1960's Football on BBCtv

[Don Sirrell]

Before "Match of the Day" was first screened on BBC2 on August 22nd 1964, football highlights had been included on "Sports Special" but does anyone know how regular highlights were before MOTD (every Saturday? matches of great importance only? FA Cup ties only?).

And with BBC2 only available to a small number of households, did the majority of BBC viewers then have to live without football highlights until August 1966 when MOTD switched to BBC1 after the success of the World Cup?

[Aidan Lunn]

I watched the 40th anniversary BBC2 show, and that said that it switched to BBC1 on the second week. Match of the day on BBC-2 (which is how BBC2 was written at this time in Radio times, with the dash) became match of the Day 2.

[Don Sirrell]

Aidan said:

I watched the 40th anniversary BBC2 show, and that said that it switched to BBC1 on the second week. .

That would be a mistake, The first MOTD on BBC1 was West Ham v Chelsea on 20/08/66, Ken Wolstenholme introduced the game by saying "Welcome to those who have followed us from BBC2 to BBC1, but a special welcome to those new viewers who have been won over by the World Cup."

[Ronnie McDevitt]

I have a dozen or so Radio Times editions covering the 1963-4 season prior to MOTDs launch.
Sports Special is only listed in two of these - 16/11/63 which featured QPR V Gillingham in the first round of the FA Cup - and Scotland V England (International Special) on 11/04/64 which also featured rugby highlights of France V Ireland.
This suggests Sports Special was broadcast on an iregular basis to cover the big ocasions.
A regular Wednesday night programme on the BBC, certainly during that season, was Sportsview introduced by Frank Bough. Looking at the listings I suspect this was mainly a preview of the fortcoming weekends fixtures.
Incidentally 'Match of the Day - The Complete Record' lists details of all the games covered between the first programme in 1964 and the books' publication in 1992.
It would cetainly be interesting to see such detailed listings for all other football covered - not just Sports Special but also all the midweek editions of Sportsnight.
The book also confirms that MOTD made the switch to BBC1 a mere three weeks after the 1966 World Cup Final.

[Don Sirrell]

Perhaps prior to 1966, BBC1 only ever had the rights to the FA Cup and internationals and the channel continued with highlights of those for seasons 1964/65 & 1965/66. MOTD on BBC2 only showed one FA Cup tie in its’ first season and no internationals.

It is a great shame that Motson’s book didn’t include the matches included on “Sportsnight” as an appendix, some mid-week highlights were certainly among the most memorable on BBC Television. In the days before live coverage of anything other than internationals and the cup final, “Sportsnight” was the only place to see many of the classic FA Cup semi-final replays on TV.

[Chris D]

Just curious, does anyone know what the survival rate of MOTDs from the 1960s and 70s is? Its just that when UK gold repeated old editions several years back, many of the 1970s ones were shown in black and white. Presumabaly the orginals were wiped at some point, but off air recordings must have been found somewhere( I can't imagine they'd been telerecorded).

[Mark Boulton]

Aidan Lunn wrote:
I watched the 40th anniversary BBC2 show, and that said that it switched to BBC1 on the second week. .

That's funny. I recorded the 40th anniversary show onto DVD when it was first shown and have watched it twice since then, and I don't recall and can't find any such assertion.

Chris D wrote:
when UK gold repeated old editions several years back, many of the 1970s ones were shown in black and white. Presumabaly the orginals were wiped at some point

The same MOTD at 40 show includes a clip of the first Jimmy Hill edition (his intro just as the title music finishes), which is indeed recorded in glorious Chormondley-Warner-vision.

[andrew martin]

Chris said:

Just curious, does anyone know what the survival rate of MOTDs from the 1960s and 70s is? Its just that when UK gold repeated old editions several years back, many of the 1970s ones were shown in black and white. Presumabaly the orginals were wiped at some point, but off air recordings must have been found somewhere( I can't imagine they'd been telerecorded).

"Match of the Day" was routinely telerecorded in fact for many years, both by the Sports Department (as an easy viewing copy) and by BBC Enterprises for sales purposes. There are vast amounts of sport, especially football, from the 70s on film recording.