Bourn's bonus!

Granada football - from "The Kick-Off Match" to "Soccer Sunday"

Mike Whalley is a Manchester-based journalist (working at the Bolton Evening News) and he has kindly added some few extra details about Granada's football coverage.

FOOTBALL ON GRANADA

From Liverpool to Blackpool, Granada has possibly the widest range of professional clubs of any ITV region.

The channel began broadcasting its own regular regional highlights programmes in 1969, with Gerald Sinstadt (signed from Anglia) as the main commentator.

However, Granada's football coverage really began to take off in 1972, with the start of Kick Off, its own regular Friday night preview programme. The Sunday highlights show became known as The Kick Off Match. Sinstadt was the main presenter as well as the commentator, although he was helped during the 1970s by former pros such as Ian St John and Jimmy Armfield.

Kick Off became renowned during the 70s for some of its more eccentric feature ideas, which once included getting Francis Lee to dress up as a psychic medium (complete with crystal ball) to forecast the results of the weekend's FA Cup ties. Sinstadt also turned up on the set of Coronation Street to ask the cast members for predictions ahead of the 1977 FA Cup final. There was even a Kick Off Christmas choir, made up of North West players singing festive hymns.

In January 1978, Kick Off introduced a up-and-coming young reporter signed from Liverpool's Radio City. His name? Elton Welsby. Welsby began to share presenting duties with Sinstadt towards the end of the 1970s, even taking on commentary duties for a couple of games during the 1978/79 season.

By the early 1980s, Granada decided it was time to freshen up its coverage. The Kick Off Match became Match Night in 1980, while Sinstadt left Granada the following year (although he stayed with ITV for another two years, transferring to TVS in Southampton, before going freelance and then joining the BBC in 1985). Welsby took over the main presenting duties, helped by Denis Law and new commentator Martin Tyler, brought in from Yorkshire TV.

When ITV decided to scrap regional football highlights in favour of network coverage in 1983, Granada maintained a significant presence, with Welsby eventually working his way up to become The Match anchorman, and Tyler becoming ITV's number two commentator to Brian Moore before leaving for Sky in 1990.

Granada began to show intermittent highlights again from 1986, with the programme called First Division Special (or Second Division Special). Tyler acted as the show's presenter and commentator.

At the start of 1989, Granada revived Kick Off. Welsby returned as presenter, with former Radio City sports editor Clive Tyldesley joining Rob McCaffrey as a reporter. Tyldesley became Granada's main commentator following Tyler's departure.

The 1990s brought many changes to Granada's coverage. In 1990, the channel decided to opt out of the then-networked Midweek Sports Special to put out its own midweek football highlights show, Granada Soccer Night. The show occasionally featured two main matches, with researcher turned reporter Alistair Mann doing the commentary on the second match.

The following year, First Division Special became The Granada Match, and a hastily-compiled (and often shoddily-produced) Saturday teatime goals round-up followed, called Granada Goals Extra, which limped on for six years.

But losing out on the Premiership rights hit Granada hard - as they lost regular access to the Manchester and Merseyside giants. They also lost Tyldesley to the BBC, and replaced him with Rob Palmer (now with Sky). A further blow to Granada came at the end of 1994, when respected head of sport Paul Doherty - son of former Manchester City and Northern Ireland star Peter - left to form his own sports video production company.

Within six months, a mass clearout of the sports department left Granada without a commentator. During the 1995/96 season, commentary duties were shared by Yorkshire TV's John Helm and Channel 4 Football Italia man Gary Bloom. Tyldesley made the occasional return to the Granada microphone following his return to ITV in 1996, but his main regional work since then has been for Carlton.

Meanwhile, the mid-1990s saw Granada's sports department put out some pretty forgettable sports shows. Sportsnet, a supposedly Internet-based Friday teatime football round-up, was quickly replaced by The Footy Show - a Monday evening show which included the novel idea of getting a female reporter (Cerys Griffiths) to interview footballers in a jacuzzi. Another feature was Team Of The Week, a tongue-in-cheek celebration of local park football, which usually consisted of five minutes of footage of overweight gasping middle-aged men chasing a ball round a muddy field while trying to avoid falling in dog mess.

By the late 1990s, the Footy Show had been replaced by a more conventional highlights show called Soccer Sunday, while Alistair Mann had become the main commentator following a brief spell with HTV Wales.  But the main concern by now was with the man who had become the face of Granada sport. Over more than 20 years, Elton Welsby had become synonymous with televised North West football. In May 2000, his reign came to an end. Granada effectively sacked him by deciding not to renew his contract. The station refused to give a reason for his departure. After a year out of the spotlight, Welsby returned to sports broadcasting with Manchester-based Century Radio.

