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  2. New! Improved! Top Of The Pops – without the charts.
    Are they going to bring back Ceefax instead? I used to find that blue and yellow lettering very calming when reading about my team’s latest capitulation..

  4. Next thing they will be abolishing those pink newspapers! I always thought it was some kind of miracle they could get those out by about 6.30pm on a Saturday. Typical match report being about a thousand words on the 0-0 first half, then one sentence about 6 goals being scored second half!

      • I’d quite like Barnsley FC to stop printing them, as I’m running out of space. I have every Barnsley home programme since 1955 (apart from a game that was postponed, but someone grabbed a few copies before the rest got pulped – I only know of three copies that made it out and I know who has them, and they won’t be parting with them!) and at least one away programme from every team we’ve played. I’m just looking out for programmes from friendly matches now. I think there’s only been 2 or 3 friendly programmes that I bought on eBay over the past 5 years that I didn’t already have, so I think I probably have 90+% of the home and away friendly programmes that were printed.

        Programmes are so bulky nowadays. They take up so much more room, so if Barnsley were to stop printing them I wouldn’t complain, especially as they have gone up by 50p this season (to be fair to them, this is the first time the price has gone up in donkeys years)..

        • @Paul-Wad fair play to you – what would be the value of that little lot. Well over 1000 programmes by my calculation. I had the one where you beat us 2-1 in second leg of play-offs when you got to Wembley. That was actually a fun night unlike the first leg where you trounced us a mere 3 weeks after we easily beat you in the league. Football is a funny old game.

          • I pity the football (indeed, any) historian in 50 years time.
            How on earth are they going to find out about a football team that doesn’t issue a physical programme?

            Twitter/Facebook? – will not exist and everything will have been deleted (I’ll give that scenario 20 years max).
            Local newspapers – the Cornishman in 2022 covers “all” sport in 3 tabloid-size pages.

            In 2072 it will be easier to access information about 1922 than 2022.
            There is a precedent – in 2022 it is easier to access 1922 than 1992.

            • You are probably right (!)

              I would hope a pdf file is always readable, but who knows? I suppose a solution is to print it out and then archive it somewhere. Maybe not 30,000 copies though.

  5. Doesn’t make any sense whatsoever -wonder if that cow Dorries had any input given how she likes to stick her nose into anything to do with BBC.
    Was always nice to get back to car at an away game to listen to results. Checking them on phone is not same thing.

    • @Paul-Wad fair play to you – what would be the value of that little lot. Well over 1000 programmes by my calculation. I had the one where you beat us 2-1 in second leg of play-offs when you got to Wembley. That was actually a fun night unlike the first leg where you trounced us a mere 3 weeks after we easily beat you in the league. Football is a funny old game.

      • I thought we lost the second leg 2-1? It was a bit of a non-event though, after that freaky first leg. We’d never played at Wembley and this was the last chance, as they were knocking it down that summer. I’d dreamed about us playing at Wembley since I was a kid. Even now, I’d rather win the FA Cup than get back to the Premier League. I really thought we were going to do it in 2008, when we beat Liverpool and Chelsea, but it wasn’t to be. Can’t see us ever getting that close again.

        But at that first leg we went from laughing, knowing we were on our way to Wembley, barring something even freakier happening in the second leg, to being the most scared I’ve ever been at a football ground. After the Brum fans tried to get at us in the ground, thankfully stopped by the police line, we had to dodge the many bricks and bottles that were being chucked over the wall at us, whilst they kept us behind the gate whilst the cleared the street. We then were allowed out of the ground, whereby most Reds fans got on the coaches or went to their cars. I asked a policeman to point us in the direction of the railway station, as we lived in London. He said to go down the hill, turn right…but I stopped him there. “You mean, go down the hill, walk through the line of policemen that are fighting back the couple of hundred yobs that are trying to get up here to give us a kicking?” “Oh yeah”, he said, “you’d bet better off walking round the ground and going down the next road”.

