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World of Sport (UK TV series)
Encyclopedia
World of Sport was a British television
sport
anthology programme which ran on ITV
between 2 January 1965 to 28 September 1985 in response to competition from BBC's Grandstand
. Like Grandstand, the programme ran for several hours every Saturday afternoon.
was the first host and the programme itself was "compiled for Independent Television" by ABC Weekend Television
. From the summer of 1968 it was produced by London Weekend Television
- under the ITV Sport banner, with the other ITV stations supplying footage of events in their regions. Thames Television
took over LWT's responsibilities for Bank Holiday
editions. Dickie Davies
also took over as host in 1968 and would remain the face of the show until it ended in 1985. Other presenters were Fred Dinenage
& Jim Rosenthal
.
The programme's title is similar to Wide World of Sports
. The proposed title was changed because the initial programmes featured sports from hardly further than the North Circular, and early Programme Editor John Bromley felt that "Wide" World of Sports would have looked rather silly.
(a preview of the day's football action), The ITV Seven
(horse racing), and wrestling
with commentator Kent Walton
. It also showed sports not seen elsewhere, such as women's hockey
, netball
, lacrosse
, water skiing
and stock car racing
or sports that were not popular with the British mainstream, such as NASCAR
and ice speedway
. It featured bizarre sports like the World Barrel Jumping Championships, and even death-defying stunts.
It often showed show jumping
and other equestrian
events, especially in its earlier years, and towards the end of its life it showed snooker
extensively. 'Minority' sports were a feature throughout its run. BBC had purchased the rights to as many established events as it could; a joke of the period was that the BBC were going through the list of sports in alphabetical order and had run out of cash before it reached wrestling which is how ITV got it. Two sports in particular Ten-pin bowling
and Kart racing
benefited from television exposure to a British public hitherto unaware of them. British stock car
drivers such as Barry Lee also benefited from the show's exposure.
The programme also occasionally acquired the rights to genuinely major sporting events, such as the Tour de France
and the Ryder Cup
. Admittedly this was in 1977 when the United States
v Great Britain
and Ireland
match was regarded as something of a mismatch before Europe became the opposition.
During the football season, the programme would normally finish with the Results Service, which started shortly before the full-time whistles started to go in the afternoon games on Saturday.
A typical edition would be broadcast between 1215 and 1710 and would take on the following format.
The FA Cup Final
also featured on World of Sport - with BBC and ITV often competing for viewers by broadcasting unusual features and occasionally early starts to their broadcasts to entice viewers to watch their coverage. The Cup Final was generally the only football match that was ever shown live on World of Sport.
. It was originally planned to bring US wrestling to viewers on average of once a month in this slot - three weeks of the UK version and one of the American version - but the US version only appeared on a total of six occasions in the two years that it played in that slot. It has recently been re-run on The Fight Network since March, 2004. Football coverage also continued with previous On the Ball
hosts Saint
and Greavsie
and a results service also aired during the football season. Bob Colston
had been the only regular results announcer for the duration of World of Sport, John Tyrrel was the regular reader of the racing results in its later years (and continued to work on Channel 4 Racing until 1994).
, featuring Ian St. John
and Jimmy Greaves
, featuring football news, action and live chat was introduced by ITV on Saturday lunchtimes from 1985 to replace the On The Ball segment of World of Sport, enjoying a successful run that ended in 1992 when Sky Sports
gained exclusive rights to broadcasting English football.
From 1985, Wrestling with Kent Walton
would follow immediately after Saint & Greavsie, before being dropped in 1988, largely due to the popularity of the US World Wrestling Federation
promotion (now World Wrestling Entertainment) gaining momentum in the UK in that era. In the mid 2000s, The Wrestling Channel, later The Fight Network
, purchased the broadcasting rights to the World of Sport's wrestling shows until the channel stopped transmitting. It is then shown on UK satellite channel Men and Movies.
The Results Service also continued to run as a standalone programme in its own right from 1985, presented generally by Bob Colston, but was dropped in 1992 and added to the ITN Evening News bulletins on Saturdays from the start of the 1992/93 season. Colston neverthless continued to read the results in the ITN bulletins until defecting to Sky Sports at the end of the 1995/96 season.