Today, Soccer Sunday and Soccer Night form the mainstay of Granada's football output, with Mann and James Cooper sharing the presenter duties. And even though ITV has now won back the Premiership rights, Granada has learned to cover all of its clubs with equal enthusiasm. These days, every team gets a look in - whether it's Manchester United or Macclesfield Town.

Mike Whalley

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The Taylor Report!

George Taylor spent nearly 30 years with Tyne Tees Television, latterly as Head of Sport. Now in his 70s, but still hale and hearty, he is Player Liaison Officer with Newcastle United. I spoke to him on 23rd June 2003.

"From the time it opened, "Shoot!" was a one-man show. I combined that with working on a newspaper (the Daily Mail) until I left the paper in 1963.

The early shows were done on film and inevitably a goal would be scored while you changed the reels. We were usually stuck in the corner of each ground and at St James' Park, we were above the toilet! We were in the corner at Ayresome Park and Roker Park, until we did a deal at Sunderland to take over the commentary position that had been built for the 1966 World Cup.

We were in the corner for many years at Darlington because there was no room in the Main Stand and you were firing into the sun. At Hartlepool, we were in a good position but the only problem was that kids could get at the generator and once they pulled the plug out and I had to chase them away!

When we switched from film to tape, we got some brand-new Outside Broadcast equipment. However, we had a disaster with one unit (OB3). It was the opening day of the season and we were covering Sunderland versus Leicester City. It finished 3-3, a really good game, and Sunderland had a kid called Derek Forster in goal. He was only 16, the youngest goalkeeper ever to play in the Football League at that time. I finished up at the ground, went home, had a couple of whiskeys and then my wife said there was an emergency call from the studio. There was nothing on the tape! So I had to go in and
record some sort of apology for the viewers who were expecting to see the game.

Until 1977, "Shoot!" was done totally on site, at the ground. I would record an introduction before the game, say something at half-time for the commercial break, then sum up after the game and we would do an interview if one could be arranged. When we got studio access, I hired Joe Cummings, a Sunday newspaper writer (who has since died) and Tony Green to give their comments, along with George Wardle, who was an FA coach and very knowledgeable about tactics.

"Shoot!" had a number of commentators. As well as myself, there was an Australian commentator whose name I can't recall and also George Bayley, who was then a golf correspondent. George went on to host Radio Newcastle's sports coverage for many years.

We then hired David Taylor, who had entered a "Find a Commentator" competition for the BBC. He had come 2nd or 3rd but the BBC couldn't find any work for him, so we hired him from 1970 to 1974. David also worked for Granada (NOTE : he reported for "World in Action" and co-authored an excellent book called "Web of Corruption" about the Smith - Poulson affair in the early 70s - JB) and later went to join the BBC. The last time I saw him would be about 12 years ago, when he was doing a documentary for the BBC about Sir John Hall's attempt to win control of Newcastle United. I haven't heard anything
from him since then.

In 1974, I was at an ITV network sports meeting in London and I saw a billboard for the "Evening Standard". It asked: "Whatever happened to Kenneth Wolstenholme?" So I got in touch and we hired him to commentate for us. Ken would come up on the Friday, do the odd interview for "Sportstime" that night, do his commentary the next day and then fly back to London. He was a good commentator but the drawback was that, because he wasn't living in the area, he had no local knowledge. Eventually in 1978, we got Roger Tames, who we'd hired to work on "Sportstime", to do the commentaries.

There were strict rules governing what games you could show and when you could broadcast the programme. When we were going out on Saturday nights in the 1960s, we once covered a Newcastle home match. I was talking to a director after the game and he asked when it would be shown. I said: "At 10.45 tonight." He said: "That's no good, put it on at 9pm." I said: "We can't do that because the League Management Committee (of which you're a member) won't allow us to show it any earlier than 10.45!"

We only screened one game in those days and if it was a goalless draw, you were stuck with it. Matches were selected weeks in advance in conjunction with the BBC. I was co-ordinator for the network's choice of games. We would pick two, the BBC would pick one, we would pick some more, then the BBC would pick their second game, and so on, then you went to the League for approval.

