A good old-fashioned Match of the Day?
Every now and then, somebody will write in hankering after the good old days. That golden age and the viewer was guaranteed a long edit of both. None of this jumping around eight different games and fancy-dan , no MOTD repeat or Sunday football - just Motty at one 3pm kick-off, Barry Davies at another, Jimmy Hill and Bob Wilson in the studio, Goal of the Month nine times a season, thank you and goodnight.
Well, if you're nostalgic for that format, then this Saturday night, for one week only, you've got it. Motty will even be at Villa Park, though the other names have changed.
On Sunday, however, the other will be in action and MOTD2 will, to all intents and purposes, adopt the post-2004 Saturday night format.
My colleague Lance Hardy has already explained the rather freakish set of circumstances which have brought this situation about and led his team to mount a second programme this weekend.
For what it's worth, though this will be an interesting and challenging weekend for all the programme editors, we at MOTD hope this is a one-off. Not because 3pm Saturday kick-offs are sacrosanct (though it is a bit of a shock to find only one in the top flight this weekend), just that the conventional format of seven or eight games on a Saturday, and maybe two on a Sunday suits the combination.
Though this Sunday's show should be fantastic, one of our aims in launching MOTD2 was to provide a reflective and informal look back at the weekend's action, with special guests and features as well as the Sunday action. By definition, this week's MOTD2 will clearly not be like that. Conversely, most Saturday night shows contain several tight, medium-length edits, making for a fast-paced, action-led watch.
As I've said before, the flexibility we now enjoy in having commentators and multi-camera coverage at every game can be invaluable. Take last Saturday, for example: no disrespect to either team or set of supporters, but had we had to pick two main games in advance as used to be the case, then they would most likely have been two from West Ham v Arsenal, Birmingham v Man Utd, Chelsea v Fulham, Man City v Newcastle and Wigan v Liverpool.
In the 70s and 80s, there would have been no coverage whatsoever of the 7-4 from Fratton Park. In the early Premiership years (up until 2004) there would probably only have been single-camera coverage available, and this would have been squeezed into a round-up.
As things now stand, as the day's editor, I was able to cut and paste the running order at 5pm, and put that match top of it, with full team news and by far the longest edit of the day. If anyone would still prefer the old format which would have left us with long edits of two other games instead, then I'm just going to have to beg to differ.
Similarly, an unexpectedly dull game will usually be reduced in length and moved down the running order. If this Saturday's two games are both poor, then we're very much stuck with them.
If however one of them turns out to be another eleven-goal thriller, we can guarantee it will be given plenty of airtime!
