Comedian Rory McGrath can remember the biggest laugh he ever heard in a TV studio. It was 30 years ago this month, on the set of a comedy sports quiz that would turn British sports broadcasting on its head. McGrath was sat next to Gary Lineker, football’s Mr Nice Guy, the “squeaky-clean, impeccable, never-been-booked God of sport”. And host Nick Hancock had just called the former England captain a “jug-eared c***”. “The audience were half-shocked and half pissing themselves,” says McGrath. “I’m pretty sure it was never aired.” Aired or not, everyone in the studio that day knew one thing – A Question of Sport this was not.
They Think It’s All Over began on 14 September 1995, at the height of Nineties Britpop/lads’ mag mania, a year after Baddiel and Skinner’s Fantasy Football League began on Sky, and a year before Euro 1996. Its mix of sports geekery and down-the-pub humour proved an instant hit, drawing in more than 5 million viewers upon its debut on BBC One, rising to 10 million before the end of the first series. The regular line-up – Hancock, Lineker and McGrath were joined each week by former England cricket captain David Gower and comedian Lee Hurst — became household names. Over 10 years, 19 series and various specials, the show would attract controversy, complaints, critical acclaim, court cases and many tabloid headlines.
