Football
The Kick Off Match
 Match Night & Match Time

Granada TV (North West) Football Highlights 1968-83
Granada's Sunday afternoon highlights programmes were simply titled "Football" until The Kick Off Match was introduced in 1975. When the ITV regions won the rights to show highlights on Saturday nights for season 1980/81 the North West highlights went out as Match Night, but this was changed to Match Time the following season for the return to Sunday afternoons and this title stuck until the end of traditional regional highlights in May 1983.

*Note: Prior to July 1968, North West commercial TV viewers at weekends had been served by ABC Televison who had broadcast a football highlights show that ran for three seasons... 1965/66  |  1966/67  | 1967/68

Granada commentators and presenters
1968/69
Barry Davies was the man behind the mic when Granada began showing regular Sunday afternoon highlights in August 1968, the London born commentator had joined BBC Radio in 1963 working on Sports Report before moving into television with Rediffusion in 1965 (the then London weekday channel) and this led to a position on the 1966 ITV World Cup commentary team. A move to ABC Television (weekend broadcasters to the Midlands an North) was cut short when they lost their ITV franchise in 1968 and Davies ended up at Granada, he was still in his 20's at the time but attracted the attention of the BBC who lured him away for the start of the 1969/70 season, Davies was then a regular voice on Match of the Day until 2004, commentating on many other sports along the way.
1969/70 - 1980/81
19th February 1930 Folkestone born Gerald Sinstadt became synonymous with Granadaland football throughout the 1970s having joined the channel from Anglia Television where he had commentated on their Match of the Week programme, he had first appeared on television as a news assistant/sports reporter for BBC in the Midlands in 1959 and then commentated for BBC Radio. Aged 39 at the time he joined Granada, Sinstadt doubled up as a presenter on all of the station's football programmes which included the Friday night preview show Kick Off  (first introduced in January 1972) nnd a football gameshow Kick Off Quiz. He remained with Granada until the end of the 1980/81 campaign. A desire to produce opera programmes saw him re-locate to the south where he also worked as a freelancer for TVS (ITV's station in the South 1982-92) before returning to the BBC. He died in November 2021 at the age of 91 having been orphaned at the age of 10 when both of his parents were killed in a German air raid a few months after Gerald had been evacuated to the countryside.
1981/82 - 1982/83
Martin Tyler had previously commentated for Southern TV (1974-76) and Yorkshire TV (1976-1981). Born in Chester, the move to his region of birth helped establish Tyler as the network's no.2 behind Brian Moore and at the age of 36 he was handed the job of commentating on the 1982 World Cup final. After the demise of traditional Sunday afternoon regional highlights he remained with Granada/ITV until 1990 when he left to join BSB, who were soon swallowed up by SKY for whom Tyler continues to commentate to this day.
Presenters
Unlike Gerald Sinstadt, Martin Tyler did not initially present Granada's highlights programmes. Elton Welsby fronted the show in the early 1980's having first worked on Kick Off Match in January 1978, Welsby also did the odd commentary. Other faces in the studio, offering analysis and/or rounding up the local football news, included ex-Liverpool player Ian St. John (mid-late 1970's), Jimmy Armfield (circa 1979) and ex Manchester United/City player Dennis Law (early 1980's). St. John went on to become part of the popular Saint & Greavsie double act (which superseded ITV's long established Saturday football preview show On the Ball) whilst Elton Welsby hosted networked live ITV fixtures on The Match (1988-92) as well as fronting Granada's regional sports output (including a revival of Kick Off) during the same period.*

*In the mid-late 1980's Granada occasionally showed football highlights under the First (or Second) Division Special banner, these were presented by Martin Tyler. but not, as I recall, from a studio, he'd voice-over shots of the ground and such like, these shows were sometimes broadcast by other regions too - depending on the North West opponents. Kick Off was revived in 1989. Clive Tyldesley became Granada's commentator after Tyler left.

Granada football theme tunes
Granada initially used the Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass version of "Magic Trumpet" (from the 1966 album "What Now My Love") which had originally been recorded by its' composer Bert Kaempfert who released it as a single in 1962, "Magic Trumpet" was still in use during the 1973/74 season and probably lasted until the programme was re-christened at the start of 1975/76. For Kick Off Match Granada selected the backing track to The Smoke's "Looking High" which had been released as a b-side to "My Lullaby" on the Decca label on 10th May 1974 and this was retained for the 1977/78 season. Francis Monkman (formerly of Curved Air) was responsible for the demented synthesizer led theme tune heard on 1978/79 and 1979/80 editions. A brass band tune written by Elgar Howarth (one of the trumpeters on The Beatles song "Magical Mystery Tour") was employed for the start of the 1980/81 Saturday night series Match Night but this was replaced on 29th November by "Jubilation" by Jeff Wayne (concurrently used by LWT's  'The Big Match' since that August) and Granada then stuck with that theme until the end of regular North West highlights in May 1983.

The Granadaland region's league teams 1968-1983
Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Everton, Burnley, Blackpool, Preston North End, Bolton Wanderers, Blackburn Rovers, Oldham Athletic, Bury, Stockport County, Rochdale, Tranmere Rovers, Chester, Crewe Alexandra, Southport, Barrow and Wigan Athletic.*

*Fringe clubs included Wrexham (shared with HTV Wales) and Port Vale and Stoke City (both primarily associated with ATV/Central).

What matches were shown
The following season links detail all the Saturday matches recorded by Granada cameras for local highlights. For full details of other region's matches go here. Re-edits of other region's games included on Granada's programmes as a 2nd or 3rd match are, where known, indicated by a letter (Y=Yorkshire, T=Tyne Tees, H=HTV, M=ATV/Central(Midlands), E=(East)Anglia, W=Westward, S=Southern/TVS, L=London and X=Scottish). For midweek games (which were networked) go here, for full details of networked Wembley Cup finals go here and for European finals see here. Given dates are for when the fixture was played (not the broadcast). Non-North West based matches are in italics.