Match of the Day at 50

Match of the Day is not what it literally was, one match picked out in the hope of it being worth showing, but instead a compendium of all the goals scored in the first tier, and it’s kinda boring.

The surprise in the BBC’s self-congratulatory anniversary celebration is that it failed to convey the excitement it once had. It didn’t actually pick out one match of the day.
Goals yes, and the Ernie Hunt volley from a back-heel lift (now forbidden) did electrify us kids.
But not a single match. Which is odd, cos of the few times Shrewsbury Town featured, I’d actually cite the three of their matches as gripping.
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All FA Cup matches, cos we only got covered once in the league. I’d cite Salop at Leicester, which even Gary Lineker picks this one out, although he did play in it and his side did win 5-2. That said, it was still second billing on the night!
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Another great match was Salop knocking out Man City – which had to be first billing cos no other game was played in the cold snap that had hit the country that day. Coleman’s commentary – “and what a revelation Shrewsbury have been” – lives with me still, even if I wasn’t keen on him. But the commentators of the past do seem to have been better with words.
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Against Ipswich, another ‘giant killing’, memorable for Gary Hackett’s curler that featured on BBC Grandstand’s opening credits for many years.
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And the Everton (with Rooney) knockout which again was a gripping match.
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In checking out the anniversary, I was surprised to find that the first top tier match I ever went to – Wolves vs Spurs, 22nd August 1970 – had been on TV too!  (It’s possible at nine and a half, I’d been sent to bed.) I can still name the Spurs side that played on what seemed a sunny day, but it had teemed down and the water was deep at the bottom of the terraces, draining quickly off the pitch, but not from the ground.
No space either for “Man United 1, Martin Peters 4”.
George Best did say how he would try things if the cameras were there, but in a way, it was telling that they had so little to show for fifty years of coverage.
Perhaps an unduly sour write up, but they could have carried a bit of criticism, surely? (Even the Goodies knew to ridicule the seventies suffering domination by scoreless draws.)
Oh, and I preferred the earlier theme tune.
(video grabs originally from the BBC.