Live coverage of sports such as athletics, ice skating and snooker also continued to play a part in the Saturday afternoon schedule on ITV for a time, but gradually diminshed after a few years.
ITV paid tribute to World of Sport as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations in September 2005.
.
From 1979, a new, more contemporary, theme tune composed by Jeff Wayne
was used until the series ended in 1985. The opening credits initially were identical to the ones used with the original titles, although the sequence was speeded up to fit in with the faster tempo of the new tune. The advent of computer-generated imagery
in the early 1980s saw a new opening sequence introduced in 1982, and the theme tune by Jeff Wayne was remixed by Graham Hix of LWT to coincide with a new ITV Sport logo and a set of titles revolving around an oscillating blue circle, with footage of different sports fading in and out in time with the theme tune. This sequence was used until the series cancellation in 1985.
Jeff Wayne also composed a new theme tune for the opening and closing credits to the Results Service during it's period as a standalone programme between 1985 and 1992. Previously a simple, 10-second musical and visual sting had been used to introduce the Results Service during the World of Sport programme itself.
British television
Public television broadcasting started in the United Kingdom in 1936, and now has a collection of free and subscription services over a variety of distribution media, through which there are over 480 channelsTaking the base Sky EPG TV Channels. A breakdown is impossible due to a) the number of...
sport
Sport
A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...
anthology programme which ran on ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
between 2 January 1965 to 28 September 1985 in response to competition from BBC's Grandstand
Grandstand (BBC)
Grandstand was a British television sport programme. Broadcast between 1958 and 2007, it was one of the BBC's longest running sports shows, alongside BBC Sports Personality of the Year.Its first presenter was Peter Dimmock...
. Like Grandstand, the programme ran for several hours every Saturday afternoon.
Early years
Eamonn AndrewsEamonn Andrews
Eamonn Andrews, CBE , was an Irish television presenter based in the United Kingdom.-Life and career:...
was the first host and the programme itself was "compiled for Independent Television" by ABC Weekend Television
Associated British Corporation
Associated British Corporation was one of a number of commercial television companies established in the United Kingdom during the 1950s by cinema chain companies in an attempt to safeguard their business by becoming involved with television which was taking away their cinema audiences.In this...
. From the summer of 1968 it was produced by London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television was the name of the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties including south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Warwickshire, east Dorset and...
- under the ITV Sport banner, with the other ITV stations supplying footage of events in their regions. Thames Television
Thames Television
Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992....
took over LWT's responsibilities for Bank Holiday
Bank Holiday
A bank holiday is a public holiday in the United Kingdom or a colloquialism for public holiday in Ireland. There is no automatic right to time off on these days, although the majority of the population is granted time off work or extra pay for working on these days, depending on their contract...
editions. Dickie Davies
Dickie Davies
Richard "Dickie" Davies is a British television presenter, best known for presenting World of Sport from 1968 until 1985....
also took over as host in 1968 and would remain the face of the show until it ended in 1985. Other presenters were Fred Dinenage
Fred Dinenage
Frederick Edgar Dinenage, MBE is an English television host and newsreader, based in the south of England.Dinenage has appeared as presenter of many British television programmes , such as Gambit , Tell The Truth, How and its successor How...
& Jim Rosenthal
Jim Rosenthal
Jim Rosenthal is a sports presenter on British television.-Early life:Rosenthal grew up in Oxford and attended Josca's Preparatory School before going to Magdalen College School...
.
The programme's title is similar to Wide World of Sports
Wide World of Sports (US TV series)
ABC's Wide World of Sports is a sports anthology series on American television that ran from 1961 to 1998 and was originally hosted by Jim McKay. The title continued to be used for general sports programs until 2006...
. The proposed title was changed because the initial programmes featured sports from hardly further than the North Circular, and early Programme Editor John Bromley felt that "Wide" World of Sports would have looked rather silly.
Features
The show included popular segments such as On the BallOn The Ball (ITV television show)
On The Ball is a British ITV Saturday lunchtime television show about football, which ran as part of World of Sport in the 1980s, and as a stand-alone show from 1998 to 2004....
