Despite the changes wrought by bidding wars, technical improvements, and questionable personal grooming decisions, Match of the Day remains an iconic – and only occasionally infuriating – piece of TV. Mark Lawson salutes its blend of always-original content and comfortingly unchanging punditrySelecting a best-ever experience of television raises a version of the dilemma faced by every Desert Island Discs castaway when asked to pick a single book: is the intention to nominate a favourite work of literature or to come up with a text that could plausibly survive regular re-reading during years of isolation? With regard to the small-screen question, for example, The West Wing is the series that has given me most extended and memorable pleasure but – being practically able by now to recite some whole episodes – its possible that I will never watch it again.Better, then, to go for a show that offers something fresh and original every week, at least barring the occasional meaningless mid-table nil-nil draw or repetitive analysis by Alan Shearer of attacking stategy. Match of the Day began in 1964, two years after I did, and so has been there throughout my life, although with occasional gaps when football became a marketable commodity and subject of a bidding war between the BBC and ITV.Televised football represents one of the most extraordinary rates of cultural change: the availability and depiction of the matches has shifted from diet to gluttony. When I first became a regular MotD viewer in the 1969-70 season – lucky at the time to live in Leeds, home of one of the eras greatest teams – it was almost impossible to know which game or games would be shown. The chosen fixtures were not specified in listings magazines or newspapers because football authorities feared that fans would stay away if they knew they could watch later at home. Occasionally, though, a rumour would go round the school playground on the Thursday or Friday that a BBC van had been seen at the Leeds ground. On Saturday afternoons, there would finally be a definitive clue, when a familiar commentator gave a half-time report during Grandstand.The programme has tried to move with the times – colour, slow-motion, more analytic punditry, Jacqui Oatley as the first woman commentator – although the basic presentational style has remained astonishingly constant: one ex-player speaking to a couple of others about the game. And the personnel have been differentiated mainly by grooming decisions: from the comb-over of David Coleman via the unshaven chin of Jimmy Hill and hairy upper lip of Desmond Lynam to the clean-cut chops of Gary Lineker and the shaven head of Alan Shearer. For me, Coleman has been the franchises greatest single talent. As his recent obituaries acknowledged, he combined a dramatic voice with an encyclopaedic knowledge, whereas the shows other two most celebrated commentators – John Motson and Barry Davies – offered a choice between strength in facts or language.In broadcasting, the normal reason for a programme coming under threat is that the subject matter has become less popular or profitable. But, unusually, Match of the Day stumbled – during the decade from the early 80s to the early 90s – because its content became more bankable and attractive. First ITV and then Sky out-bid the BBC to a large slice of the rights, with Rupert Murdochs satellite channel making live transmission of whole matches standard, where such coverage had previously been a luxury mainly restricted to the World Cup and FA Cup finals. In 2001, Match of the Day looked finished again, when ITV bought up both its rights to football highlights and Lynam as presenter.The show was saved, though, by two financial handicaps: football brought in less advertising revenue than ITV had hoped, while most fans had to pay out more than they wanted or were able to for the games on Sky Sports. This paved the way for MotD to regain the rights in 2004, showing highlights of all the Premiership games each week, and will celebrate its 50th birthday this August.The oddity of Match of the Day is that there can be no other programme of such longevity and popularity – except, perhaps, the news – that attracts such regular levels of disgruntlement. Common complaints are that fashionable teams are favoured in the running orders, that the best games are often scheduled for the theoretically subsidiary Sunday edition (Match of the Day 2) or that the pundits are too dull, too white, too Liverpool.And yet, like a poor production of a great play, the programme is always saved by something in one or more of the games. For the multi-channel viewer, there is now sometimes the peculiar experience of watching highlights of a game that you have seen live in full earlier in the day or the weekend. Most football matches, though, even for fanatical followers, are best in truncated form; for the 42 of its 50 years in which Ive been a regular viewer, Match of the Day has been a highlight of my week, despite all its regular infuriations.Sport TVTelevisionGary LinekerMark Lawsontheguardian © 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 16:47:36 +0000
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