Soccer Night

Is Soccer Night returing to ITV1 Local this year? It started late last year and was just wondering if they are going to return?

I've been told its back at the end of October / early November

On one of the ITV regions websites (cant remember which one) I remember it saying Soccer Night would be back in the autumn so I assume all regions will show it.

On ITV Wales however we usually get Soccer Sunday!

Yeah you're lucky. I wish we still had Soccer Sunday instead of The Championship. ITV West doesn't have any teams in The Championship so they should be allowed to opt-out of this programme and show Soccer Sunday.

I know that the Sports team in Bristol would like to do this, but it will never happen due to the cut-backs in regional programming hours per week.

I think ITV should have programmes that cover the ENTIRE soccer season, not just part of the way into the season. It shows once again how lacklustre ITV are to those regional bits and pieces.

IIRC they didnt opt out of the championship, we just get Soccer Sunday in a half hour regional slot, in addition to the championship.

I think you'll find that ITV have been doing this for a few years now, only starting the regional football coverage part-way into the season.

Last year's Central coverage was very disappointing, being mainly chat about national football matters with a few retired midland players with occasional comments on matters involving Midland clubs.

While appreciating Central have a lot of clubs to cover the action was derisory, just a few random clips rather than the previous division by division review. Instead we had items such as a lemur predicting results by toching one of three balls with scores inside.

Sadly it seemed that reporting on the games themselves or features on local clubs was considered less important than bar-room banter and Sky Soccer AM knockabout fun. Surely with content like that it would have been more fitting for a CITV slot rather than 11 at night.

I think they even started late into the season years ago.

The only time I remember them starting in August is when ITV had the football league rights during the ITV Digital era

I believe there should be extended highlights on either the Sunday teatime bulletin or Monday's 6pm programme in most regions

I thought Central's Soccer Night was fantasic last year.

Studio looked bad with the orange and green. Again, the studio for Soccer Night was better when first launched.

Wonder why Central (and Yorkshire too) has Soccer Night on Thurs, but Wales has it Sunday? I didn't think Central Soccer Night was too bad, Sarah-Jane Mea/ Matt Teale and Gary Newbon made a good presenting team, and they varied the Midlander footballers they had on too.

BTW they did discuss a lot of issues concerning local teams, I remember Gary Newbon getting in a heated debate with somebody about Aston Villa and Birmingham City. I don't get why they start the series halfway through the footie season though?!

A question slightly off-topic... is Central Lobby to return? Who's replacing Wesley Smith now he's off to Thames Valley

Wales have more regional slots than the English regions so thats why they had it Sunday's

Sorry, I was referring to the content of the show, not how shiny the packaging was.