The Golden Age of Broadcasting

BBC Scotland had live television coverage of Celtic’s UEFA Champions League qualifier against Cliftonville the other night. I watched about ten minutes of it before I felt compelled to switch it off. It was an easy enough win in the end for Neil Lennon’s side but what made me reach for the off button on the remote control was the incessant chattering from the BBC commentator. Now, I’m sure Liam McLeod – for it is he – is excellent at what he does and his pre-match research was meticulous. It’s just that his Aberdonian accent grates me more than a little – and I speak as someone who was born in the Granite City. Not only that, but McLeod does appear to enjoy the sound of his own voice. Perhaps this is understandable as the summariser sitting next to him was former Rangers and Aberdeen striker Billy Dodds, a man who puts the ‘oy’ into annoyance.

A couple of days later, I purchased a book entitled ‘A Game of Two Halves’ – the autobiography of former BBC sports commentator Archie Macpherson. The book, first published in 2009 by Black and White Publishing, was on sale at a considerably reduced rate (hence my purchase – did I mention I was born in Aberdeen?) but my initial thoughts are it seems likely to be an excellent read. And it brought back memories of what is perceived by many to be the golden age of broadcasting.

I have to confess I’m one of those people who looks back at a bygone age with rose-tinted spectacles. As a child growing up in the 1970s, a live broadcast of 90 minutes of football was a rare event four decades ago. There were just two broadcasters – the BBC and ITV, the regional arm of which was Scottish Television for viewers north of Hadrian’s Wall. In the early part of the decade the annual Scotland-England game was live on ‘the box’ as well as the occasional Scotland World Cup qualifying tie or European Cup tie – in the days when Scotland actually qualified for the finals of the World Cup or European Championships and Scots clubs i.e. Celtic reached the latter stages of the European Cup. Even the Scottish Cup Final wasn’t covered live until 1977. Other than these small morsels all we got was an half hour edited highlights programme – the BBC’s Sportsreel, later to become Sportscene on a Saturday night and Scottish Television’s Scotsport, usually on a Sunday afternoon.

Archie Macpherson was BBC Scotland’s main man in the 1970s and he was ably assisted in the commentating stakes by Alastair Alexander, a man who seemed to have secured a lifetime sponsorship deal with Brylcreem. There was an authority about Macpherson in particular, akin to a middle aged uncle who knew a bit about life and a lot about football. There’s a famous scene in the film Trainspotting where Ewan McGregor’s character Renton has sex and proclaims he hasn’t felt so good since Archie Gemmill scored Scotland’s third goal in their 3-2 defeat of the Netherlands in the 1978 World Cup Finals in Argentina. Archie Macpherson’s description of that goal is being played in the background. I wouldn’t go as far as to agree with Renton but I still feel goose bumps when I hear Macpherson’s commentary of Scotland’s 2-0 World Cup qualifying win over Wales at Anfield towards the end of 1977, especially the second goal which secured Scotland’s place in the finals. ‘There’s an overlap, Martin Buchan…good running by Buchan, read it well…there’s Kenny Dalglish in there……OH, WHAT A GOAL!! OH YES! THAT DOES IT!’ Macpherson’s description was a passionate as any Scotland fan and encapsulated the feeling we all felt that night.

Perhaps Macpherson let his emotion get the better of him for Scotland’s first goal that evening when Joe Jordan appeared to punch the ball in the Welsh penalty box only for the referee to award a penalty to the Scots. ‘A handball if ever there was one’ opined Archie. Not many Welsh people agreed with Archie’s assertion although the referee’s decision, thankfully, was the final one…

Macpherson was also the commentator when Hearts headed to Dens Park on that final, fateful day of season 1985/86 requiring just a single point from their last game against Dundee to secure their first league title for over a quarter of a century. As a Hearts fan I naturally took my place on the terracing behind the goal but I don’t care to dwell on what happened that day. It took me several months to listen to snippets of Macpherson’s commentary that afternoon but only he could have described the build up to the game so vividly as the silver-shirted Hearts players took to the field – ‘who, away back in August blessed with the second sight, the seventh son of a seventh son could have foreseen Hearts on the very last day of the season playing for the championship, requiring only one point….?’  Words worthy of Keats…