        So we did that, and it brought us out about 60 or 70 yards further down the road from the mob. We were creeping across the main road when the police decided to charge at the mob to disperse them. Most of them ran our way. We ran faster. Getting back to the station was like being in the film The Warriors. We’d go slowly round corners, before quickly backing up and going the other way. At one point I dragged the three of us into a ladies clothes shop, where we browsed through the racks until a mob that was following us had gone past and out of sight. When we got back to the station there were gangs everywhere, looking out for Reds fans. They weren’t very bright, as it was a warm day, so the sight of the three of us with our jackets fastened up right to the neck should have been a giveaway. But one by one everybody made it back to the train and once the train set off we relaxed and could enjoy it. One of the lads didn’t come to the match, as his band were playing in a bar in Camden, which turned into a party, as everyone we knew seemed to be out. But several hours earlier I was stood in the ground calling my wife, telling her where all the insurance policies were, as I wasn’t confident I’d survive to make it back home! I won’t be going back there!

        As for the collection, you’ve underestimated by some way, as it numbers 2,341. I’ve put a value at the side of each one for how much it would likely cost to replace them individually. Of course, it’s unlikely that I’d ever be able to replace them all, as it’s taken me since 1977 to collect this lot, but for insurance purposes it’s a shade under £9k. A couple would go for big money, £100+, and I paid almost that for them. It was funny, cos when I bought one of them (I might even have paid £100), I got a text off a mate, who’s the official club historian at Barnsley FC, who had seen that it had been sold and worked it out that it was me that had bought it. It just said “does your wife know you’ve just paid £100 on a sheet of paper?” Of course, the answer was yes!

        Collecting has been a hobby/obsession/problem for me since I was a kid. I keep meaning to start a thread about it, because my house is like a museum. Having recently bought a record player, vinyl records is the latest thing. I had to make a promise to myself this morning that I am not going to buy any more records this side of Christmas, as I have gone way over the top, as I do with everything. I seem to collect collections! My daughter dreads me ever winning the lottery, as we can only imagine what the house would end up looking like (I already know what I would collect if I came into big money – first press Blue Note albums, but I think that would need a quadruple Euromillions rollover!).

        It’s brill though, as I like having stuff, always have, but it’s a nightmare to insure. I’m just putting all my records and CDs onto Discogs, as that gives you an instant rough idea of the value. It’s not precise, as it makes no allowance for if a record is signed, and all the many records I’ve added to their database have no value attached, as nobody else on there has copies of them and none have ever been sold. But it all sort of weighs itself out and it gives me a good figure to work with for the insurance. I just wish there was a similar online database for all my Blu Rays, books, comics, magazines, fan club magazines, artwork, Lego, trading cards, autographs, James Bond and Batman memorabilia, toys etc, as it would make my life so much easier, and maybe my insurance a little cheaper.

        • Pail I did mean to say we won 2-1 – I must have been hallucinating earlier on What happened to make the night so memorable? My son was about 13 and on the day of the first leg our tickets came for the second leg. After we got tanked I said to my son ‘ there’s no point going to Barnsley. He told me we might win 5-4 – the innocence of youth. Anyway we duly went up and despite the obvious knowledge that we were out of the playoffs the fans adopted a carnival atmosphere (Birmingham fans always nicer away from home). You might recall midway through second half a male streaker ran onto pitch from the Barnsley end and ran to the away fans. The temperature had dropped and his manhood had shrivelled. The Birmingham fans started singing ‘what the fucking hell is that?’
          Then towards the end of the game there was a buxom lady in the Birmingham end wearing a bright red leotard and devil’s horns. The Blues fans were singing ‘Get your tits out for the lads’ She did and my son very nearly wet himself.
          The football was pretty mediocre.
          Know what you mean about collecting I am the same- the difference being it sounds like you keep hold of yours. I had a very large Marvel comic collection in my teen years that was just binned. Worth a fortune now.

          • My collection is 90% Batman. I spent absolutely ages working out a timeline for the Batman stories post Year One in 1984. There are a few resources online that contradict each other in places, but I have it all written down on a massive Excel spreadsheet. It goes to over 1,200 stories. I’m talking here about placing every canon post Year One story in its place in the timeline, so not the date of publication. Some comics are flashbacks and take place much earlier than the time they were released.

            This includes all stories Batman appeared in, so there are some Superman/Wonder Woman/The Flash/Green Lantern/etc stories thrown in. And I’ve done it by story, not by comic. So some stories may just be half a comic long, some might be 26 comics, some are hefty graphic novels.