Our contract required us to cover two games every season from the Fourth Division. But even if it hadn't been in the contract, we would still have gone to Darlington and Hartlepool because, in fairness, they were in the region and were entitled to some sort of coverage. You tried to pick their games carefully. Obviously, if Newcastle were due to play Sunderland or Middlesbrough to play Man United, then you didn't want to be showing Darlington v Aldershot!

In the early days, we had no slow-motion facility. If we wanted to use slo-mo, we had to hire a facility from London and to book the lines to connect with it. But the risk was that, if there was an emergency and the network needed to use the lines, then you'd lost your slo-mo. Eventually we got our own machine.

The Tyler Report!

Martin Tyler is viewed by many people (including the previous interviewee) as the best commentator around.  On 1st November 2003, he wrote in the Daily Mirror about his beginnings in the commentary business.

I got into commentating because I went to a game that ITV were covering with a tape recorder and did one of my own commentaries. I handed it in and thought no more of it but a few weeks later a call came from what is now Meridian Television. They needed someone to cover Southampton. I was half-quaking but half-thinking: "Please send me!" In the end they sent me and I did my first-ever match.

I was very lucky because other, trained commentators had come from radio and had been given a terrific grounding. I had been a non-league player with no such background. But all you need, I suppose, is a chance. I squeezed into ITV's World Cup team in 1978 and 1982 and actually did the Final itself with Ian St John as my co-commentator. That was because Brian Moore used to front the panel in the studio.

But then - almost like a player - I became frustrated at the lack of first-team opportunities because, after the World Cup, Brian went back to doing the main games. I had no problems with him at all. He was a lovely man who taught me so much. I think, however, I was young and ambitious and very keen to get on. I owe a great deal to my former agent, John Hockey,
for what happened next. He had the foresight to realise the potential of satellite television and after I had received an offer I was reluctant to take, he had me in his office, refusing to let me out until I had signed a contract. I agreed and ended up at BSB which eventually became BSkyB.

Wolstenholme goes west

Much-loved commentator Ken Wolstenholme spent his final years in retirement in the West Country. Guy Henderson, of the Plymouth Herald Express, takes up the story:

Kenneth moved to a little village called Galmpton, between Paignton and Brixham, a few years ago, to be near his daughter and her family. Our then-editor managed to persuade him to get involved with the Herald Express, although I don't think he took all that much persuading. He did a few bits and pieces for us, and then embarked on writing a weekly column which we called "It's Not all Over". Cheesy, I know, but the emphasis was on his continuing career, and items of interest to our older readers, so it kind of fitted quite well. It was extremely popular, and introduced many of our pensioners to the delights of Italian football, among other things.

As you might expect, Kenneth was an absolutely charming chap who could always find time for a comment on some burning issue of the day when called upon to do so. He was also a regular at Torquay United and much in demand for opening fetes and general hand-shaking, all of which he did with his trademark affable enthusiasm.

We still miss him a lot.
 

The BBC "Find a Commentator" competition

In 1969, the BBC held a "Find a Commentator" competition and the photograph below shows some of the finalists.

From left to right: Gerry Harrison (went on to commentate for Anglia), radio DJ Ed Stewart, Liverpool star Ian St John (a future TV pundit), David Coleman, Bryan Cowgill (BBC Head of Sport), Idwal Robling (the winner, who went on to commentate for BBC Wales), Tony Adamson and radio broadcaster Larry Canning.

TV Wars

With wall-to-wall football on television today, it seems strange to think that there was a period in the Eighties when football and TV were bitter enemies.  The writer Simon Inglis compared their relationship at that time to "...a marriage in which neither partner understood the other or could agree on the reasons for staying together."

In the summer of 1983, football chairmen and TV bosses had agreed a new two-year agreement for coverage on BBC and ITV.  During the winter of 1984/85, with the previous agreement due to expire at the end of the season, they began talks about the next deal.  After months of discussion, the TV companies offered to screen 16 live matches, all on Sundays (8 per channel), plus the Milk Cup Final and semi-finals. There was also an option for 15 extra regionally-broadcast live games and a guaranteed minimum of 76 recorded highlights. The deal was worth £19m over four years, a 46% increase on
the previous arrangement, and was endorsed by the Football League's TV Negotiating Committee (headed by Norwich's Sir Arthur South) and the League Management Committee..

But on St Valentine's Day 1985, the clubs (led by Oxford chairman Robert Maxwell) rejected the deal. Maxwell branded it "mad, bad and sad". Figures of £90m were bandied about by chairmen who felt that television had long enjoyed football on the cheap.  Even if a blackout resulted, some chairmen were sanguine about this; they believed that regular coverage of football on television deterred people from attending matches.

