It'll be interesting to see if they try to do the egalitarian BBC thing and try to squeeze in as many teams as possible or whether they tell it like it really is and make it one endless round of Liverpool, Arsenal and Man Utd matches.
Place your bets here: How may seconds of coverage will Charlton get? I'll kick-off with a big fat 0 (zero) seconds. Anything more than that and I'll be pleasantly surprised.
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Next week, celebrating 48 years of England World Cup success!
To be fair to the Beeb, the ITV years was one of the few things that the programme covered well.
It could have been brilliant, so many football clips to show & they talk to musicians who know & care nothing about football. Mark 1 out of 10.
most ridiculous of all was Harry Redknapp's memory of watching MOTD as "a kid",.."on a 9"inch screen.". He was nearly 18 when it started...
Much better, I thought, was the complete screening of the very first Match of the Day in 1964, at Anfield for the Liverpool v Arsenal game. It lasted about 45 minutes, will be on iPlayer and is worth a look. I'd seen the goals before on the 'Match of the Day; the 60s' video, but it is interesting to watch the extended highlights to see how differently (and more slowly) the game was played in those days. it is also a bit unlikely now that the home crowd will burst into spontaneous applause when the opposition score a good goal.
In the early years, only one match was shown on Saturday night, usually - but not always - from the old First Division. As for Charlton, the only time I remember us getting that slot was in the 68/69 season when my old barber at Plumstead Corner, Bert (clearly a man in the know), disclosed to me in hushed and quasi-confidential tones that Charlton v Hull was going to be on Match of the Day on Saturday. Sure enough, the scaffolding had been erected on the old East terrace when we arrived at the Valley on Saturday. Very exciting at the time. There is even a YouTube of the highlights -
Amazing now to think that this game - and no other - was beamed into everyone's home that Saturday night.
I'm pretty sure that, the following season, Match of the Day then started showing two games and I remember us being on at the start of the 1969/70 season for the game at Swindon Town. I recall that there were extended highlights, although there is only a short YouTube entry of the goals (probably just as well in view of the score) and Motty's introduction reflects a regional coverage. Watch out for Arthur Horsfield, although Don Rogers and Peter Noble did the damage.
Just leave sport alone ITV and stick to what you do best, which is showing a load of old crap.
It was annoying how they'd focus on 3 games then show 30 second highlights of all the other games. That's something MOTD does well. It gives all games very good coverage