            The project took ages. Made doubly hard by me tracking down the comics as I went along. I’ve now got a large bookshelf with all the stories in order. I reckon I have about half the stories in comic/book format, the rest I have electronically (I have pretty much every DC comic ever released electronically, as well as tens of thousands of Marvel and others), so my spreadsheet not only tells me what to read next, it tells me whether to head to the bookshelf or the laptop to find it.

            I’m working my way through it, although I haven’t read any for quite a while, and I’m hoping my son will be keen to read it all in a few years time, as it was an awful lot of effort just for myself. I need to pick it back up again. I know there are lots of Justice League stories coming up and I’m not a fan of that side of it. I prefer the darker, more grounded stuff. Yes, the villains are all a bit OTT, but there are no aliens and what have you. That’s why I thought the recent The Batman film was fantastic. Nothing will ever top The Dark Knight, but they took it in a direction that previous Batman films only touched upon. I can’t wait for the second film.

            Mmm, this all makes me sound like a comic book geek. I’m not! Well, not really anyway. Although if you saw the shelves in my bedroom you’d be forgiven for jumping to that conclusion!

          • I was back home and went to bed at about 6pm. I didn’t use to take losing well (see also 1986 World Cup QF, 1990 World Cup SF and, especially, the 1996 Euro SF, although that one was complicated by the presence of several women).

            A lot of Reds fans point to Barnard’s missed penalty as being the turning point and maybe it might have fired us up, but you were in total control for the first half hour of the second half. The real turning point was Wright’s reflex save from Hristov’s header. Hristov shouldn’t have given him a chance of saving it, as there was plenty of goal at either side of him to score in. Had he scored, bringing it back from 3-1 to 3-3 in a matter of minutes, I reckon we’d have gone on to win, which would have been a bit of a travesty, as Ipswich were the best team in Division Two that season, as you proved in the Premiership the following year.

              • We had another play-off game whilst Wembley was being rebuilt, albeit a division lower. What was particularly fab about it, apart from winning on penalties, was that the roof was closed. It was odd, but I’m glad we got to experience it.

                Incidentally, my mate is an Exeter fan, so as well as going to the last competitive club game at the old Wembley, I went to the first one at the new Wembley, the Conference play-off final. Unfortunately for my mate, I was the kiss of death both times, as Exeter lost too.

    • I’m trying to think what is “woke” about the classified results. There’s bound to be something. Is it merely the act of aying all those place names in Scotland and Wales? The whole of Scotland and Wales are probably deemed woke these days, given the ever-narrowing parameters of what is acceptable to the English Conservative base whose every prejudice should govern everything we do.

      Stewart fuckin’ Lee etc

  6. My initial reaction was to be up in arms at them stopping reading the results out, until I thought about it and couldn’t remember the last time I tuned in to listen to them. Maybe if we’re on the way back from an away match in someone’s car, but even then, we already know all the results cos we’ve been keeping an eye on our phones during the match, especially towards the end of the season, when we are usually wanting four or five results to go our way, to avoid us going down!

    • The funniest one I remember was in late 70’s Birmingham once again had a disastrous start to the season and hadn’t one a game in the first ten. Next up at St.Andrews were Man United who were having a decent season. They scored after 5 minutes and that sinking feeling of ‘here we go again’ crept in.
      We went on to win 5-1. As we left the ground someone had local radio station BRMB on and the presenter read the result Birmingham City 5 -Manchester United 1 – just in case you didn’t hear that Birmingham City 5 -.Manchester United 1.

      • When Barnsley played at Arsenal in the Premier League they stuffed us 5-0. As we were walking towards some pub or other down Upper Street one of the lads called his missus. We could obviously only hear his side of the conversation, but it made us laugh. It went something like this:

        “Eyup love, the game’s finished and we’re wandering into Islington for some beer if you wanna come down”

        “We’ll all be out for a while, so give me a bell when you set off”

        “There’s about 8 of us and [my girlfriend at the time] is coming out too”

        “Yes, it finished about 15 minutes ago”

        “5-0”

        “To Arsenal!”

        We all thought it was hilarious, as after Dave had said 5-0, Maz clearly must have said “who to?”, like we were going to win 5-0 at Highbury!

