How TV gave us the best seats in the house for moments of sporting glory

OUR great sporting summer may be over but the images it produced will live long in the memory.

From Mo Farah and the incomparable Usain Bolt exchanging trademark poses, to poster girls Jessica Ennis and Ellie Simmonds crying for joy after winning gold, these, along with countless other memorable moments, captivated the nation. But without the television cameras that beamed these iconic pictures into our homes we wouldn’t have been able to revel in all the Olympic glory.

Today we take the wizardry of TV sport for granted – it’s become a high-tech world of 3D, high-definition screens and round-the-clock coverage. And in his new book – Sit Down and Cheer, A History of Sport on TV – journalist and radio presenter Martin Kelner offers an insightful and at times humorous look at the relationship between the two.

Kelner has written his weekly Screen Break column, which takes a lighthearted look at the world of sport on TV, in the Guardian for the past 14 years. He was approached by Wisden about writing a book. “They wanted something quirky rather than a dry history and that’s what I’ve tried to do,” he says.

“There have been loads of books written about sport, but if you think about it most people’s experience of watching sport is seeing it on the telly, going back to the days of Grandstand and people like David Coleman and Frank Bough.”

But if sports coverage on TV has become an all-singing and all-dancing affair in recent times, its origins were more far more humble.

The BBC got the ball rolling back in 1937, when outside broadcast cameras were sent to the Wimbledon tennis tournament. Even though none of the 2,000 or so viewers could see the ball, such was the fuzzy greyness of the screen, this “great experiment” was deemed a tremendous success and the history of sport and TV was born.

Kelner’s earliest sporting memory is watching the 1957 FA Cup Final between Manchester United and Aston Villa. “I watched that at home with various members of my family, including my aunt and uncle. We had a TV in 1957, but not everyone did and a lot of people in our street came round to watch the match,” he says.

“People who know their football will know there was a bit of an outrage because the centre-forward for Aston Villa barged the Manchester United goalie into the net, which was a flagrant foul but it wasn’t given by the referee. I was interested in looking back at how people reacted at the time because if that had happened today it would be replayed over and over again and there would be a two-hour phone-in on the radio. But at the time if you listen to the commentary the attitude was ‘well, that’s the referee’s decision.’”

Kelner, a BBC Radio Leeds presenter, believes the relationship between sport 
and TV has been magnified since the 50s.

“People see the Queen’s Coronation as the great step forward for TV and yes, lots of people did get a telly for that in 1953. Peter Dimmock was in charge of producing that outside broadcast, and he had to lobby to get the cameras into Westminster Abbey for the Coronation, but he also used a zoom lens to get a close-up shot of the crown being placed on the Queen’s head – which he did without the permission of the Palace.

“He then used those close-up techniques for the 1953 FA Cup final, the ‘Matthews Final’, which I would argue was almost as important because viewers saw close-ups of Stanley Matthews. Before then football had been looked on as a team game but for the first time a final was told through the story of one man – and through that we got the whole cult of the sports personality.”

Another sporting landmark was the 1966 World Cup, the biggest moment in the history of English football. “It’s grown over the years to become this mythic day, but when you look back at a copy of the old Radio Times the match finished at a quarter-to-five and by five-past-five there was a Laurel and Hardy cartoon being shown on BBC One. So there was 20 minutes of post-match analysis and that was it.”

It’s a far cry from the hullabaloo that would greet such a victory today. “Can you imagine if we won the World Cup now on 
home soil with all the drama of an extra-time victory against Germany? You would have at 
least a 24-page supplement in all the newspapers and it would certainly be the main front page story. But the lead story in the Daily Mirror on the Monday after we’d won the World Cup was about Princess Alexandra having a baby. That was deemed bigger than England winning the World Cup and I think it’s interesting because it shows how things have changed.”

Even those now legendary lines of commentary from Kenneth Wolstenholme, “They think it’s all over ... It is now,” didn’t catch on straight away. “It wasn’t until sports reviews later that year when the final goal was shown again that it started to seep into public consciousness. But when he said it at the time nobody paid much attention to it.”

As well as looking at some of our big sporting moments, Kelner’s research also took him behind 
the scenes.

“On Grandstand they used to have wooden scoreboards in 
the days before computer graphics, so when the scores came in someone would put in a ‘two’ or a ‘one,’ and I found out that one of the young production assistants on the show who was responsible for sprucing up the wood so it didn’t look too shabby was Ridley Scott.”

For a long time the BBC dominated our sports coverage. “The BBC invented sport on TV and for years they had it all their own way. It wasn’t until ITV’s World of Sport came along in the 1970s and started doing it in a more showbiz way that they started to have a bit of competition. Then Sky and the Premier League came along which has made a huge difference. But I think when it comes to watching sport on TV most people prefer the BBC and it has come back in recent years. The Olympics coverage was the apotheosis of that.”

An intrinsic part of sports coverage on TV are the commentators, many of whom have become household names in their own right. “David Coleman brilliantly turned “one-nil” into his catchphrase. It seems ridiculous but he said it with an intonation that made it sound like he knew that was going to happen and people saw 
him as a kind of oracle of sport.

“Then in the 80s there was this great split between footie fans, and you were either in the Motty camp or the Barry Davies camp. The BBC couldn’t decide and one cup final they gave to Barry Davies and the next one to Motty, who eventually prevailed.”

He feels that some of the flak today’s commentators receive 
is unfair. “I have a lot of 
sympathy with commentators, and I don’t think standards have fallen. I just think they are under more scrutiny than ever before, plus they have people like me taking the mickey out of them.”

So what does the future of sport on TV look like? “The BBC has been using the ‘red button’ for a while with events like Wimbledon and I think the Olympics and the Paralympics made people conscious of its possibilities,” he says.

“But I don’t think technical developments are going to be 
the big changes. A lot of people have 3D TVs now, but it’s still a bit of a gimmick in sport, most 
of football is shown in mid-shot and 3D only works in close ups.

“So I don’t think holograms or anything like that will be the way forward, I believe the big advance will be around sport invented for betting and social networking purposes.”

Whatever the future holds, sport and TV have already changed our lives. “Over the years the language of sport has permeated through television into everyday life. Sports stars have long talked about giving it ‘110 per cent’ and now you hear people from all walks of life saying that. We’ve reached the point where sport has eaten up television, because no matter which way you look a large part of popular TV is dominated by sport.”

Sit Down and Cheer – A History of Sport on TV, by Martin Kelner, is published by Bloomsbury on September 27, £18.99. To order call 01748 821122.

Art of sports commentary

David Coleman: Nobody will ever say “one-nil” with quite the same authority. He made his fair share of gaffes, as with any commentator, but the way he handled the tragic events at the 1972 Munich Olympics was a masterclass in composure.

Barry Davies: A master of cadence and rhythm, he also has the skill of knowing when to stay silent. Always ready with an interesting turn of phrase: “Interesting, very interesting ... Look at his face, just look at his face!” – his reaction to a goal scored by Frannie Lee, his football commentary is sorely missed by fans.

Sir Peter O’Sullevan: A peerless racing commentator. He could be covering a foggy race at Chepstow and still get all the horses in the right order in a blanket finish.