(a preview of the day's football action), The ITV Seven
The ITV Seven
The ITV Seven was an essential part of World of Sport in the United Kingdom. It started on 4 October 1969 when the programme began to show horse racing from two courses each week rather than one, under the title "They're Off". In the early 1970s it changed to the ITV Seven, reflecting the number...
(horse racing), and wrestling
Professional wrestling in the United Kingdom
Professional wrestling in the United Kingdom spans over 100 years but became popular when the then new Independent Television station - ITV began showing it in 1955 firstly on Saturday afternoons and then also in a late night mid week slot...
with commentator Kent Walton
Kent Walton
Kent Walton , born Kenneth Walton Beckett, was a British television sports commentator and presenter.Despite a transatlantic accent which led many to believe he was Canadian, he was born in Cairo, Egypt, the son of the finance minister in the colonial government...
. It also showed sports not seen elsewhere, such as women's hockey
Field hockey
Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...
, netball
Netball
Netball is a ball sport played between two teams of seven players. Its development, derived from early versions of basketball, began in England in the 1890s. By 1960 international playing rules had been standardised for the game, and the International Federation of Netball and Women's Basketball ...
, lacrosse
Lacrosse
Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh...
, water skiing
Water skiing
thumb|right|A slalom skier making a turn on a slalom waterski.Waterskiing is a sport where an individual is pulled behind a boat or a cable ski installation on a body of water, skimming the surface.-History:...
and stock car racing
Stock car racing
Stock car racing is a form of automobile racing found mainly in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Great Britain, Brazil and Argentina. Traditionally, races are run on oval tracks measuring approximately in length...
or sports that were not popular with the British mainstream, such as NASCAR
NASCAR
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing is a family-owned and -operated business venture that sanctions and governs multiple auto racing sports events. It was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1947–48. As of 2009, the CEO for the company is Brian France, grandson of the late Bill France Sr...
and ice speedway
Ice speedway
Ice Speedway is a developed form of Speedway racing, featuring racing on frozen surfaces. The sport uses bikes enhanced for the terrain. Participants can compete at international level.- Outline :...
. It featured bizarre sports like the World Barrel Jumping Championships, and even death-defying stunts.
It often showed show jumping
Show jumping
Show jumping, also known as "stadium jumping," "open jumping," or "jumpers," is a member of a family of English riding equestrian events that also includes dressage, eventing, hunters, and equitation. Jumping classes commonly are seen at horse shows throughout the world, including the Olympics...
and other equestrian
Equestrianism
Equestrianism more often known as riding, horseback riding or horse riding refers to the skill of riding, driving, or vaulting with horses...
events, especially in its earlier years, and towards the end of its life it showed snooker
Snooker
Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a green baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. A regular table is . It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white , 15 worth one point each, and six balls of different :...
extensively. 'Minority' sports were a feature throughout its run. BBC had purchased the rights to as many established events as it could; a joke of the period was that the BBC were going through the list of sports in alphabetical order and had run out of cash before it reached wrestling which is how ITV got it. Two sports in particular Ten-pin bowling
Ten-pin bowling
Ten-pin bowling is a competitive sport in which a player rolls a bowling ball down a wooden or synthetic lane with the objective of scoring points by knocking down as many pins as possible.-Summary:The lane is bordered along its length by semicylindrical channels Ten-pin bowling (commonly just...
and Kart racing
Kart racing
Kart racing or karting is a variant of open-wheel motorsport with small, open, four-wheeled vehicles called karts, go-karts, or gearbox/shifter karts depending on the design. They are usually raced on scaled-down circuits...
benefited from television exposure to a British public hitherto unaware of them. British stock car
Dirt track racing in the U.K.
Dirt track racing is a type of auto racing performed on oval tracks throughout the United Kingdom. If the number of tracks is any indication of popularity, dirt track racing is the most popular auto racing sport in Britain. Dirt ovals outnumber all other types of tracks combined...
drivers such as Barry Lee also benefited from the show's exposure.
The programme also occasionally acquired the rights to genuinely major sporting events, such as the Tour de France
Tour de France
The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race held in France and nearby countries. First staged in 1903, the race covers more than and lasts three weeks. As the best known and most prestigious of cycling's three "Grand Tours", the Tour de France attracts riders and teams from around the world. The...
and the Ryder Cup
Ryder Cup
The Ryder Cup is a biennial golf competition between teams from Europe and the United States. The competition is jointly administered by the PGA of America and the PGA European Tour, and is contested every two years, the venue alternating between courses in the United States and Europe...
