ITV regional football highlights 1968-1983

ITVX catch up - Big Match Revisited links

SITE UPDATES
APRIL 2025

A seemingly reliable source claims that the next series of 'The Big Match Revisited' will cover 1975/76, presumably to tie in with the 50th anniversary of that season and starting later this year. Meanwhile the gaps created by the live games during season 1984/85 means we're almost now in synch with the 40th anniversary dates for that season, one episode's details of which largely turned out to be incorrect on this site, 12/Jan/1985: No footage of Wolves v Middlesbrough as anticipated whilst Huddersfield v Man City was merely a report with John Helm, not proper highlights with Martin Tyler. The intended 2nd match that weekend was revealed to be Luton Town v Nottingham Forest, postponed due to snow and ice.

Some interesting recent uploads to a Bournemouth fan's youtube channel including a clip of 04/Dec/1971 Bournemouth v York City here, I'm quite certain the commentator is who you'd expect it to be for Southern during this period - Simon Smith, the voice seems to match the one we hear on 29/Nov/1969 Southampton v Crystal Palace (which the The Big Match had as their substitute main game) and he also calls out 'There it is!' for a goal in both games, perhaps his catchphrase if he had one. There are also extended TVS presentation highlights of 08/May/1982 Bradford City v Bournemouth, introduced by Fred Dinenage as the main match with The Cherries seeking to secure promotion from tier 4, so this would mean Brighton v Ipswich was the 2nd feature, a match TVS would have been very much obliged to cover due to national interest in Ipswich Town's title challenge. No surprise to discover that Leeds battling relegation v Brighton was TVS's 2nd match for the final 'Sunday Sportshow' of that 1981/82 season. (thanks to Brian Mullowney!!!)

We're continuing to add the odd notable incident tag - sendings off etc. Of particular note is another dog invasion, interrupting 14/Nov/1970 West Bromwich Albion v Southampton on the BBC with one of the Saints players eventually catching the culprit, picking him up and carrying him off the pitch. Footage of this may no longer exist but a sequence of photos of 'Scamp' in action was presented as a film strip in a subsequent West Brom matchday programme, implying that this was the highlight incident on that night's MOTD (thanks to Julian Rowe!!!)

Pat Jennings was the subject of a Dec/2024 episode in BBC Radio Ulster' series Irish Football Icons (thanks to James Minifie!!!)

And finally this month, in scrupulously scanning through 1975 newspaper listings for the purpose of coding 50th anniversary schedules for the TV set site I am stumbling over the odd missing football (or footy related) broadcast. On 17/Sep/1975 BBC NI had an opt out highlights programme to show Linfield v PSV Eindhoven [European Cup 1st Round 1st Leg], this was listed in the Times in place of the networked edition of 'Sportsnight'.

RIP Dennis Bond

MARCH 2025

Kaleidoscope have uploaded a compilation of vintage 1972/73 Evening Standard TV commercials to their youtube channel and of particular football interest at 17mins37secs is a minute long spot touting the paper's columnists and coverage for the 1972-73 season kick off, there's also a brief mention of Arsenal skipper Frank Mclintock's column at 2mins17 and another ad mentioning Alan Hudson's ban from playing for England at 15.57 (thanks to Dave Rhodes!!!)

Added a large bunch of live 2nd, 3rd and 4th tier SKY games plus Scottish PL to the 1996/97 - 1998/99 seasons (thanks to James Minifie!!!)

Two commentators confirmed from a Huddersfield Town club history upload, 31/Jan/1970 Huddersfield Town v Carlisle United was Ken Wolstenholme see here and Keith Macklin called 18/Mar/1972 Birmingham City v Huddersfield Town [FAC QF] for Yorkshire viewers see here (thanks to Brian Mullowney!!!)

I've now switched the 1940s/50s BBC 2nd commentators (those taking over half-way through each half) to show up on the correct A-Z index page as opposed to the co-commentators list, there are a few ex-players however whose role I'm uncertain of and have left as co-comms, it would seem odd - for example - England manager Walter Winterbottom identifying each player as he touched the ball rather than interjecting with occasional expert analysis, but the role of co-commentator appears not to have been established at that point, so who knows.

