“One of David Coleman’s favourite phrases is ‘really quite remarkable’ and the three-word exclamation is possibly the best way to describe the success of his diverting programme, A Question of Sport, which finished its 20th season this week.” So began a column by Frank Keating on these pages in 1990, marvelling at how a show, eclipsed in BBC One’s ratings only by Neighbours and EastEnders, had become an institution.
Younger readers may scoff. Older ones, too. But back then it was watched by more than 10 million viewers each week. And such was its popularity within sport that one longstanding producer, Mike Adley, told Keating that no one had ever turned it down – although George Best was “a bit late once” and Paul Gascoigne did phone up to say he had woken up with flu and couldn’t attend.
And if someone did fail to turn up during the 80s and early 90s, guess who agreed to be on standby every other Sunday, when filming took place? Bryan Robson. At a time when he was also Manchester United and England captain. Really quite remarkable, indeed.
Yet on Friday the show’s “What happened next?” round turned out to be the news that A Question of Sport was being shelved after 53 years. In a statement the BBC blamed “inflation and funding challenges”. Two words, though, would have sufficed: Paddy McGuinness.
McGuinness is rapidly establishing himself as the Jack Kevorkian of TV hosts, now that Top Gear, Catchpoint and I Can See Your Voice have all been put out of their misery under his watch. But the rate at which A Question of Sport’s figures tanked, from 4 million to under 1 million after he replaced Sue Barker in 2021, meant the BBC had little choice.
In truth, few will mourn the show’s passing. Everything critics said about it was true. Even at its peak it was chummy and formulaic. By its final years, when its guests went from A-listers to Anyone-will-do, it had long drifted into irrelevance.
And yet. Once upon a time, it really did have a magic hold on the public. Intriguingly, when Keating spoke to Adley, he was told that it was the only sports programme that was always watched by more women than men – with roughly a 60/40 split. That makes it a trailblazer, of sorts.
So what explained the show’s popularity in its golden age? Three things: star power, scarcity and genuine geniality. Star power? You better believe it. You can see it in the photographs of the first show, broadcast in 1970. The captains, the boxer Henry Cooper and the former Wales rugby union star Cliff Morgan, were sporting royalty. And so were the guests, Tom Finney, Ray Illingworth, the Olympic 400m silver medallist Lillian Board, and a super-cool Best, bearded and with three buttons of his shirt undone, predating the Saturday Night Fever look by seven years.
Later Ian Botham was a captain when he was the most famous sportsman in the country. And, at a time when Britons had only four channels, no social media and far less live sport to watch, seeing our sporting heroes actually speak really was exciting for those of a certain age.
Everyone was clearly having fun, too. No doubt the boozy Sunday lunches beforehand helped – on one occasion Botham convinced Gascoigne that advocaat was non-alcoholic, letting him finish off a bottle before realising too late that he was on his own team. But the banter felt real, not forced. Botham and his opposing captain Bill Beaumont even went on holiday together with their families.
It wasn’t about the money, either. In the mid-90s, team members were getting £350 a show – about £800 in today’s money – while the fee for mystery guests was just £100.
Inevitably plenty of other sports shows tried to recreate the vibe, but all fell short. Sporting Triangles, launched with great fanfare by ITV, lasted three years. Match Point, hosted by Angela Rippon, with the winners getting Wimbledon tickets and the losers champagne and strawberries, two months.
A more serious challenger arrived in 1995 in the form of They Think It’s All Over, with its relatively youthful team captains, Gary Lineker and David Gower, flanked by the comedians Lee Hurst and Rory McGrath. “They Think It’s All Over says ‘No to casual knitwear’,” the presenter Nick Hancock announced on the first show, parking its tanks firmly on A Question of Sport’s lawn.
On these pages, Keating was not impressed by the upstart’s “brazenly tart blokeishness”. “Can any sacred flagship show – however unlikely a one – have been so blatantly and unlovingly parodied by another on the very same channel?” he asked. But eventually that was seen off, too.
In fact, as recently as two years ago, when A Question of Sport staged what it called its “biggest ever” live tour, the show’s vital signs appeared healthy. But then Barker was kicked out the door after 24 years and everything went downhill.
No doubt it will be revived for a one-off Question of Sport Relief special in 2031. But for now, all fans have left are YouTube clips of Ally McCoist failing to recognise his then Rangers manager, Walter Smith, and Emlyn Hughes identifying a mud-splattered Princess Anne on horseback as the jockey John Reid.
Meanwhile, I can’t help thinking about that fateful decision in 2021. Imagine being the BBC executive who looked at the show’s legendary presenters, David Vine, Coleman and Barker, each one broadcasting titans and treasures. And then thinking the next name in the sequence should be McGuinness?