Macpherson’s ‘rival’ over on Scottish Television  - although in truth they were good friends - was Arthur Montford, whose commentaries, particularly on Scotland games, have become legendary. Montford commentated on Scotland’s famous 2-1 victory over Czechoslovakia in the World Cup qualifier at Hampden in 1973, a win which took the Scots to the World Cup Finals for the first time in 16 years. The bold Arthur quite rightly dispensed with neutrality when, towards the end of the game, he shouted ‘watch your back, Denis’ as Scotland’s Denis Law was about to be tackled by a Czech player. Five years later when Don Masson infamously missed a penalty against Peru in the 1978 World Cup Finals, there was a stunned silence for a few seconds before Montford was barely able to utter ‘disaster for Scotland’.

This was a different era, decades before Sky Television, when games weren’t subjected to camera angles from every square inch of the ground, every refereeing decision wasn’t dissected and analysed, managerial tactics weren’t studied in depth and every substitution wasn’t theorised. It was a much simpler age and quite often the renowned commentators of the time just let the football do the talking.

I recall Arthur Montford, resplendent in sports jacket, smiling in the Scotsport studio on a Sunday afternoon welcoming viewers with the words ‘with the top game of the day in Scotland being the Old Firm clash, we took our cameras to Cappielow for the meeting between Morton and Partick Thistle’ And we watched nonetheless.

Macpherson and Montford might have occasionally irritated some viewers, particularly those who didn’t support the Old Firm. And they were from a much less technical era where multi-media coverage was still light years away. However, people of my generation still recall them with great fondness. They were both household names and both afforded respect.

Times change but not always for the better. Kick-off times and dates are changed at Sky’s behest – just after midday on a Sunday for the Edinburgh derby next month is yet another example of the satellite broadcaster completely ignoring the views and the wishes of the fans. The subscription monster that is Sky Television now dictates, leaving the terrestrial stations to grab what they can. Even ITV’s deal to cover the UEFA Champions League is shared with Sky leaving the BBC to make do with Celtic’s pre-qualifier against a part time team from Northern Ireland. 40 years ago we were lucky to get three games a year live on television. Now, thanks to Sky, there can be three a day. Blanket coverage gives credence to the adage you can have too much of a good thing.

Something you could never say about Archie Macpherson and Arthur Montford…  

 

 

Mike Smith

 

Twitter @Mike1874

What's the Score?

We live in an age where communication is instant. Indeed, we demand it to be so. Satellite technology and the advance of the internet and mobile phones means that no matter where you are in the world you can have almost instant access to any sporting event worth its salt. It’s a far cry from when I first began going to football back in the late 1960s.

Back then, satellite technology was in its infancy. Yes, the USA were putting men on the moon but life in Scotland was literally more down to earth. Football was different four decades ago. There were only two divisions, First and Second with eighteen teams in the top flight. Teams would play each other just twice a season in the league and if my team Hearts were playing away - always on a Saturday afternoon in the days before games were covered live on television - the reserve team would be playing our opponents reserve team at Tynecastle.

Hearts struggled throughout the 1970s and attendances at Tynecastle were about half what they are now. On cold winter afternoons with a biting wind and lashing rain fans would huddle in the old Tynecastle shed urging on the likes of Rab Prentice, Drew Busby and Donald Ford. Unless you had a transistor radio with you - it’s a seventies thing, younger readers - getting the half-time scores from other games usually meant forking out a shilling (five pence) for a programme (in the days before they were called match day magazines). The other fixtures would be printed with capital letters next to them and a man would climb the half-time scoreboard on the Gorgie Road terracing slotting numbers on the board. For example, next to the letter A he would place 1-1. A quick look at the programme would show Aberdeen were drawing at home to Hibernian…