. Admittedly this was in 1977 when the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
v Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
and Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
match was regarded as something of a mismatch before Europe became the opposition.
During the football season, the programme would normally finish with the Results Service, which started shortly before the full-time whistles started to go in the afternoon games on Saturday.
A typical edition would be broadcast between 1215 and 1710 and would take on the following format.
- 1230 On The BallOn The Ball (ITV television show)On The Ball is a British ITV Saturday lunchtime television show about football, which ran as part of World of Sport in the 1980s, and as a stand-alone show from 1998 to 2004....
- football preview with Brian MooreBrian Moore (commentator)Brian Moore was a British sports commentator.-Early life:Moore was born in Gillingham, Kent and educated at the Cranbrook School, Kent, which was also the school of fellow commentators Peter West and Barry Davies....
and in later years Ian St. JohnIan St. JohnIan St. John is a former Scottish footballer, who played for Scotland 21 times. He later became a manager and pundit...
and Jimmy GreavesJimmy GreavesJames Peter 'Jimmy' Greaves is an English former football player, England's third highest international goalscorer, the highest goalscorer in the history of Tottenham Hotspur football club, the highest goalscorer in the history of English top flight football and more recently a television pundit -...
. - 1300 Sports Special 1 - A wide array of sports, often including clips from US show Wide World of Sports. Less prominent sports such as dartsDartsDarts is a form of throwing game where darts are thrown at a circular target fixed to a wall. Though various boards and games have been used in the past, the term "darts" usually now refers to a standardised game involving a specific board design and set of rules...
, snookerSnookerSnooker is a cue sport that is played on a green baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. A regular table is . It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white , 15 worth one point each, and six balls of different :...
, bowlsBowlsBowls is a sport in which the objective is to roll slightly asymmetric balls so that they stop close to a smaller "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a pitch which may be flat or convex or uneven...
, water skiingWater skiingthumb|right|A slalom skier making a turn on a slalom waterski.Waterskiing is a sport where an individual is pulled behind a boat or a cable ski installation on a body of water, skimming the surface.-History:...
, speedwayMotorcycle speedwayMotorcycle speedway, usually referred to as speedway, is a motorcycle sport involving four and sometimes up to six riders competing over four anti-clockwise laps of an oval circuit. Speedway motorcycles use only one gear and have no brakes and racing takes place on a flat oval track usually...
, rallyingRallyingRallying, also known as rally racing, is a form of auto racing that takes place on public or private roads with modified production or specially built road-legal cars...
and others would also feature. - 1330 Racing, The ITV SevenThe ITV SevenThe ITV Seven was an essential part of World of Sport in the United Kingdom. It started on 4 October 1969 when the programme began to show horse racing from two courses each week rather than one, under the title "They're Off". In the early 1970s it changed to the ITV Seven, reflecting the number...
. - 1500 Sports Special 2 - see Sports Special 1.
- 1545 Half-Time Scores - the half-time scores from that day's football, plus racing results from races that had taken place in the previous hour.
- 1600 Wrestling - a mainstay of the World of Sport schedule from 1965 until it ended. Many of the wrestlers featured became household names in the UK and the greatest rivalry was between Big DaddyShirley CrabtreeShirley Crabtree, Jr, better known as Big Daddy was a British professional wrestler famous for his record-breaking 64 inch chest...
and Giant Haystacks - 1645 Results Service - all the full-time football scores, match reports and league tables plus the last of the day's horse racing results.
The FA Cup Final
FA Cup Final
The FA Cup Final, commonly referred to in England as just the Cup Final, is the last match in the Football Association Challenge Cup. With an official attendance of 89,826 at the 2007 FA Cup Final, it is the fourth best attended domestic club championship event in the world and the second most...
also featured on World of Sport - with BBC and ITV often competing for viewers by broadcasting unusual features and occasionally early starts to their broadcasts to entice viewers to watch their coverage. The Cup Final was generally the only football match that was ever shown live on World of Sport.
