Anybody else remember how back in the late '70s, maybe early '80s, PBS used to rebroadcast English Division 1 matches? Seems strange to us today (PBS? Sports?), but back then there was a vogue for English programming that extended even to football. I had totally forgotten about it until recently, when it occurred to me that in terms of exposure to soccer in my formative years, this was about it. Not that I remember much about it today. The players' names all escape me, as do most of the teams I watched play. I do remember Arsenal and Nottingham Forest. Anyone -- and you have to be at least 40 -- remember this at all? (And does anyone know the name of that Scottish guy who shared the announcing duties?)
Toby Charles was the commentator. It was a British production of a recap of a German match (condensed down to one hour) if my memory is correct. Don't know if they ever showed any English league soccer on PBS. Here's an old thread on "Soccer Made In Germany" https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43620
Not, it was definitely English soccer, and I think they showed the entire match. Based on that other thread, maybe it was Star Soccer I was watching, though I don't remember it being called that.
Ironic you mention this since I was turning through the channels the other night on FIOS here in NYC and some random public access channel from the Hamptons seems to show EPL matches on a few days delay. I've seen Everton and Bolton matches on there and they use the team's tv feed..I was quite surprised to see this..
It was on Saturday nights from 6-7 if memory serves me correctly. The announcer was Mario Machado. The German matches that were on PBS was Soccer Made In Germany with the great Toby Charles. Highlights of a match was the format that included World Cup 82 matches as well. Toby Charles was handling the German Bundesliga matches that were on FSC years ago, and on GolTv up until the past year or two when his voice diappeared from the airwaves. I never knew how this voiceover thing worked? Was he in the US or Germany or who knows where?
That has shown up here, too - on an America One affiliate - although I haven't seen it lately. Typically, there was a 3-hour block, with a game from the previous week shown, but also preceded by the same fixture from a past season.
Definitely remember it. That was my only fix of English soccer when I got to the country in 1977. It's a shorten, 1-hour version of a game, usually televised at least 4-5 days after the game. And they didn't just show the English league, but also the League Cup final. I remember watching the Forest/Liverpool final finished at 0-0, yet they never showed the replay. Anyone remember the FA Cup coverage on an obscure channel called SCORE in the 1980s?
I very much remember this show. It was, indeed, called "Star Soccer" with Mario Machado doing the commentary. I was more of a Soccer Made In Germany fan but I rarely missed these English matches. In the Bay Area it was shown on KTEH ch. 54 out of San Jose. I remember them being on at 7pm during the winter and 5pm during the fall and spring. I used to look forward to Saturday nights on ch. 54 because they had all sorts of British programming with the league games followed by such shows as "The Rise And Fall Of Reginald Perrin" (something like that), "To the Manor Born", "The Two Ronnies", "Good Neighbours", "No. Honestly", "Fawlty Towers" and three or four episodes of "Dave Allen At Large" (genius storyteller). lol And I'm not even British! I just appreciated their way of comedy. I was about 12-13 at the time. Ah yes! As I recall they had two-hopur specials for the League Cup final which included halftime analysts and the trophy presentation afterwards. For the '81 final they did the reverse. Never showed the Wembley final between Liverpool and West Ham but they did show the replay at Villa Park. For the 1980-81 league season Star Soccer switched from Mario Machado and used the ITV feed with the great commentary of Brian Moore. Not sure it was still called Star Soccer though. I remember not seeing the 1981-82 season on PBS, but a friend of mine had cable tv (which had been newly installed in our meighborhood) and while channel surfing one time we discovered the matches being shown on ESPN. Sadly, they inserted commercials throughout the program but they kept Brian Moore's commentary. No idea how long it continued on ESPN. Not sure if you're talking about the same channel, but during the late-80s there was a cable network called FNN/SCORE where during weekdays they would be FNN (Financial News Network) and during late weeknights and all weekend they would switch to SCORE (all sports). In place of the financial ticker running across the bottom of the screen they would show American sports scores. It was hilarious because they would crawl across very rapidly and they would show boxscore-type info. For example, for a baseball game they would run across the bottom... NYM 000 021 000 - 3 6 0 at LA 020 200 10X - 5 7 0 WP- Smith LP - Jones SV- Johnson HR- none, etc... Basketball scores would include scoring by quarters and individual player's stats. And it would all be in one continuous line going really fast like the financial tickers would go. You'd get headaches trying to keep up with it all trying to find out how your team was doing. I don't recall FA Cup matches being shown on SCORE but I remember watching one-hour Italian Seria A highlights during the 1986/87 season with Martin Tyler doing the commentating. I still have them on videotape somewhere.
SCORE was a cool network. I used to watch their show Time Out for Trivia religiously. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKkandRCivQ"]YouTube - Todd Donoho Time Out For Trivia Open FNN Jacko Australia[/ame] And i do recall some soccer on the network, not sure if it was the FA Cup though.
LOL! I LOVED watching Time Out For Trivia. "TAKE A HIKE!" Whatever happened to Todd Donoho? I'm guessing he's still doing tv work somewhere in LA.
I remember watching Nottingham Forest vs. Ipswich in an FA Cup fixture in the 70s on a PBS station in Memphis, Tenn.
Yep, that's the channel: FNN/SCORE. That was a channel that's not widely available. It was the one that shows the 1987 Canada Cup between Canada and USSR in the U.S. No where else to watch it except in the pubs. Anyway, I remember this channel because a foreign student from the U.K. was desparate to watch the 1987 FA Cup Final between Spurs and Coventry, and begged me to find any methods. I took him to a pub and asked the bartender to switch his big dish to SCORE. It was an afternoon in late May (I think it was a delayed telecast or it wouldn't be an afternoon telecast in California) so there weren't that many American games on. Of course, that's the mid/late 80s, we were probably the only people in the pub watching English soccer. Those were the days. I bet there weren't more than 100 people in the whole country watching the game. And now we have people complaining that Barcelona X Bayern is not shown delayed on his cable package (on ESPN Classic), because he isn't going to waste $15 on a Spanish package (for ESPN Deportes) or Setanta Sports...
That clip is bizzare. Entertaining, but bizzare. I remember that "Jacko" character, I think I even watched him play Australian football on ESPN.
I remember during the late 70s that the PBS station in Hartford, CT showed the second half of a Italian league match.....LIVE. They started the show with an in-studio guy giving commentary and standings in both English & Italian, then the second half of a match. I seem to remember ALOT of Roma.