  8. It’s going to be funny following the narrative on the radio, though:
    “Not much happening on the commentary game here but over at the Emirates there’s a crucial goal. Which way has it gone?”
    “Yes it’s Arsenal 4 City 2. Ten minutes to go. Can they hang on and win this?”
    “Over to the Emirates again. Another goal”.
    “City have one back. But we’re into injury time now. The board says three minutes. Will that be enough time for an equaliser?”
    “Back to the Emirates..”
    “DRAMA HERE!! It looked like a certain goal for Foden but it was blocked on the line. There were shouts for handball. It’s being checked by VAR. WHAT an end to the season. A penalty here could give City a lifeline and possibly the title and deny Arsenal Champions League football for another season!”
    “Thanks for that. It’s just ended 0-0 here at Old Trafford, so it’s over to Chris Sutton talking up his Celtic career and glossing over his period at Chelsea..

      • ..er..
        at 89 minutes and 30 seconds any late goals that are scored are HOT NEWS which our radio audience are so invested in that we will interrupt whatever we’re commenting on to report.
        Once the final whistle blows we’re not that bothered and you’re on your own with your phones.
        It’s giving me flashbacks to very abrupt endings to my nights in the pubs down the docks..

        • Oh I see. I think that the reason given is that they will cover the game at 5.30pm. So there will be a 30 minute review at 5, followed by a full game then I guess Sutton and Savage come on after that. More “726” than “606”

  9. Noticed this on Saturday following Hampton’s away game at Cheshunt. We got in the car put the radio on and Sports Report went straight into one of the crushingly dull post premier league game interviews they seem to think everyone depends upon so much. Hopeless. I love football but I hate sport interviews…
    interviewing players and managers who are only doing it out of contractual obligation, who have nothing to say and what interesting bits that could be spoken about are obviously off limits. Dull, dull, dull. At 5.00 on a Saturday I want results and objective, professional match reports, nothing else will do. Hmph.

  13. Can’t believe we’ve got this far without mentioning Leonard Martin. He read the results for decades, while the nation’s dads checked their football pools. You could always tell by the inflection of his voice whether the away team had won, lost or drawn. Me and my mates used to try and guess the score before he said it. We knew how to have fun in them days.

    • Loads of local derbies there. Must have been a bank holiday. And I don’t remember watching us draw 0-0 at home to the Fowls, so that puts it either Christmas 82 or Easter 83, judging by the divisions the teams are in. We spent every school holiday at my Nan’s in Robin Hood’s Bay from Christmas 82 onwards. Missed a few matches, but it was brill. A quarter of the year at the seaside. We knew everybody in the village. There were only a few kids who lived there but we were all mates. It was great in the summer, when everything was open, but it was also great out of season, when there was nobody there.

      • Ah, by the Fowls you mean the Owls. Is this a Barnsley thing or a typo?

        Talking of football club nicknames, my Readly sub gets me the Non-League Football Paper, essential reading now that Southend are in the National League. All human life is here: Spirits, Stones, Bees, Daggers, Poppies, Coasters, Bucks, Sandgrounders, Turbines, Quakers, Darts, Bluebirds, Hawks, Ambers, Terras, Hoops, Peacocks, Marksmen, Pitmen, Crows, Lions, Ravens, Eagles, Magpies, Seagulls, and any number of Saints.

  15. @paul-wad It was December 1982 I think. I was at the Northampton V Crewe game, first league match I went to. I think my dad only took us as he wanted to get tickets for the FA cup match a couple of weeks later against Aston Villa and you had to go to one of the preceding games to be able to buy a ticket.

    • Then you saw the same outcome as I did at my first game. Barnsley 4 Workington 0, Easter 1977, my Easter present from my grandad. I then started going to all the Saturday matches with him from the start of the following season. Night games went on past my bedtime!

      • We had no allegiance to the Cobblers and went to whatever game my dad fancied as Commodores (once, twice, three times a season). He eventually settled down with Rushden and Diamonds a few years later and has never looked back.

  16. As I read on Twitter the other day, they’d never dream of not showing such irrelevance as the boat race, trooping the colour or the Horse Racing

    Meanwhile the working classes sport who gives a shit from the Beebs perspective

    Talksport still read out the results so I’ll vote with my feet.

    • Well, that’s the power of Twitter as the BBC haven’t shown any horse racing in the last 10 years and ITV had the Boat Race from 2005 to 2009 but dumped it so they could show more football. But no need for facts to get in the way of the usual anti BBC bashing. Oh and they show darts, a sport famous for it’s support amongst the British elite.

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