A couple of 70s BBC football related broadcasts: The subject of the 18/Aug/1975 edition of 'The Likes of...' was Brian Clough, this being a series of 6 programmes exploring celebrities' personal likes and dislikes. Eric Idle and Neil Innes' Beatles spoof documentary 'The Rutles' first broadcast on 27/Mar/1978 included a very brief scene filmed at Loftus Road, this being the point The Rutles take to the stage at 'Che Stadium, named after the Cuban guerrilla leader Che Stadium'.

All spoilers now removed from the lists that don't show the scores, so the tags that trigger 'won on pens', 'sent off' or 'won on agg' will now only show up when you press on the balls to show the result page.

Finally, all data files are now stored on the server (as opposed to Microsoft OneDrive) which should put an end to browser security settings blocking them as potentially malicious offsite scripts.

RIP Alan Shoulder & John Tudor

FEBRUARY 2025

BBC Wales' Legends Of Welsh Sport series has included an edition devoted to Mark Hughes, contributors including Gary Lineker, Sir Alex Ferguson and a schoolfriend. See here. Some BBC chat show appearances for the 'Extra Time' page: George Best was a guest on the 17/Feb/1973 edition of 'Parkinson', the 15/Nov/1985 edition of 'Wogan' included both Denis Law and Frank McAvennie whilst George Best's notorious appearance on that show was 19/Sep/1990. Jack Charlton's house was featured on the 05/Jun/1987 edition of the ITV game show 'Through The Keyhole' (thanks to James Minifie!!!)

In addition to the BBC Watford UEFA Cup tie listed for 28/Sep/1983 there was brief highlights of Liverpool v Odense BK with Alan Parry. Two missing 1988/89 season Sunday morning LWT highlights specials (9.25-10.25am): 11/Nov/1988 West Ham United v Nottingham Forest and 17/Dec/1988 Arsenal v Manchester United, both with Brian Moore commentating. Another Sunday highlights special, but at 4-5pm this time, was shown on 27/Oct/1990 featuring Crystal Palace v Wimbledon (Brian Moore) as well as the Manchester derby with Clive Tyldesley which was the main game on a Granada 'First Division Special' that same afternoon. Commentator for 28/Sep/1976 BBC NI coverage of Crusaders v Liverpool was George Hamilton. (thanks to Jason Stone!!!)

For 'Match of the Day' on 03/Apr/1971 we can now confirm that Barry Davies was the commentator (as well as presenter) on Bristol Rovers v Preston North End in a shorter 30 minute edition that went out in a later time slot due to coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest, this meant only one match was covered and therefore Coventry City v Tottenham Hotspur - as previously listed on both this site as well as the now defunct 'MOTD listings' - was NOT shown (thanks to Edward Skingsley!!!)

Another ABC blank filled in, 18/Dec/1965 was Bolton Wanderers v Derby County, confirmed by the Derby Evening Telegraph. Also note that shortly before ABC began screening Sunday 'World of Soccer' highlights in November 1965 both Burnley and Everton wrote to the Football League requesting not to be selected for any televised games at their home grounds (thanks to Daniel Mann!!!)

Highlights of the 12/May/1975 Welsh Cup Final 2nd leg Cardiff City v Wrexham played on a Monday night was shown the following evening on BBC Wales at 7:40-8:10pm.

Elton Welsby has a book out, see the Amazon link here.

A few more black & white era obscurities not previously listed: ITV had live networked 2nd half coverage on Sunday 14/Dec/1958 of Edmonton & District v 'Portsmouth & Southampton' with Peter Lloyd billed to commentate in the TVTimes whilst on 07/Mar/1961 Rediffusion (London ITV region only) had 2nd half coverage of a friendly between Barking and Southend United with Kent Walton. In August 1960 the BBC had a recording of Kilmarnock playing in New York having reached the final of the 'International Soccer League' competition, they had topped Group 1 ahead of Burnley to meet Group 2 winners Bangu of Brazil on Saturday 06/Aug/1960 but lost 2-0, highlights were eventually shown in all regions the following Wednesday in a 45 minute special from 8:45pm. For 27/Feb/1963 The Radio Times scheduled live closing stages of England U23 v Scotland U23 from Newcastle but that fixture was cancelled a week prior and part-live 2nd half coverage from Paris of France v England was arranged to be included on 'Sportsview' instead.

