Voice of football John Motson led the backlash after BBC Radio 5 Live's decision to axe the football results at 5pm every Saturday.
Sporting broadcast royalty lined up to condemn the Beeb's crackpot abolition of the classified check as first act of their flagship Sports Report programme. The results, read by Charlotte Green since 2013, have been dropped to accommodate more banal cliches and platitudes in post-match reaction ahead of the 5.30pm kick-off – to which BBC Radio beat talkSPORT for the next three seasons.
Fans, especially among older generations for whom the classified check is a tradition spanning nine decades, are furious. Match of the Day legend Motson, 77, who cut his teeth on BBC Radio more than half a century ago, said: “I'm disappointed because the classified football results have been a radio institution since 1948 and I'm sure a lot of people will miss them terribly.
“I grew up listening to the football results at 5pm on a Saturday as a child – they were a benchmark of the day and I don't agree with this decision.”
Jim Rosenthal, who presented Sports Report before he became a top presenter on ITV, said: “To drop the football results makes zero editorial sense whatsoever and the BBC should rethink it. Times are changing, but not everyone in the world has a smartphone or instant access to the internet and a lot of football supporters who tune in on a Saturday afternoon will feel abandoned. Who does it benefit? No-one, absolutely no-one.”
And former BBC football correspondent Mike Ingham, who retired after the 2014 World Cup after 40 years with the Corporation – including five hosting Sports Report – was also baffled. He said: “I always regarded the football results as a beautiful piece of broadcasting, like the shipping forecast, a pause for breath while we found out what had been happening up and down the country.
“How ironic that the BBC should take this decision when Sports Report celebrates its 75th anniversary in January.”
The BBC said it would still offer goal updates throughout the day on air, adding that fans could stay in touch with results on their website or Final Score programme on TV.
Massive mistake
Scrapping the classified football results on Radio 5 Live at 5pm on a Saturday is not just an act of brainless broadcast vandalism.
It shows the BBC have completely lost touch with their lifeblood – the listeners – and couldn't care less about providing a valued service to their audience. For almost 75 years, the opening bars of Out Of The Blue, the robust theme tune for Sports Report, and the classified check has been a call to arms for generations of football supporters.
Wherever you had been watching a match, come rain or shine, you could set your watch by the one-stop shop for all the day's results.
James Alexander Gordon, who died at the age of 78 in 2014 after reading the football results for 40 years, must be turning in his grave. His delivery was so lyrical that you knew if your team had won, drawn or lost before he had completed the scoreline.
The BBC justified their death knell for an institution with a dismally corporate statement, saying: "With the addition of the 5.30pm live Premier League match to our coverage, Sports Report has been condensed into a shorter programme.”
Yes – but that 5.30pm kick-off only exists to suit the demands of a subscription-only TV channel, the antithesis of free-to-air broadcasting. Has it really come this? The BBC abandoning hundreds of thousands of fans, not to mention those who still wait for the classified check with a pools coupon every week, so they can dance to Sky Sports' agenda?
And telling fans they can still keep in touch with results on the BBC website and Final Score on BBC One doesn't cut it when you're behind the wheel of a car, making your getaway from the scene of your team's latest triumph or disaster. What are the BBC going to scrap next – the shipping forecast? Will they tell fishermen to look over the side of the boat for any sign of big waves?
Axing the football results benefits nobody.
To paraphrase the great Brian Clough: Football hooligans? Well, there are a few in BBC Sport's think-tank, for a start.
