Grandstand (BBC)

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Grandstand
An early set of programme titles.
Genre	Sport
Creator(s)	Paul Fox Bryan Cowgill
Starring	Peter Dimmock David Coleman Frank Bough Desmond Lynam Steve Rider
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of episodes	3000+
Production
Running time	various
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC One
Original run	1958 – 2007

Grandstand was a British television sport programme, and was one of the BBC's longest running sports shows, alongside BBC Sports Personality of the Year. It was created by Paul Fox and Bryan Cowgill and launched on October 11, 1958. Its first presenter was Peter Dimmock. Since then there have been only four main presenters of the programme: David Coleman, who took over almost immediately from Dimmock, Frank Bough, Desmond Lynam, and Steve Rider. As a result of changes in the structure of the programme, it didn't have a regular main presenter during the last few years of the show.

Previous more occasional hosts have been Alan Weeks, David Icke, Clare Balding, Hazel Irvine, Bob Wilson, David Vine, Dougie Donnelly, Harry Carpenter, John Inverdale, Tony Gubba, Helen Rollason, Ray Stubbs and Sue Barker.

The last editions of Grandstand after 48 years were broadcast over the weekend of January 27-January 28, 2007.

1 Overview
2 Recent years changes
3 After Grandstand ended
4 Historic, noteworthy or bizarre live events broadcast
5 References
6 Note
7 See also
8 External links

[edit] Overview

The show, whose iconic theme tune, composed especially for the programme by Keith Mansfield, was one of the most recognisable on British television, dominated Saturday afternoons on BBC One (just called BBC Television before 1964), and has covered nearly every major sporting event such as the Boat Race, Wimbledon, the FA Cup Final, the Olympic Games, the Commonwealth Games, the Grand National and the Football World Cup. There was a spin-off from the show launched in 1981 named Sunday Grandstand which ran on BBC Two and from time to time included the Ski Sunday section.

Towards the end of full time in the late afternoon, the football results were once brought up on screen via a digital device dubbed the Teleprinter, with each character of the results displayed one by one. Although technology has since improved, the modern-day graphics (the Vidiprinter) used by the programme still emulate the original typing system.

One famous section of the programme called Final Score covered the main football results. It was introduced not only to update fans of the day's sporting results, but also to give the results of the football pools. Remarkably, only two people have regularly read out the classified football results on the programme: the Australian Len Martin (from the first programme until his death in 1995) and Tim Gudgin.

Between 1965 and 1985 Grandstand faced competition from ITV's World of Sport, but ITV eventually decided to drop Saturday afternoon sport in favour of other programmes.

[edit] Recent years changes

In its final few years, the show was rarely hosted from a studio and as such there was no longer a main presenter. The show tended to be broadcast from the various sporting events of the day; for example, Hazel Irvine would host the show if the main feature would be snooker, Claire Balding for the racing or John Inverdale for the rugby.

Since August 2001, Football Focus gradually separated from Grandstand having been the first feature on the show since 1974. It became a stand-alone programme in its own right, usually broadcast between 1210 and 1300 on Saturday afternoon before Grandstand began at 1300.

Following the success of Sky Sports' Soccer Saturday programme featuring match reports on the afternoon's football, BBC introduced a similar programme called Score which has pundits watching and analysing the day's action and is broadcast all afternoon on the BBCi interactive service. After the day's sports action on Grandstand the programme switched to the studio of Score, which fulfilled the role of the old Final Score service.

On 24 April 2006, after 48 years, the BBC announced that Grandstand would be gradually phased out on a Saturday afternoon, due to the increasing use of interactive services and the need to meet the challenges of the digital, on-demand world.^[1] This had been first hinted by the dropping of the "Grandstand" title from the BBC's coverage of the Commonwealth Games, Winter Olympics and the World Cup.

With little or no notice, the BBC's own website only noted the news on the day of its cancellation had been brought forward from 2009 to 28th January 2007.

[edit] After Grandstand ended

Grandstand's final broadcast was on Sunday January 28, 2007 with the programme coming to an end after 48 years. A short tribute to the history of the show formed its final feature. Sport will still feature prominently on the BBC's programme schedules on Saturday afternoon. Other sports will feature on BBCi, the interactive service available on digital television. ^[2]

[edit] Historic, noteworthy or bizarre live events broadcast

Some information in this article or section is not attributed to sources and may not be reliable.
Please check for inaccuracies, and modify and cite sources as needed.

England's 4-2 victory over West Germany in the final of the 1966 FIFA World Cup
Foinavon winning the 1967 Grand National at odds of 100/1 following a 23rd fence pile up in which every other horse fell or was remounted
Tony Jacklin first ever live televised hole in one during the 1967 Dunlop Masters
Gary Sobers first ever scorer of six sixes in an over in 1968
Harvey Smith (showjumper) giving his notorious 2-fingered "V" salute in 1971
That game, That try. One of the most memorable tries ever scored. The Barbarians match with the All Blacks at Cardiff Arms Park on January 27, 1973.

First known streaker at a major sporting event during the 1974 England - France Rugby Union match at Twickenham.
University Boat Race - Cambridge sinking in 1978 and again in 1984 after colliding with a stationary barge
The Bradford City and Hillsborough football ground disasters of 1985 and 1989
Horse racing - Frankie Dettori winning seven races in a day at Ascot in 1996
A fight breaking out between staff in the newsroom behind presenter Desmond Lynam while he was on air on April 1, 1989. This was later revealed to be an April Fool's Day joke. ^[3]^[4]