Search: 'Get With The Programme'

Archaeologists rarely take an interest in old football grounds but Peel Park, the former home of Accrington Stanley, has proved to be quite a treasure trove. Rick Peterson investigates

The idea began when Howard Booth, a producer at BBC Sport North West, suggested Dr Dave Robinson and I should “do a Time Team” (his words not mine – other fieldwork-based archaeology programmes are available) at Peel Park, Accrington Stanley’s home from 1919 until 1964. The middle of the 20th century may seem slightly too recent a period to interest archaeologists. However, archaeology is the study of the past through its material remains and we don’t have to confine ourselves to the remote ages of pre-history.

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With Sky now filming matches with up to 24 cameras it seems unthinkable that audiences could miss top-flight football, but games went unrecorded as recently as 1990. Mike Whalley explains

If anyone ever produces a DVD tribute to former Sheffield Wednesday striker David Hirst, it ought to include clips of his efforts as an emergency goalkeeper against Manchester City on New Year’s Day, 1990. It won’t, though, because no footage exists. Having scored Wednesday’s first in a 2-0 win, Hirst went in goal to replace the injured Kevin Pressman and made impressive saves from Steve Redmond and Colin Hendry.

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Jon Spurling goes back to Boxing Day 1963, when 66 goals were scored in the First Division

As Christmas 1963 approached, weathermen warned a shivering nation to expect a recurrence of what had happened 12 months previously. The winter of 1962 was the worst since the big freeze of 1946, when the snow began on Boxing Day and wiped out football for virtually the next two and a half months. The occasional game was played here and there, but most were played out in the minds of the newly created Pools Panel, who met each weekend in a secret London location and guessed what each result might have been.

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Simon Tyers reviews the BBC’s change of studio and whether it has made any difference to Match of the Day

Whisper it, for fear of TV columnists suddenly finding themselves surplus to requirements in these financially straitened times, but viewers of highlights shows don’t really care about what happens for much of each programme. As long as the action is plentiful and well edited – and the bits in between don’t inspire mass acts of seppuku – you can by and large get away with it.

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Brian Simpson reports on the growing problem of violence against referees in amateur football

The odds against newspapers as diverse as the Oldham Evening Chronicle, Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung and the Buckinghamshire Examiner reporting similar local football stories over the same few days are pretty slim. Yet that is what happened in mid-October, when all three covered attacks on referees in amateur and lower-league football.

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