so, he only exacerbated matters.

"The only other thing wrong about the goal," Barry informed us, "is the hairstyle of Cheyrou - it's remarkably similar to that of Michael Owen." Okay, fine, you've explained it Barry. But, no, there's more. "Although he is not in the least bit like him. Apologies. Schoolmaster's report can only get better."

All this provoked a few giggles from his co-commentator Mark Lawrenson. "One of them has had a shave as well," quipped the former Republic of Ireland defender, rubbing salt into the wound with the fact that not only does Owen not look anything like Bruno Cheyrou but that the Englishman also had a healthy stubble on his face, unlike the clean-shaven goalscorer.

Obviously, the case of mistaken identity got to Barry, who seemed haunted by his error. Some time later, when most of us had forgotten the incident and simply wanted to watch the match, he reminded us of his mistake as the Liverpool striker played a pass out to the wing. "This for sure is Michael Owen . . . he's wearing number 10 and he's a bit shorter than Cheyrou . . . let's leave it at that." And, thankfully, he did.

There was to be another gem later on from Barry. After Cheyrou - no case of mistaken identity this time - had scored his and Liverpool's second goal, and the cameras focused in on Anfield manager Gerard Houllier, Davies remarked, "It's been a hard day's night for many a week now."

Don't you just love him?