Search: 'Get With The Programme'

Cameron Carter explores the absurdity of behind-the-scenes football coverage on television and shares his views on ITV's World Cup coverage

Football Focus’s obsession with going behind the scenes is becoming a little tiresome, like a small child substituting “poo” for every noun over the period of a year. When ITV were forced to focus on the Football League, they had Matt Smith prowling around terraces, boot rooms, the referee’s toilet – all to give the impression that ITV preferred to cover these divisions actually because this was roots football, not that phoney Premier League nonsense where you can only get to within 30 feet of the players if you have four wristbands and a very recent CRB check. 

Read more…

First Division defences extended the season of goodwill to Boxing Day in 1963, when 66 goals were scored. Jon Spurling reports

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.

Read more…

Simon Hart discusses the history behind 2010's most unique pre-season friendly: Everton v Everton

Forget the money-spinning Emirates Cup, it was Goodison Park that hosted the summer’s most meaningful pre-season friendly, Everton v Everton, as the Merseyside club faced their Chilean namesakes for the first time on August 4. The unique occasion drew a 25,934 crowd – more than the annual pre-season fundraiser for the club’s former players’ foundation usually attracts. Those present witnessed some wonderful quirks, not least the sight of the Park End scoreboard reading Everton 0, Everton 0, at least until the home team’s two unanswered second-half goals.

Read more…

Dan Callow travelled to the biggest game in Fulham's history and enjoyed the matchday experience away from the Premier League

It may seem a little churlish, stood in a fabulous stadium shortly before the start of the biggest game in your club’s history, to start remembering some of the awful matchday experiences you have suffered in the past. But as fans of about 87 other League clubs will attest, when it comes to following your team then the glass is always very much half empty even, so it seems, when stood on the threshold of possible European glory. Besides, it’s all bound to go wrong and we’ll be back in League Two in three years anyway.

Read more…

Opened in 1871, one of the oldest football grounds still in use will shut at the end of the season. While grumbles about the football will always endure, some things will never be the same again, says Roger Titford

The first Taylor Report into ground safety appeared in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall was breached. Just like the Berlin Wall, there’s precious little left standing today of our traditional Football League stadiums. One of these terraced grounds really ought to have been preserved in its entirety for the nation by English Heritage but instead I pay homage to Saltergate, while a few fixtures remain.

Read more…