On 22 August 1964, 20,000 people tuned into BBC2’s new football highlights programme to watch Liverpool versus Arsenal on Match of the Day.
Kenneth Wolstenholme, Match of the Day’s first presenter
The Merseyside club won 3-2 in a match watched live by a reported 47,620 people – more than the double the amount who watched the televised highlights later that evening.
It wasn’t actually the first time that a programme called Match of the Day had aired on BBC television, with the BBC having previously aired a Wimbledon highlights programme by that same name.
Football has changed a lot since that day in August 1964 (the 22 men who took to the field that day consisted of 16 Englishmen and six Scotsmen) but Match of the Day has remained a staple of every football fan’s weekend for almost the entirety of the past 52 years.
Originally conceived as a test run for a 1966 World Cup highlights show, four million people tuned in last May to watch Leicester City confirmed as champions after Chelsea’s 2-2 draw with Tottenham.
MOTD has been there for it all, including Leicester City winning the Premier League title
The show has been hosted by only five main presenters in that time – Kenneth Wolstenholme, David Coleman, Jimmy Hill, Des Lynam, and Gary Lineker since 1999.
At the time, many football clubs were against the creation of such a highlights programme due to a predicted hit to attendances and gate receipts, but these fears were allayed by an agreement not to announce which match would feature on the show, and the ubiquity of football coverage has been shown not to have a lethal effect on attendances.
For the first six years of broadcast, the theme tune was ‘Drum Majorette’ by Major Leslie Statham. It was only in 1970 that 27-year-old Barry Stoller composed the most famous ditty of them all in his basement. Eight years later, Stoller was to provide music for Dawn of the Dead, but that’s not quite as well known or as easy to hum.
The version heard on our TV screens remains the original demo copy recorded in Stoller’s home 46 years ago by just himself, a trumpeter, and a drummer.
Match of the Day’s current frontman, Gary Lineker
The show has continued to expand in recent years, with it now having spawned three offspring in the shape of Match of the Day 2, Match of the Day 2 Extra and Match of the Day 3.
During its 52 years in the spotlight, MOTD has survived periods of upheaval and has been responsible for some of sports’ most well-known moments, making the longstanding commentators and presenters seem like old friends for the viewers at home, be that Coleman, Hill, Barry Davies or John Motson.
In the early 1980s, the show was moved to a Sunday afternoon but swiftly returned to its natural place on a Saturday night.
There have also been periods where the MOTD has briefly disappeared from our screens, when the BBC lost the rights to ITV from 1988 to 1992, and 2001 to 2004.
‘Motty’ has commentated on MOTD for over 40 years
Famous moments have included Motson reporting live from a polar Adams Park before an FA Cup match between Peterborough and Wycombe, Alan Hansen’s “You’ll never win anything with kids” assertion, and Gary Lineker’s wager-inspired performance in his underpants just nine days ago.
For now, we can safely add a third item to the certainties of life.
Death. Taxes. Match of the Day.
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