Fever Pitch

"YES! ARSENAL are now two down!" The almost unanimous cheer that greets this news in the Match of the Day control room on the opening day of the football season establishes that the people responsible for British television's longest-running programme are bona fide supporters of the beautiful game and discerning to boot.

Niall Sloane, editor of the opening edition in this year's series estimates that there are fifty people in the BBC Television Centre working all through Saturday on the programme, with another fifty on location around England. Most of them are football fans.

"I'd say seventy-five per cent of them, if not working on the programme, would go to a live match," he estimates. "If Brian Barwick (Series Editor) is doing the programme, I'd always go up to Old Trafford or wherever The Reds are playing. To do the job I do, you need to know your football inside and out. I'm concerned with editorial, with taste, with the game itself."

Sloane himself used to play for Portadown and was offered professional terms with Sheffield Wednesday, opting instead for amateur status at the club. He turned out for the juniors and reserves, while completing a law degree at Sheffield University. Such a background proves critical to his judgement as we sit in the control room with six screens before us.

Panellist Trevor Brooking is settled-in opposite a live feed of Newcastle versus Spurs; Alan Hansen appears to luxuriate on a low-chair, gazing up at Liverpool against Sheffield Wednesday; this week's presenter Ray Stubbs cocks an eye at Aston Villa and QPR, while Sloane, producer Vivien Kent and her production assistants, keep a watchful eye over these three screens as well as the score-flashes coming in from Sky Sports, BBC Grandstand, and Ceefax.

I scan furiously from one screen to the other, yet I still manage to miss Les Ferdinand's goal on Screen Three while everyone else in the room hollers with delight. I seek consolation from Sloane. "It's difficult, yes. You tend to concentrate on two screens, but try and favour one," he suggests.

Cutting ten matches down to sixty minutes works out some-thing like this: highlights of the main match, fifteen to eighteen minutes; the second featured game, twelve to fifteen; highlights of a third match, by contract, is a maximum of five minutes and the rest of the hour is divided between two separate roundups of the other matches, highlighting goals and incidents, with time for Hansen and Brooking to offer their analyses.

The decision on which will be the lead match is taken about a month previously, but is by no means rigidly fixed. "The intention was for Newcastle-Spurs to be the main match but it doesn't look that great a game to me," explains Sloane. "In the Liverpool-Sheffield Wednesday game we had Carlton Palmer being dramatically sent off. It also looks a better game, but Newcastle being back in the top flight is the better story. We'll decide at 4.50pm when the matches are over.

"At all the other matches we'll have signals from two cameras and they'll be edited back here with David Davies doing the voice-over, all pumped down the line between 6 and 7.30pm, incidents and highlights being pre-edited by the camera personnel or sometimes a director. Tonight, we'll also have a special feature on Glenn Hoddle around the Chelsea-Blackburn highlights. After that, everything else will go into the two roundups."

The games before us are also being fed into a number of VT (Video Tape) suites elsewhere in the Wood Lane building. "When the matches are over," says Sloane, "I'll go round to the assistant producer in VT and tell him how much I want and make sure that fits our time-allocation for that game. After that, he's got carte blanche for the next three hours in terms of editing it."

With Hansen and Brooking quietly scrutinising the Liverpool and Newcastle games, respectively, their input is vital. "They'll tell the lads doing the editing that afterwards they'll want to see X, Y and Z, for analysis. Generally it's better if X, Y and Z are in the highlights edit, but it doesn't always work out that way. The viewer could get confused if things that weren't in the highlights are used in the analysis. Very often the second match is only about twelve minutes long, so we haven't room to put every major incident in."

Is Sloane worried that on the flagship programme there's no Manchester United, who will be playing the following day as part of the BSkyB deal for Sky Sports. Does this not detract from MOTD's opening edition?

"Well, we didn't have the champions, which you'd normally go for, but we do have Newcastle and that is undoubtedly the big story of the day," says Sloane. "If you look at last season, we didn't miss much on MOTD in terms of the big games. For instance, United's come-back from a goal down against Sheffield Wednesday with ten minutes to go - people watched that incredible drama on MOTD. To be fair to the public, BSkyB have gone to the Sheffield Uniteds and Wimbledons too, and that frees up the Liverpools and Uniteds for us."

With the games in progress entering their dying minutes and the scores and scorers from the other games coming in thick and fast, Sloane and producer Vivien Kent need to take rapid decisions. Liverpool's Nigel Clough has scored two goals on his league debut, Mick Quinn of Coventry has hit a hat-trick and Everton - surprisingly - have won a game. Post-match interviews are sought, Kent flicking communication switches to direct on-site reporters to nab the desired subjects for a few, quick words. If an independent camera crew is covering a particular game, Kent links up with BBC Radio Five to get one of their reporters to meet the camera crew and land the interview.

Word comes back that Nigel can't do it now. "Why not?," Kent enquires. "He's knackered and wants a shower first!," the reporter explains. Much to the MOTD team's puzzlement, Mick Quinn doesn't want to do an interview at all. The screens, meanwhile, are now showing other interviews coming in. Kevin Keegan, Ossie Ardiles, Howard Kendall and Trevor Francis have all been secured. On the Villa screen, the camera is actually in the dressing-room as the lads change and, shock-horror, Renato of Renee and Renato fame is serenading the Villa lads with a rendition of Nessum Dorma, much to the amusement of new signing Andy Townsend.

Meanwhile, Kent is seeking confirmation that Leeds United's Brian Deane, scorer of a last minute equaliser against Manchester City, has hit the back of the net on opening day for six successive seasons.

