Sports Stadium

Sports Stadium was an Irish television sport programme on Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ). Broadcast between 1973 and 1997, it was RTÉ's flagship sports programme and one of its longest-running shows. It ran in a variety of slots, but in its final years aired on RTÉ Two on Saturdays between 1:00pm–6:00pm.

Its first presenter was Brendan O'Reilly who continued presenting into the 1990s. Other presenters during the show's run included Liam Nolan, Fred Cogley, Michael Lyster, George Hamilton, Peter Collins and towards the end of its run, Tracy Piggott was racing presenter before taking sole charge of the programme's short-lived successor Saturday Sports Live.

The format of the show was very similar to the BBC's Grandstand or ITV's World of Sport, and indeed Grandstand's racing coverage was often simulcast on the show, presented by Noel Reid before Piggott's arrival in 1994. The earlier part of each show would feature a mixture of racing and recorded highlights of other sports. The centrepiece of the afternoon for many years was a live 3:00pm Football League Division One game, which would be followed by the classified football results read by Brendan Delany, who was with the show from its start right through to its end.

Live cross-channel soccer was featured for a short time during the mid-70s, but ran long-term between 1985 and 1995 - the latter three years under a delayed-coverage agreement with the new FA Premier League. The FA Cup was featured annually until 1998, when live rights to the FA Cup Final crossed to Sky Sports. Coverage of the AIL was also featured on the show, along with live coverage of the Five Nations Championship as it then was, plus Lions rugby tours.

"Soccer Stadium" was a segment of the programme devoted to domestic League of Ireland football, while "Gaelic Stadium" with Mick Dunne concentrated on GAA previews.

There were regular rallying highlights from the likes of the Circuit of Ireland Rally, Ulster Rally and Rally of the Lakes, and along with live coverage of athletics events such as the IAAF World Cross Country Championships, plus highlights of domestic Grand Prixs, the Cork City Sports and Morton Games.

Three theme tunes were used during the 25-year life of the programme. A catchy brass-led theme played the RTE Concert Orchestra ran from 1973–87, replaced for one year by a heavy rock intro until the introduction of perhaps the most famous piece of music the show would be associated with.

For the final ten years of its life, the show's theme music was the distinctive keyboard riff from the Europe song "The Final Countdown". The original recording was used from 1988, but a re-arranged version was used from 1993.

The last edition of Sports Stadium was broadcast on 20 December 1997.^[1]

References