Anatomy of a 1979 football match
This feature is not about football or soccer itself
(there are lots of other sites catering for football fans),
but these pictures of the match between England and
Scotland that took place at Wembley Stadium on 26 May 1979
help illustrate the BBC's style of television presentation
of football matches during the late 1970s/early 1980s,
including the various on-screen captions that were used.
This comprehensive graphic display was used for team
details at the start of the match together with the team's
crest. The England team of this era featured famous players
such as Kevin Keegan, Steve Coppell and Trevor Brooking who
is now a familiar face on BBC1 as a football pundit.
And ditto for the opposing team - in this case
Scotland.
The referee (Antonio Garrido, from Portugal) was
deemed important enough to have an on-screen caption all of
his own. He checks his watch, waiting for play to
begin.
This (enlarged) view of the goal mouth shows some of
the advertisment hoardings used at the time. Note the
advertisments for Bush and Murphy - two electrical brand
names that were prominent in the 1970s - only Bush is still
being used today though no longer owned by what was Rank
Radio International.
The advent of video disc recording in 1968 meant that
action replays (including slow motion and still frames
without any interference) were possible without any delay
involved in rewinding a videotape, though this was confined
only to the last 33 seconds of play which was being
recorded in a continuous loop. The BBC showed briefly an
onscreen caption (which included the BBC logo) at the
beginning of the replay to let viewers know what they were
watching; not long afterwards - well at least by January
1980 - - this reminder was used far less often presumably
because viewers had been long accustomed to this sort of
thing.
When something of note happened during the game (such
as a goal being scored) a caption would often briefly
appear identifying the person involved - in this case Peter
Barnes who scored the equalising goal for England shortly
before the half-time whistle.
These were the days before the occasional use of a
permanent on-screen display of the current score - viewers
had to keep track of the game themselves for much of the
time, in which case you had to be watching from the start
or have a friend tell you the score. Hence this graphic was
very important when it appeared - it also incorporated a
football-shaped clock with a white band indicating elapsed
time since the start of play.
At the end of half (or full) time this
noticeboard-style caption was used which helpfully gave
details of who scored what goals and when. Also note the
absence of any form of electronic scoreboard or large
screen display(s) in the stadium which are so common
today.
The marching band (a regular fixture during the
interval to 'entertain' the crowd during and before this
period) had barely had the chance to leave the pitch when
play started again!
Match over - Ron Greenwood's England team had beaten
Jock Stein's Scotland (something that wasn't entirely
expected) and the team captains (Dalglish and Keegan)
swapped shirts.