Demise
Despite being a sports programme with cult status, running for twenty years, it was cancelled on 28 September 1985 because of a change in emphasis at ITV Sport - racing coverage had switched to Channel 4, and there was a declining audience for wrestling at this point. Wrestling continued to have a programme at its own right but it was transmitted on lunchtimes at 12.30 rather than teatimes and stayed on air until December 1988. During this period, matches from Joint Promotions, who previously held exclusive rights to ITV coverage, were supplemented with matches from rival promotion All Star WrestlingAll Star Wrestling
All Star Wrestling is a British Professional wrestling promotion also known as All Star Promotions, Superslam Wrestling and Big Time Wrestling and originally known as Wrestling Enterprises , run by Brian Dixon and based in Liverpool, England...
. It was originally planned to bring US wrestling to viewers on average of once a month in this slot - three weeks of the UK version and one of the American version - but the US version only appeared on a total of six occasions in the two years that it played in that slot. It has recently been re-run on The Fight Network since March, 2004. Football coverage also continued with previous On the Ball
On The Ball (ITV television show)
On The Ball is a British ITV Saturday lunchtime television show about football, which ran as part of World of Sport in the 1980s, and as a stand-alone show from 1998 to 2004....
hosts Saint
Ian St. John
Ian St. John is a former Scottish footballer, who played for Scotland 21 times. He later became a manager and pundit...
and Greavsie
Jimmy Greaves
James Peter 'Jimmy' Greaves is an English former football player, England's third highest international goalscorer, the highest goalscorer in the history of Tottenham Hotspur football club, the highest goalscorer in the history of English top flight football and more recently a television pundit -...
and a results service also aired during the football season. Bob Colston
Bob Colston
Bob Colston is a broadcaster who was famous in the United Kingdom as the voice of the football results on the ITV programme World of Sport which ran from 1965 to 1985....
had been the only regular results announcer for the duration of World of Sport, John Tyrrel was the regular reader of the racing results in its later years (and continued to work on Channel 4 Racing until 1994).
After World of Sport ended
A spin-off programme Saint and GreavsieSaint and Greavsie
Saint and Greavsie was a popular double act consisting of ex-footballers Ian St. John and Jimmy Greaves. It is best remembered for the ITV programme, Saint and Greavsie, that ran from 1985 to 1992. Previously the duo had presented "On the Ball" in the World of Sport show.-Format:Although Greaves...
, featuring Ian St. John
Ian St. John
Ian St. John is a former Scottish footballer, who played for Scotland 21 times. He later became a manager and pundit...
and Jimmy Greaves
Jimmy Greaves
James Peter 'Jimmy' Greaves is an English former football player, England's third highest international goalscorer, the highest goalscorer in the history of Tottenham Hotspur football club, the highest goalscorer in the history of English top flight football and more recently a television pundit -...
, featuring football news, action and live chat was introduced by ITV on Saturday lunchtimes from 1985 to replace the On The Ball segment of World of Sport, enjoying a successful run that ended in 1992 when Sky Sports
Sky Sports
Sky Sports is the brand name for a group of sports-oriented television channels operated by the UK and Ireland's main satellite pay-TV company, British Sky Broadcasting. Sky Sports is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland...
gained exclusive rights to broadcasting English football.
From 1985, Wrestling with Kent Walton
Kent Walton
Kent Walton , born Kenneth Walton Beckett, was a British television sports commentator and presenter.Despite a transatlantic accent which led many to believe he was Canadian, he was born in Cairo, Egypt, the son of the finance minister in the colonial government...
would follow immediately after Saint & Greavsie, before being dropped in 1988, largely due to the popularity of the US World Wrestling Federation
World Wrestling Entertainment
World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. is an American publicly traded, privately controlled entertainment company dealing primarily in professional wrestling, with major revenue sources also coming from film, music, product licensing, and direct product sales...
promotion (now World Wrestling Entertainment) gaining momentum in the UK in that era. In the mid 2000s, The Wrestling Channel, later The Fight Network
The Fight Network
Fight Network is a Canadian English language Category B specialty channel devoted to airing programming related to wrestling, boxing, mixed martial arts, and other combatant styles...
, purchased the broadcasting rights to the World of Sport's wrestling shows until the channel stopped transmitting. It is then shown on UK satellite channel Men and Movies.
