The Big Match- Revisited

I watched the programme at midday today. in fact, it wasn't 'The Big Match' at all, but Granada's 'Match Time' programme, presented by Elton Welsby and Denis Law, from 5th February 1983.

It did, however, have the same theme music as The Big Match. This must have been the final ITV season of regular local highlights.

Commentary from the main game, Man City v Spurs came from Martin Tyler, with further highlights of Yorkshire's game, Barnsley V Wolves with John Helm commentating. Finally, on the 25th anniversary of Munich, we had highlights of Ipswich V Man Utd with commentary from Gerry Harrison, pictures from Anglia.

It's worth watching if you're around at 5pm.

In Granadaland Kick-off was brought back in the late 1980's and then mid 90's wasn't it Granada that started off the Soccer Night franchise!

Not sure but it was HTV Wales that started the Soccer Sunday franchise and then most other regions seemed to have a Soccer Sunday programme. Of course not all regions apart from Wales have Soccer Night with HTV Wales still having Soccer Sunday most weeks.

Is it possible, seeing the Granada soccer programme was shown, that ATV/Central's 'Star Soccer' could be shown, assuming any still exist of course?

I think it was HTV that started the Soccer SUNDAY franchise as granada had that for a while after they finally axed Kick-off for good but remember seeing it in TVTimes on the other regions bit for HTV - I also seem to remember Goals on Sunday - was that Yorkshire/??? (before Sky Sports nicked the name)

Goals on Sunday was indeed Yorkshire. I think they kept that until ITV gained the football league contract with the launch of the ITV Sport Channel. They then renamed it to Soccer Sunday and for live matches, Soccer Sunday Live.

It's now just 'Soccer Night' (no regional preface)

I notice some regions have their name in the Soccer Night title e.g. I think the North West's is Granada Soccer Night.

My understanding is as follows.

In the 1970s: ATV had Star Soccer, presented by the late Billy Wright and later on Gary Newbon. By the early 1980s Jimmy Greaves became the regular pundit. The late Hugh Johns was the main commentator before being replaced in the early 1980s by Peter Brackley.

LWT had The Big Match with the late Brian Moore, which many other regions took.

Tyne Tees had Shoot! with Kenneth Woolstenholme and later Roger Tames.

Yorkshire has Goals on Sunday, with Martin Tyler as commentator and later John Helm.

Granada had Kick-Off with Gerald Sinstadt, and from the late 70s onwards Elton Welsby began sharing presenting duties. After Sinstadt went freelance (joining the BBC a few years later), Martin Tyler became the main commentator.

HTV West and Wales would occasionally have Soccer Hour with Roger Malone (now living in Florida I believe) but very often they would take The Big Match.

I believe TSW had their own programme with David Bobin (now of Sky Sports) but am not certain.

And Anglia had Match of the Week presented by Gerry Harrison.

Never heard of Soccer Hour, and Roger Malone still lives in Bristol.

In the early 90s, HTV West used to show 'Central Sports Special' with Bob Hall and Jimmy Greaves. This used to really annoy me - my own ITV region couldn't be bothered to make their own programme.

This eventually changed to West Match / West Match Plus for a time, then Hit the Net when Jed Pitman became Head of Sport at HTV West, before ending with Soccer Sunday / Soccer Special.

I don't think Westward/TSW had any programme of their own. The had no Div 1 football teams on their patch remember. They took LWT's The Big Match

Southern/TVS mostly took The Big Match, but if there was a Pompey or Southampton match that they'd covered, they opt out for part of the LWT programme with David Bobin presenting coverage.

They'd also change the front/end caps to; " LWT/Southern Co Production."

Thursday's edition was an episode of 'The Big Match' - with Brian Moore and Jim Rosenthal - from February 1983. It was unusual in that, due to the weather, the Div1 game that LWT would have covered was obviously off, so the main match was Liverpool v Ipswich (pictures from Granada Television, commentator Martin Tyler).

They also showed a match from Coventry (Central pictures, Peter Brackley on mic) with cleared snow round the pitch, and, very unusually and doubtless due to the bad weather, highlights of Celtic v Aberdeen (pictures from Scottish, commentator Jock Brown), with Alex Ferguson mentioned.

The programme was largely as would have been shown on the Saturday night in question, but an extra break was inserted (still with the proper break graphics and music from the time) and the pools news and maybe the odd interview was omitted.

The animated London Weekend Television ident was shown at the start, the end music was shown uninterrupted, and the LWT endcap was shown, but was followed by a silly 'ITV Sport Production 2008' animation.

At least the archive nature of these types of programmes are now being recognised, even by ITV, so more of the original features get retained.