A half-hour drama film titled 'Twenty Nine' starring Alexis Kanner includes some rare pre-1969 colour scenes filmed at a Football League fixture, the film is not currently available to view online but stills reveal the venue to be Stamford Bridge with Chelsea wearing blue socks, so it must have been filmed during the 1967/68 season - probably in the Spring, this would have been shortly after Kanner had co-starred in the final episode of 'The Prisoner' series.

At the end of both the 1967/68 and 1974/75 seasons BBC1 showed 'Match of the SEASON' specials in the regular MOTD Saturday night slot, these being the only two seasons they did this as far as I can make out, the 1968 version was billed to focus on champions Manchester City and their title rivals whilst the 1975 edition was to include highlights from five matches.

Finally, I've tentatively begun switching a few files over from Microsoft onedrive to the web server, so that they don't have to be loaded via the API. This will (and has) put additional pressure on the server, so I'll have to keep an eye on it, but if it settles down as files are cached then I'll move more stuff over which would mean pages loading much faster and not being blocked by over zealous browser security - Chrome appears to have beefed this up considerably over the past 6 months to the point I can now barely visit a non-mainstream/corporate website on my tablet without getting a warning screen. The downside to hosting files on the web server rather than onedrive is that they won't automatcially update.
RIP Tony Book, Denis Law, Garry Brooke, Bobby Kennedy & Jimmy Calderwood

JANUARY 2025

A lot of updates to get through this month, including a new feature....

First up, a Harlech game we didn't have listed and probably their first televised fixture - on 21/Sep/1968 Bristol Rovers v Swindon Town which was billed in The Sunday Mirror. The unknown HTV match for 07/Oct/1972 is identified by The Sunday Express as Bristol Rovers v York City, several other papers list Gerry Williams filling in as HTV's commentator that weekend. An interesting article from Jan/1969 suggests there was another Bristol City match covered that season, it also confirms Harlech were showing Yorkshire TV's matches when they had no local game before switching to a new sports magazine programme in January which would include ATV's match. I've OCR'd the article and you can read it at the foot of the 1968/69 Harlech page here, the Bristol City game in question was almost certainly their home clash with Cardiff City on 28/Sep/1968 as the Harlech edition of TVTimes bills local highlights for that weekend.
06/Mar/1968 Cardiff v Torpedo Moscow was networked, not just shown to the Wales and West region who at this juncture had an 'emergency' ITV service after TWW had shut down early in protest at losing their franchise.

Missing Anglia games... 19/Jan/1963 was most likely a repeat of the 02/Dec/1962 programme which had been pencilled in for a re-screening the previous week before they opted to show Ipswich reserves instead (after Norwich v Grimsby and the backup game Bedford v Wellington had both been called off). Billed in the Anglia TVTimes were 25/Jan/1964 Norwich City v Sheffield Wednesday (this was a friendly with both teams having been knocked out of the FA Cup) and 02/Jan/1965 Ipswich Town v Norwich City. From the Peterborough Evening Telegraph we've got 12/Dec/1964 Peterborough Utd v Exeter City, 16/Jan/1965 Peterborough Utd v Grimsby Town and 03/Apr/1965 Peterborough Utd v Bristol City. Also added/confirmed numerous 1960s commentators listed in Anglia editions of the TVTimes.

Some missing ABC games mentioned in passing in local papers, the 2nd game ABC ever covered on 13/Nov/1965 was Blackpool v WBA and three weeks later on 11/Dec/1965 it was Sheffield United v Nottingham Forest, 29/Jan/1966 was Wolverhampton Wanderers v Coventry City and 09/Mar/1968 according to the Sheffield Star was Everton v Tranmere Rovers [FAC]. The 06/Dec/1965 edition of The Manchester Evening News included Joe Mercer's reaction to the FAC 3rd round draw in which he mentioned watching Blackpool on TV 'on Sunday', so this must have been Northampton Town v Blackpool on ABC the previous day which fills in another blank.