The Results Service also continued to run as a standalone programme in its own right from 1985, presented generally by Bob Colston, but was dropped in 1992 and added to the ITN Evening News bulletins on Saturdays from the start of the 1992/93 season. Colston neverthless continued to read the results in the ITN bulletins until defecting to Sky Sports at the end of the 1995/96 season.
Live coverage of sports such as athletics, ice skating and snooker also continued to play a part in the Saturday afternoon schedule on ITV for a time, but gradually diminshed after a few years.
ITV paid tribute to World of Sport as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations in September 2005.
Theme tune and opening
World of Sport had an iconic theme tune and opening credits which featured the ITV Sport logo and the programme name as trailing banners from light aircraft. The long running theme known as The World Of Sport March, used between 1965 and 1979, was composed by Don HarperDon Harper
Don Harper was an Australian composer.Born in Melbourne in 1921, Don Harper showed an interest in music from an early age, learning to play the violin as a child...
.
From 1979, a new, more contemporary, theme tune composed by Jeff Wayne
Jeff Wayne
Jeffry "Jeff" Wayne, born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, is a musician best known for Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, his musical version of H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds...
was used until the series ended in 1985. The opening credits initially were identical to the ones used with the original titles, although the sequence was speeded up to fit in with the faster tempo of the new tune. The advent of computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery
Computer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
in the early 1980s saw a new opening sequence introduced in 1982, and the theme tune by Jeff Wayne was remixed by Graham Hix of LWT to coincide with a new ITV Sport logo and a set of titles revolving around an oscillating blue circle, with footage of different sports fading in and out in time with the theme tune. This sequence was used until the series cancellation in 1985.
Jeff Wayne also composed a new theme tune for the opening and closing credits to the Results Service during it's period as a standalone programme between 1985 and 1992. Previously a simple, 10-second musical and visual sting had been used to introduce the Results Service during the World of Sport programme itself.
Historic, noteworthy or bizarre live events broadcast
- On 11 May 1985, World of Sport switched its coverage to Valley ParadeValley ParadeValley Parade, also known as the Coral Windows Stadium through sponsorship rights, is an all-seater football stadium in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. It was built in 1886, and was the home of Manningham Rugby Football Club until 1903, when they changed code from rugby football to association...
stadium as match commentator John HelmJohn Helm (sportscaster)John Helm is a British sports commentator with over 25 years of network television experience, mainly with ITV. Now he is the voice of international broadcasts of the FIFA World Cup and other events...
, who had been covering the game for Yorkshire TelevisionYorkshire TelevisionYorkshire Television, now officially known as ITV Yorkshire and sometimes unofficially abbreviated to YTV, is a British television broadcaster and the contractor for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network...
, described the events of the Bradford City stadium fire as they unfolded. - The comedian Eric MorecambeEric MorecambeJohn Eric Bartholomew OBE , known by his stage name Eric Morecambe, was an English comedian who together with Ernie Wise formed the award-winning double act Morecambe and Wise. The partnership lasted from 1941 until Morecambe's death of a heart attack in 1984...
appeared as a guest on the Christmas Eve edition of World Sport in 1977 causing mayhem by entertaining and trying to disrupt his friend Dickie Davies' presentation links. http://tv.cream.org/specialassignments/presenters/d.htm - The most notorious out-take of the live show featured a spoonerismSpoonerismA spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched . It is named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner , Warden of New College, Oxford, who was notoriously prone to this tendency...
from presenter Dickie Davies who mispronounced the following week's cup soccer as cop sucker, which unfortunately sounded very similar to cock sucker. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20050917/ai_n15353503 - The show featured rows of typists sat behind the main presenter, looking as though they were preparing items for the show. In fact they were administration staff at LWT, moved from their offices to the studio on a Saturday afternoon. The material they were actually typing was often scripts, internal memos or replies to fan mail. This was parodied by French and SaundersFrench and SaundersFrench and Saunders is a British sketch comedy television show written by and starring comic duo Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. It is also the name by which the performers are known on the occasions when they appear elsewhere as a double act....
in the sketch Sports Report and featured their recurring 'Extras' characters attempting to get their faces on television.