Richard Sutcliffe: In world before smart phones and internet, Ceefax was king

But the taking of another step towards the total demise of Ceefax earlier this week was still a sad day in Sutcliffe Towers, almost akin to a trusted friend having passed away.

In the days long before smart phones, the internet and 24-hour sports news channels, BBC viewers who wanted to keep abreast of what was happening in the world did so via the teletext information service that had made its debut in 1974.

For football fans, Ceefax – and its less popular ITV rival, Teletext – provided a service like no other, particularly when live games were being played.

It might be your own team playing far away, it might be a promotion rival looking to capitalise on a game in hand or it might even just be a big Cup tie.

But, in a time before Jeff Stelling and his chums were able to bring you goal updates almost the moment the ball hits the net, if it was news of how a game was going you wanted then Ceefax was the place to find out.

Anyone who can claim not to have at least ‘watched’ part of a big match this way has either never had a television or is 15. I pity them, as following games via Ceefax was almost a rite of passage.

What felt like hours but was probably only minutes (okay, seconds...) would be spent staring at the screen, willing a name to appear and signal that a goal had gone in.

On a busy night of fixtures, the suspense would be added to by a division’s games being spread over two or three pages. So, as fans of West Ham or West Brom sat with fingers crossed waiting for the final page to come round, there would be a guaranteed sharp intake of breath every minute or so.

Nail-biting didn’t come close to describing that wait, particularly if your team’s game was the very last one and a goal elsewhere meant a new page had suddenly been created.

Transfer deadline day was another big event in the Ceefax calendar as thousands upon thousands of fans spent the third Thursday in March punching in the same three numbers every 10 minutes or so in the hope that the star striker needed to boost any hopes of winning promotion would have suddenly appeared.

Even now, several years after last being able to access this one-time invaluable service, certain page numbers are more familiar to this ageing brain than my bank card pin number.

302, for instance, was the starting point for all football stories, while 312 was the place to go for all the news in brief stories – basically anything happening at clubs that were not deemed to be part of the ‘Big Five’.

League tables, meanwhile, started on page 324 – and again, who among us can say they never pressed the ‘hold’ button on a Saturday evening following a particularly good result – while Yorkshire sports news could be found on page 370. One year, however, this went slightly awry to leave Keighley folk consigned for several months to reading about Whitehaven and Workington rugby league clubs.

By October 24 when the digital switchover is complete, the entire country will no longer be able to access Ceefax and, even allowing for modern technology, there are many sorry to be saying goodbye.

So much so, in fact, that as the analogue signal was turned off in London on Wednesday, thousands wanting to say RIP sparked a No 1 Twitter trend.

Thanks for the #Ceefaxmemories.