Three ATV London games towards the end of the 1965/66 season seemingly doubled-up as auditions for which ITV commentator would be selected to voice the England World Cup games and final, Hugh Johns, Barry Davies and John Camkin are all billed in the TVTimes to commentate on three different March/April 'Star Soccer' fixtures.

Going back further in time, there was an obscure ITV networked 17/Apr/1960 Sunday 1pm-2:05pm broadcast of Edmonton & district Sunday League representatives v the Royal Belgium Amateur Football League, Peter Lloyd commentating. ITV also had live 2nd half coverage of both the 1961 and 1962 FA Amateur Cup Finals at Wembley with Gerry Loftus, these were included on a programme called 'Let's Go' launched in 1959 as a Saturday afternoon forerunner to World of Sport in a joint production between ATV and ABC and presented by Tim Brinton, it was rebranded as 'Saturday Sportstime' from October 1962.

Southern editions of the TVTimes continue to list Simon Smith as commentator throughout 1971/72, but for the first two Southern games of 1972/73 John Camkin is billed. Fred Dinenage is listed for 27/Jan/1973, this being the game he was photographed commentating on, and Gerry Williams is listed for 14/Apr/1973.

For the 03/May/1969 Home Internationals, Brian Moore and Jimmy Hill commentated on *both* live games for LWT on the same day! Barry Davies and Hugh Johns did the network highlights commentaries.
(thanks to Daniel Mann for all of the above!!!)

Another large bunch of penalty miss and sendings off tags added. Also note that the 30/Jan/1994 commentator for Norwich v Manchester United was Barry Davies, not Motson. The BBC have a new two part documentary on Alex Ferguson available on iplayer, see here (thanks to James Minifie, Brian Mullowney and Julian Rowe!!!)

A missing midweek STV game for 17/Feb/1982 is Hibernian v Dundee United [Scottish Cup 4th round replay] see youtube clips here (thanks to Alan Buchanan!!!)

More Scottish updates... On 16/Sep/1987 there was a STV Scotsport Special in the evening showing highlights of the afternoon live game Dynamo Kiev v Glasgow Rangers and there were also highlights of St Mirren v Tromso. On 21/Oct/1987 Scotsport showed Aberdeen v Feyenoord and Dundee United v Vitkovice as well as the already network listed Rangers v Gornik Zabre. 02/Jan/1988 Hibernian v Hearts was apparently NOT shown by BBC Scotland, just the old firm derby. Also added a large bunch of Scottish games to the 1990s Sky lists (thanks to Derek Morrison!!!)

Three live SKY games added that were all abandoned... 19/Feb/1996 Nottingham Forest v Tottenham [FA Cup R5] after 15 minutes due to heavy snow, 03/Nov/1997 West Ham United v Crystal Palace due to floodlight failure after 65 minutes and 22/Dec/1997 Wimbledon v Arsenal with the lights going out 13 seconds into the 2nd half (thanks again to James Minifie!!!)

16/Feb/1993 Stoke City v West Bromwich [FL Trophy] was billed for live broadcast by Sky, likely rearranged from Wednesday to Tuesday night to avoid a clash with an England international for that purpose, but a local paper's WBA diary entry notes that the match couldn't be shown due to a technical issue (thanks to Julian Rowe!!!)

Last but not least, a new feature for the site - a commentators index page with links to individual lists of all games we have them tagged as commentating on, see the Hugh Johns example here. For the time being, some of the 1940s/50s second commentators - in the days when they swapped half way through each half - will show up on these lists as 'co-commentators' until I can find a way to patch that particular issue. The lists are split into three sections, pre-1968/69, the classic 1968-83 period and the post 82/83 seasons to 1999, many of the pre-83 commentator pages have a photo including one of a Rhodesian DJ named Martin Locke in the 1970s, so I'm presuming this was the same Martin Locke who worked for ABC before returning to Rhodesia in 1966.

RIP George Eastham & Tony Young

A new series of The Big Match Revisited on ITV4, season 1984/85 began on 30th November 2024. For a list of networked games that season press here

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