Re: SMiG Bundesliga Match Delays noone23, you are a great source of info and stories mate, it's great to have you on the board
Re: A Little Hairsplitting, Perhaps, But... One of the reasons why he is a true club legend over here.
Re: Speaking of the Milkman Steve Lyons is sitting curled up in a ball crying right now, wondering why he wasn't born twenty years earlier.
As I recall, they went all-Bundesliga from the 1984-85 season. Not sure about 1983-84. I live in Modesto and the Fresno PBS affiliate continued showing the games, which in 1984-85 was indeed called German Professional Soccer. I'd try to watch but my UHF bowtie antenna could only receive the Fresno signal so much. Neither the Sacramento nor San Francisco PBS affiliates showed the program after the 1982-83 season, not first run programs anyway. They periodically dug up old matches for a year or two before abandoning the show altogether.
Your wish granted...[YOUTUBE]RxNqRFBqWzU[/YOUTUBE] After 1978 Germany struggled against many teams until they found the right forumla again. Besides, there is the "curse" that no European team does well in SA and vice-versa. Was he actually IN the stadium> I thought he did the whole thing from studio? Have we already started the list of "Tobyisms"? My favorites were: "That was harder to miss than it was to make." Said when players would miss an absolute sitter. "That's a defender's touch for you." Said when a defender had the touch of a deft donkey. Uh, we did. We just did not have the Web. You could use Archie or Veronica to crawl using Unix shell accounts to severs worldwide and get documents about your teams, players, etc. Heck, that is how the first RSS feed was built. But I suppose you meant Web. Hell, I get 1860 matches via stream now for $40/year. Worth every penny!! I have that shirt with #16. I had a friend (Heniz Wirtz) who played for them. Gave it to me when he came to play for the Washington Dimplomats. I have searched YouTube and cannot find a single SMIG clip. Too bad. Would love it if PBS put that on DVD. Seemed Schalke and Dortmund or BMG were ALWAYS on.
Thanks For the Latest Morale Boost, Squidward I'm glad you still like my stuff. Any time I run into frustration doing what turns out to be a failed pic search for whatever reason I can always fall back on your morale support.
Wow, Five Quotes in a Single Post "Was he actually IN the stadium> I thought he did the whole thing from studio?" I wonder what the record is for being quoted the most times in a single post(just out of normal curiosity). Actually, upon thinking about it a little more Charles(and Alan Fountain later on)probably did do the games from the studio but somebody must have been at the games for us to get the telecasts that we got. I'm trying to think if at one time there might have been a glitch where the announcer's voice sounded like it was coming from a studio(it wasn't supposed to do that).
Re: Thanks For the Latest Morale Boost, Squidward and I even more so meant your stories from the 70s and 80s following the bundesliga...you're a great source of anecdotes and information...truly good stuff
Re: Wow, Five Quotes in a Single Post Yeah, I am pretty sure they were in studio. In fact, I recall an interview a long while back where Toby was talking about the whole SMIG program and how it is produced. Of course, I remember as a kid seeing Tora, Tora, Tora and thinking "Wow, how the hell can they blow up all those life-sized ships?? Do they really have that much Navy surplus laying around?" So take my comment with a grain of salt.
Yes, I Meant the(World Wide)Web People(including me, I suppose)use the terms Internet and(World Wide)Web interchangeably. So it was on this occasion.
Schalke-Dortmund/SMiG I wished at the time that Schalke had been on more during the 1987-88 season when the club was going through what some would call "interesting times" that led to big debts resulting in the sale of several stars which in turn led to the club's third relegation in 1988 followed by three years in the 2nd division and a revolving door that saw Schalke lose an average of 15 players off their roster per season. Gladbach probably got more attention when they had better clubs but financial struggles and the ensuing loss of star players changed that situation as well. Dortmund in that period was probably too much of an interesting side to pass up for very long even if success on the field was still in the club's future. Manfred Burgsmuelller would have accounted for much of that all by himself(until he left the club in 1983).
Greatest show ever, my memory is of Gladbach coming in second to Köln in '78 and still to this day my favorite Bundesliga team is Gladbach. In fact all my Bundesliga allegiance were developed back then watching that show. To this day I have a set of teams I like and a set I dislike and really no reason other than the reasoning of a 9 year old kid picking his favorites and his villains. Likes: Borussia Mönchengladbach Borussia Dortmund Bochum Schalke Kaiserslautern Dislikes: Köln Bayern Munich Bayer Leverkusen The players I remember most for whatever reason are Schumacher the Keeper for Köln and West Germany and Kevin Keegan with that huge hair and the short shorts at Hamburg. Toby Charles was bigger than life, even my father who is in his mid sixties now and didn't even watch the show still remembers Charles and just got a kick out of over hearing some of his commentary while I watched. Then after the game going out in the backyard and setting up a goal and mimicking what I'd seen with my own running Toby Charles commentary "it's off the woodwork" and "it's in the net." I still use both expression today while watching a match! I'd kill to get a hold of some of those matches on DVD or VHS, the memories would be amazing.
Dude, did you live next door to me?!?!? You just posted my life. Toby, "There's a bulge in the ol' onion bag!"
German NT Then and Now I think the West German NT from just about any time in the mid 1970s to the 1980s could beat the pants off the current crew. The latter, probably more than the former, suffers from too many inflated egos among its other problems.
Re: German NT Then and Now Dude, the team from the 70s could beat them as 70 year-old men NOW! Those guys were real men. Hell Breitner still runs through Westpark to keep in shape. That guy is super fit even for a guy 25 years younger.
Early 70s NT I don't know much about the West German NT from the early 70s except for players that continued into the latter part of the decade(or later)when I started to follow the West German soccer scene. Guenter Netzer is one player that comes to mind as one whose international career I missed; Beckenbauer was pretty much the same situation.
Re: Early 70s NT well it is widely known that the 1970 and 1972 and 1974 teams are the 3 strongest in german history...
NT Roster Source Your source for those rosters is certainly familiar enough, although it seems like a long time since I've actually used it because of all the pics I've been finding.
It's been a struggle, both teams were monsters in the late 70's when my impressionable young mind was impressed with them but it's pretty rough now! I sometimes think, oh why couldn't I have liked Man U or Liverpool as a child it would be saving me a lot of heartache now.
Gloryhunter Wouldn't want it any other way to be honest, I'll take the heartbreak, sometimes it makes you become closer to your club. Or maybe I'm just a sadist since I support Hertha and Everton