The BBC and live top flight football

As news broke that Premier League football would be returning from June 17, one bit of the announcement stood out to me. Live top flight football would be returning to BBC television after an absence of 32 years.

In fact, the relatonship between the BBC and live Division One football was a relatively brief affair. Between December 1983 and March 1988, 26 live league matches were shown - plus a Division Two match between Manchester City and Chelsea - as a revolution swept the game.

For years league clubs had been seemingly reluctant to embrace live league football on British television. Worried about an unwanted impact on already decreasing gates, it took until the summer of 1983 for a deal to be reached. Both the BBC and ITV would now be able to show live league football, as well as the usual highlights package, in a deal worth £5.2 million.

Sunday October 2 would be a significant date in the history of live football in the Football League. Tottenham's 2-1 over Nottingham Forest, shown live on ITV, was the first tentative step into a new relationship that has changed dramatically in the subsequent years. Live league football was here to stay.

We certainly did not suffer from overkill in those early days. Both networks were scheduled to show five live matches each in the 1983/84 season, but the BBC would in fact cover only four matches, as their journey into live league football stalled before it had begun.

Previously I have written about the first live Division One match shown on the BBC - an exciting 4-2 win for Manchester United over Tottenham on Friday December 16 - but originally Friday October 28 had been the planned launch date. However, a technicians strike resulted in coverage of the West Ham's trip to Watford being canned.

As an 8-year-old football-mad child, Friday night football was a thrilling innovation, yet some of the fixtures switched provided an early example of putting the needs of the armchair supporter ahead of those attending the matches. Tottenham away at Old Trafford; Manchester United at QPR; Liverpool at Southampton.

It is interesting to look back at the early days of the BBC coverage. With no studio or executive box to sit in, the likes of Jimmy Hill and Bobby Charlton were left to fend for themselves in freezing conditions. As the goalkeepers involved in the Aston Villa/Liverpool match in January 1984 took to the field in tracksuit bottoms, spare a thought for the BBC employees freezing in the gantry.

There were some highlights on the pitch during that first season. A sublime Ian Rush hat-trick at Aston Villa demonstrated the striker at his best; the BBC Goal of the Season scored by Danny Wallace for Southampton against Liverpool at the Dell; Barry Davies accompanying that overhead kick with a classic piece of commentary: "Oh I say, what a magnificent goal."

1984/85 saw another five league matches covered on the BBC, the first two fixtures - Everton's win at Chelsea, and Liverpool's loss at Tottenham - a microcosm of the Division One season that saw Howard Kendall's team thrive. Alan Parry would get a rare outing for Manchester United's 4-2 win over table-toppers Arsenal in November 1984, but it would be another fixture involving Ron Atkinson's team that would give an indication of how football was viewed by BBC executives.

West Ham v Manchester United, Friday March 15, kick off 7.15pm. With the BBC unwilling to cancel Wogan - with Nigel Havers and Nik Kershaw appearing, you could see why - West Ham asked for permission to push the kick off back to 7.30pm. The BBC refused, complaining that this would delay the Nine O'Clock News.

So it came to pass that when the BBC coverage started, television viewers had missed the first 15 minutes of the match. Fortunately, all four goals in the 2-2 draw were seen in the 75 minutes that the BBC felt worthy of showing us. Before too long, any football on television would be rationed.

The television blackout at the start of the 1985/86 season resulted in no football on our screens until January 1986, and just three live league matches were shown on the BBC. Viewers did at least get to see a turning point in the race for the title. Liverpool, 1-0 down at half-time at Tottenham, came back to win in the last minute, the start of a run that saw them take 34 out of a possible 36 points to pip rivals Everton.

By the start of the next season, a £6.2 million deal between the BBC and ITV saw the number of live league matches expand to seven on the Beeb. Typically involving the Merseyside giants and Manchester United, there was now even room for two pundits at matches, Denis Law and Trevor Brooking an example of this during Everton's 3-1 win over Manchester United. 

There was another thriller between Manchester United and Tottenham; a pulsating north London derby that gives a chilling indicator of conditions behind perimeter fences for fans; a controversial Mark Falco winner for Watford against Everton, an incident that did not derail Howard Kendall's push for a second title in three seasons.

The 1987/88 season would be the final campaign that the BBC screened live top flight football. A £44 million four-year deal saw ITV gain exclusive rights to Division One football between 1988-92, with the BBC concentrating on the FA Cup from this point on. Little did we know that it would take over thirty years for live Division One football to return to the BBC, or indeed that when it did, the top division would be have a completely different branding.

One thing remained reasonably consistent during the BBC live era; the dominance of Merseyside, and in particular, the red machine from Anfield. The final league season involving the BBC started with confirmation, if needed, that the latest Liverpool model would be impossible to surpass.

Newcastle were dismantled 4-1, and the comfortable 2-0 triumph over champions Everton was part of a 29-match unbeaten run at the start of that memorable 1987/88 season. Steve Nicol's hat-trick goal at Newcastle, and Peter Beardsley's strike against Everton - "Oh that's a lovely goal, that's a lovely goal," to quote Davies - were nominated for the BBC Goal of the Season, a competition involving ten Liverpool goals and none from any other club.

John Gregory's volley for Derby against Chelsea (in their questionable green kit) and a Gordon Strachan goal at Highbury were screened live to the nation, and quite possibly deserved to be included in the list. You can imagine the outcry if a similar situation arose in the social media era.

The final league match broadcast live on the BBC took place on Sunday March 6. At the conclusion of the Arsenal-Tottenham clash, coverage was switched to the European Indoor Athletics Championships in Budapest. And that was that. The end of the BBC years of covering live top flight football. No fanfare; just a link to Steve Rider and goodbye for 32 years.

Although brief, the memories remain from the Match of the Day Live years, especially as this period of time coincided with me falling in love with the sport. The various credits at the start of the coverage - 1983/84, 1984/85, 1985/86, 1986/87, 1987/88 - as the anticipation grew. The excitement of putting on my pyjamas on to watch Friday night football. Hill, Davies, John Motson, and Brooking.

It's easy to look back at anything in the past and shake your head. Yes, the Wogan incident is staggering, things might not have been quite as slick as possible, and ten minutes was all we were given for the build-up. But most of us were happy with any live football, so the 25.833 matches given to us, and the goals from Graham to Groves, were very welcome.