Westward TV Football

Westward Football Highlights 1968-1981
Based in Plymouth, Westward was the original ITV franchise holder for the South West of England from April 1961 until December 1981*. With two of their three local league clubs spending most of the Westward era in the 4th Division, a regular South West football highlights programme was out of the question, particularly with the station's limited resources (they did not have a proper ob facilities until 1979), but Westward did cover a handful of matches over the years for Sunday broadcast and regularly filmed games for inclusion on local news programmes, often with a commentator on site. Sunday afternoon football highlights had first been broadcast to the region on 3rd December 1966 when Westward began showing ATV London's Star Soccer programme, they then switched to ABC's World of Soccer (and back again) before taking on LWT's The Big Match for the 1968/69 season.

*Technically speaking, Westward came to an end in August 1981, their replacement TSW carried on with the Westward name until their official launch on 1st January 1982.

Westward commentators and presenters
Westward's commentator circa 1968-1970 was Don Arnold (pictured) who also presented Westward's twice weekly Sports Desk, he died in 1978. Another 'Sports Desk' presenter Gary Newbon commentated on two South West football matches in season 1970/71 before leaving Westward for ATV Midlands (and Star Soccer) in late 1971. Chris Fear is also known to have commentated on two Westward games in 1977 having presented the Sports Desk for at least three years, he had previously worked in the White House press office for JF Kennedy, Fear was taken on by TSW in 1982 and later joined the Screensport channel in 1984 before commentating on Macclesfield Town matches for local radio and the club website, he died in 2002 aged 59.

*After Chris Fear left TSW they then used Pete Barraclough, Peter Brackley (1988-1990), Martyn Dean (1990/91 season) and Gary Bloom (Aug 1991-Dec 1992, They also used Mark Tyler, Jerry Harmer and Dave Beckett.. Westcountry TV saw the return of Martyn Dean.

The Westward region's league teams 1968-1981
Plymouth Argyle's relegation from the 2nd tier in May 1968 was badly timed - Had they stayed up, Westward might have made more of an effort in terms of local football productions although Exeter City's recent form was hardly encouraging either - they had just narrowly avoided the re-election process after finishing 20th in the 4th tier. At least Torquay United were doing well, finishing 4th in the 3rd tier in 1968, but a demotion to the basement division came in 1972. The most successful spell for Westward football was in the mid-1970's with Plymouth achieving promotion in 1975 for a two season stint in the 2nd tier, and then - in the same year that Plymouth were relegated back down again - Exeter won promotion as 4th tier runners-up in 1977 and went on to reach the Quarter-finals of the FA Cup in 1981.

What matches were shown
The following season links detail all the known Saturday matches recorded by Westward Television cameras for local highlights, plus the other region's programmes that were shown locally and featured a Westward club. Given dates are for when the match was played (not the broadcast). For midweek games (which were networked) go here, for full details of networked Wembley Cup finals go here and for European finals see here.Non-South West based matches are in italics