I was living in Aberdeen in 1971 when Partick Thistle recorded their famous League Cup Final triumph over Celtic, who were then one of the best clubs in Europe. I was at Pittodrie with a friend and there were huge hoots of derision when the fella on the half-time scoreboard on the then wide open Pittodrie terracing put 4-0 next to the letter A. The silly man must have got the score the wrong way round we assumed. As if Thistle would be four nil up against Celtic at half time we chortled. Astonishingly, it was true…

Back in the 1970s, the term mobile phone meant someone picking up their old dialling contraption and throwing it across the living room on discovering on BBC1’s Grandstand results service that their team had lost at Arbroath. In fact, a good many households didn’t even have a telephone - we didn’t get one in our house until 1976. The internet was something connected with the space agency NASA. The radio was the main source of getting updated football scores and tuning into Radio Scotland was a challenge in itself. No digital radio then, of course. It was VHF and medium wave and I seem to recall Radio Scotland being an extension of BBC Radio Four. So much so, that Sportsound - or Sportsreel I think it was called back then - didn’t start until 3.30pm on a Saturday afternoon. When I lived in Aberdeen as a child I used to spend an anxious half an hour from three o-clock on a Saturday wondering how the mighty - okay this was the 1970s so not so mighty - Jambos were getting on. It was at this time my pessimistic streak developed and has remained with me to this day. Hearts away to Dumbarton? Ach, they’ll skoosh it. By half past three, we’re bound to be at least three goals ahead. Then the dulcet tones of presenter Brian Marjoriebanks would come on and after updating us on Celtic and Rangers first - some things never change - eventually he would advise ‘and the latest from Boghead is that Dumbarton lead Hearts by a goal to nil…’ I soon learned to accept crushing disappointment as a way of life. As my father used to say to me ‘well, son, you chose to follow Hearts…’

Those of us who grew up in the 1970s and were avid football fans will remember the magnificent David Francey as Radio Scotland’s commentator supreme. Francey sounded like a loveable grandad, someone who would offer you sweets when you were expressly forbidden to have anything to eat before supper. ‘Oh and there’s a drive from the edge of the penalty box which has just whistled past the left hand post of Jim Cruickshank’ - his commentary often gave us better pictures that Archie Macpherson did in the edited television highlights on Saturday evening. Having said that, taking a radio to the game to get the other scores was often fraught with danger. When Hearts needed just a point from that game at Dens Park on the final day of season 1985-86 and hoped Celtic wouldn’t get the avalanche of goals they needed at St. Mirren to address their inferior goal difference the fella standing in front of me at Dundee dared to relay the news that The Hoops were four nil ahead at half-time. He was either very brave or very stupid depending on your view…

When the dust had settled on a Saturday afternoon and all the results were in the Hearts result would determine whether I nipped down the road to the local newsagent for a copy of the Saturday sports paper which was rushed out shortly after five o’clock and had all the results and brief match reports from the top games. Nearly every city had one. In Edinburgh it was the Pink News, printed on horrendous pink paper; in Aberdeen it was the Green Final printed on - well, you get the picture. After scouring through the paper to get scores and reports your hands were usually black with newsprint. I still recall the air of anticipation waiting in the newsagents for the screeching sound of the delivery van whose driver would lob a freshly printed batch of papers toward the door of the shop with the accuracy of a Danny McGrain throw in.

We forty something fans are often accused of looking at the past through rose-tinted - or in my case maroon-tinted spectacles. However, I can’t deny there were some truly awful games at Tynecastle three decades and more ago. Moreover, it’s difficult to imagine going to games now without having instant access to other scores through mobile phone and satellite technology.
However, there was an innocence about the days before mass technology I miss. The days before everything was sponsored, strips were emblazoned with names and most of us actually stood on the terracing for ninety minutes. On the other hand I don’t miss standing on the wide-open terracings in the middle of winter with the rain running down the back of your neck; the pissheads who stumbled through the turnstyles at 2.55pm having been in the pub for the past three hours and who would urinate down the back of your leg; or the ever present threat of violence that meant when you wore your team’s scarf walking down the road you were asking for a kicking.

Something I’ll hang on to next time Christian Nade’s attempt on goal knocks a Blackberry from the hands of a fan in row 25 of the Gorgie Stand…