THE greatest hour and a half in television history could be found on STV’s Sunday afternoon schedule during the 1980’s.
I may have the running order wrong but I swear it was The Fall Guy, Bullseye and then Scotsport. Life cannot get any better. It’s been proven in tests.
The Fall Guy was perfect. An effortlessly cool Lee Majors starred as Colt Seavers, and this is genius, a stuntman by day who moonlighted as a bounty hunter at night. It also had the best theme tune to any telly show with lyrics which for a Sunday, especially as my gran’s house, were a touch raunchy.
“Well, I’m not the kind to kiss and tell, but I’ve been seen with Farrah, I’ve never been with anything less than a nine, so fine.”
The brilliance of Bullseye needs little explanation. It wasn’t just about darts and winning a kitchen. It was the pathos. Genuinely poor people were briefly shown ‘what they could have won’ before being sent home with £20 to share and fresh feelings of failure.
And best of all was Scotsport, hosted by the wonderful Arthur Monford, which showed highlights of one Premier League game and a match from English football.
Occasionally lower league games were shown along with curling and rallying, which in no way were squeezed in because they were cheap to do and killed five minutes.
Arthur, sadly no longer with us, kept it all together in a style which made you feel good even if your team lost. As did Archie Macpherson over on the BBC.
For me, Archie is the greatest of them all, but even his old shows are dated and some of it comes across a bit amateurish; at least compared to the shiny coverage of today.
Hey, but unlike Sky, at least those two giants got the names of the players and managers right. And we had more than 15 minutes of chat before a big game.
Television has moved on, but I’m not sure the average viewer has and with Scottish football currently discussing all manner of television deals, those who are being wined and dined by Sky, BT Sport, Amazon, Facebook and the rest would do well to keep in mind.
Money is hugely important, of course. We need to get the best deal – I’m not sure we ever have - and cash aside that means getting the best presenters, pundits and all-round coverage.
BT Sports have made a decent stab at it. Their post and pre-match chats and fights between Chris Sutton and Stephen Craigan can be entertaining.
They look genuinely interested in a Betfred Cup game which is the very least we, the public deserves, especially if we have to pay extra for it.
I find it hard to criticise SKY. They have been there from the start and have injected God knows how much into our game. But the studio chats are way brief and too many times the show ends without any interviews being shown
BT Sport and Sky Sports currently pay around £21million a year to share 60 Premiership matches. The chat is both want exclusive right when the contract lapses in 2020. There is every chance a decision will be revealed before the end of this year.
This week, the SPFL tore up their overseas broadcasting rights with MP &Silva - me neither - a dreadfully poor deal which won’t be difficult to improve upon.
This is a test for those who make big decisions on behalf of our national sport. If we are to sell our game here and abroad, it is imperative the actual programmes we will watch are the best they can be.
We need an equivalent of SKY’s Monday Night Football, a think about which games are shown – more games when the stadiums are full – and, Lord save is, perhaps even fish a few journalists out the pub to go through the papers once a week.
The deal makers would do well to go back and loo at Archie and Arthur, take note of their passion and knowledge. And compare it to Paul Merson admitting he knows nothing about our game when his job is, in part, to talk it up.
Scottish football deserves better than that. And we could with Bullseye coming back as well. Frankie Boyle could host. I’d watch that.
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