TELETEX AND OTHER STUFF

I'm having a meal out tonight and the two "males" in the group have agreed to "watch the highlights later" since watching England is too painful to watch live. The match v Kosovo at Southampton may be a tense one, but we shall not know the score until after the late night show.

Youngsters will not know what this is!! For me this was a modern phenomenon a few decades ago and to be honest I didn't resort to Teletext very much. Teletext was first put out in the 1970s, originally by John Adams, with Phillips leading Video Display Units with this type of page appearing regularly on TV screens in 1974. It was picked up by ITV and called Oracle and the GPO as Prestel.

Tonight I promise not to nip to the lav to have a peak at my phone.

The first attempt to provide the British public with a football TV broadcast was on September 10th 1960. ITV took up the baton and broadcast Blackpool v Bolton a First Division game between two average teams. Both had been prominent in the 1950s with FA Cup wins but not so successfully in the league.
It was a dismal game with low ratings and no super star Stanley Matthews who was injured. That would be like Man City playing without Sterling. Not so many people had access to TV and those that did cluster around a small screens (they were small) didn't go to the match live. So both ends were sort of losing out.

The following week (17th) Arsenal v Newcastle was televised and then on the 24th, Tottenham v Aston Villa, but numbers were poor and the games not very enlightening. ITV abandoned the project until 25 years later when Tottenham played Nottm Forest on October 2nd 1983.

In 1998, Sept 9th,  MUTV was broadcast for members at £4.99 per month. "Get MUTV and get closer to Manchester United" was the slogan. ITV and BSkyB had an investment in this venture.

For luck on September 10th 2008 England beat Croatia 4-1 away in a World Cup Qualifier. A young lad called Walcott scored 3 and another "youngster" Rooney 1. It all went terribly well.