The television companies responded furiously and ITV Head of Sport John Bromley gave an interview to journalist Bob Harris in which he lambasted football chiefs:

We have got no more cash, not a single penny, and we are not interested in renewing the current arrangement. We  want more live soccer and will pay a decent whack for it, but that is it.

These people are kidding themselves. Why is it always the soccer people who get so silly about doing deals? Why can't they understand that they're running a business and deal in a business-like manner?

They have hooligans kicking each other on the terraces, lousy facilities and boring players and they say it's television's fault nobody goes to the game any more. And what's their solution? They think we'll just keep coughing up more lolly. Well, there isn't any more lolly and the crunch has come. I'm not talking idle threats, but the realities of life. Soccer has no god-given right to its slots on TV and if they don't want to talk sensibly there are plenty of other things to take their place.

They're cutting their own throats. We've got the World Cup next year and all the European competitions and they are arguing about the rights for Third Division matches. Why got to the Hackney Empire when you could be at the Palladium?

The result was a TV blackout for the first half of the 1985/86 season.  Maxwell and his colleagues tried to get the BBC and ITV to bid against each other but the two companies put up a common front.  Football's negotiating position had been undercut by the terrible tragedies at Heysel and Bradford.  The game appeared tarnished and greedy.  Crowds dropped alarmingly, probably due to the negative publicity about hooliganism - however the loss of spectators undermined the belief that an absence of TV coverage would tempt fans back to the terraces.  The League, without the "carrot" of TV coverage, was unable to entice a new sponsor.  Eventually, in December 1985, the chastened League negotiators (Maxwell had departed from the Committee by then) went back to the TV companies and agreed a fresh deal, for a vastly-lower sum than had originally been on offer.  Televised football resumed with the 3rd Round FA Cup tie between Charlton and West Ham, broadcast by the BBC at the beginning of 1986. 

Neither side came out of the battle well.  The tactics of the football chiefs had been disastrous whilst the TV companies seemed to have ruthlessly taken advantage of the game's weakened state.  Weekend recorded football largely disappeared from the screen as the TV companies served up a non-stop diet of "live and exclusive" games featuring a handful of top clubs.  It was claimed (falsely) that snooker was more popular than football and that viewers were no longer interested in  recorded games, even though ratings for the few weekend highlights that were broadcast still remained good.  At one stage, the BBC even showed highlights of American basketball in the Saturday night "Match of the Day" slot! 

Incredibly, the final weekend of the 1986-87 season, with numerous promotion and relegation issues still to be settled, went uncovered on either channel.  Both had broadcast their full quota of live games and were uninterested in showing highlights, even with so much at stake.

It seemed as if the TV companies, having got on top, were determined to keep their feet on football's windpipe.

A typical weekend's football on ITV - the date is 17th October 1976

TTT - Sunderland v Aston Villa
YTV - Sheffield United v Fulham
Anglia - Norwich v Leeds
ATV - Coventry v Newcastle
Granada, Border - Liverpool v Everton
LWT, HTV, Southern, Westward, Channel, Ulster - West Ham v Ipswich

How were matches chosen?

Today, just about every League match is televised in some form.  But back in the Seventies, only 7 or 8 matches were shown each weekend.  How were they selected?

Before the season started, ITV and BBC would toss a coin to decide who should have the first monthly pick of matches, after which they would alternate each month.

If ITV won the choice for August, Gerry Loftus (ITV's Chief Negotiator for Sport, from Manchester) (below) would pick his Number 1 match for that month. Then the BBC's representative (Sam Leitch in the early 70s) would pick THEIR number 1 match. ITV then made the next 3 selections because they covered more games than the BBC. Leitch would then have the next and 6th choice.

In the following month, it would be the BBC's turn to lead. They would take the Number 1 match, ITV numbers 2, 3 and 4 and then the BBC had 5th choice.

To avoid the channels simply creaming off the most attractive games and ignoring the rest (as would happen during the 80s), the Football League set strict criteria for the range of matches they were required to screen. Out of 60 games per season, the BBC had to cover 10 Second Division matches and 4 from Divisions 3 and 4. They also had to visit every First Division ground at least once each season.

The main ITV regions had to show at least 5 Second Division matches and 2 from Divisions 3 and 4. Regions like Anglia and Yorkshire, with several lower league sides in their areas, often exceeded these minima.  Granada, ATV and LWT, with numerous First Division glamour clubs to choose from, stuck rigidly to the minimum quota.