Accompanying Sloane on his way to the VT suites, I ask him if he'll use the Renato clip. "I'm not inclined to use it because, to do it justice, you'd need quite a bit of time, maybe a minute and a half," he says, "but I haven't got that amount of time tonight. It's a very tight programme and I've already had to request another two minutes. That Renato piece of fun isn't on, really, plus he's been doing that for a couple of years. I know Ron (Atkinson, Villa manager) reasonably well and Renato sings in Ron's bar."

Sloane shows me around no less than five VT suites, each akin to a cockpit, packed with flashing lights, mixing desks, editing facilities, and banks of television monitors. It's a collective hive of activity with assistant producers and VT editors stopping, rerunning and editing, and replaying key moves and incidents in each game. It is here - and now - that crucial decisions in the structuring of tonight's programme are made.

One of the production team informs Sloane that they've got a clip of some Spurs fans dressed up as rabbits and it could be used for the lead-in to the game itself. "Good tabloid stuff!," quips Sloane, busy but visibly warming to his task.

"Hell, I'm getting paid to watch football," he says. "Match Of The Day is a relatively calm one. The Round-Up can be quite tricky technically because we're getting stuff in from all over and it can be quite a late edit but the really hairy ones are Sportsnight programmes, when we've got four different matches coming in, and very often the edit going on air without the actual match being finished. Technically horrendous. But, we do it week-in, week-out, and it works."

The programme now formatted down to the millisecond and presenter Ray Stubbs' script for the show finalised, the panellists are running a final check on their samples for analysis. Gary Lineker, one time panellist and earning a serious fortune in Japan, has for many viewers been a loss to the programme. "He is who he is and was good at it, and he worked hard, to be fair," admits Sloane.

Currently the programme's main asset is former Liverpool stalwart Alan Hansen, he of the distinctive Scottish accent and Thunderbirds visage. Trevor Brooking, however, has come in for some flak for being too bland. "We like what Trevor does and he's worked in that role now for seven or eight years and he's got better," says Sloane in his defence. "I think maybe some of the criticism was justified three or four years ago but I think he comes in for some unfair stick. When you see Trevor's comments written down, he can be quite critical, but he tends to be a bit laid back and his voice may not be the strongest technically, and maybe that combination gives some people a different impression."

As we stand talking in the corridor of the VT section, commentator/presenter David Davies approaches - there's an editorial dilemma as to how best to handle one of the day's more unsavoury incidents as a result of which the Wimbledon chairman, Sam Hammam, stands accused by West Ham United of daubing his own team's dressing-room walls with obscene and derogatory comments, presumably in an attempt to motivate his own side.

Sloane suggests that Davies should make only a brief reference of the incident in his voice-over. "My view is that, as the players walk off you could say something like 'Despite Wimbledon's celebrations at winning, bad news came in that Sam Hammam will be spoken to by police about certain comments that were written on the dressing-room wall'." Davies agrees and it's on to the next problem.

Presenter Ray Stubbs joins us and he and Sloane discuss the fact that Mick Quinn (Coventry) had declined an interview. "He gave no reason," explains Sloane philosophically, "and it is one of the main stories of the day in some ways, his hat-trick - but it's not the end of the world."

Match Of The Day survives such hiccups. The opening night's edition is set to feature twenty-seven goals (or 2.7 scores per game) and a feast of entertainment for football fans. Broadcast live, the programme's apparent smoothness on-screen belies its hectic production schedule. And what's more, it is enormously successful.

Viewership fluctuates between five and eight million, with an average closer to six - a testament not just to the quality of the programme but also to the enduring nature of English club football, even in the face of competition from the virtuosity of the Italian 'Serie A' offered by Channel 4 on Sunday afternoons.

"I know a couple of people who've lost interest in English football," admits Sloane, "but they're people who were disillusioned with the English league years ago and say the Italian is much better. Well, it is and it isn't. The number of people from Scandinavia (and Ireland) who pile over to England on a Saturday just to watch it is incredible. It's unique in terms of the way it's played and the atmosphere inside the grounds."

Ray Stubbs adds his thoughts. "I've got mates who are predominately rugby players and so on," he says, "but they see MOTD because they can see everything in an hour. If you watch nothing else for the week, then if you watch MOTD you're up to date."

"In many ways it's like a classy tabloid, where everything's been condensed for instant consumption," ads Sloane.

I leave Team MOTD to pursue their pressurised tasks, heading for the heart of London to catch the opening titles and Barry Stoller's clarion-call theme tune in a local hostelry. Right on cue, it's 'Mix to Camera One' and there's Ray Stubbs.

"Good evening. So, here we go, as they say. The new season is underway and all over the country football fans are hoping it's their turn for success."

Except Leeds United supporters, of course.

MATCH FACTS

• The very first Match Of The Day was broadcast on August 22, 1964, and featured Liverpool's three-two victory over Arsenal. Roger Hunt scored the historic first goal for the BBC cameras.

H The following season saw perfect symmetry between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, with the latter winning five-one in October and the former victorious by precisely the same margin in December.

• Northern Ireland legend, Pat Jennings, playing for Spurs against United in 1967, became the first goalkeeper to be caught on Match Of The Day scoring direct from his own box, his massive kick resulting in a particularly embarrassing episode for United's keeper Alex Stepney.

• Liverpool and West Ham became the first two teams to be broadcast in colour on Match Of The Day in November 1969.

H With the programme approaching its thirtieth year, it seems remarkable that there have been just four regular anchormen. Kenneth Wolstenholme entered virgin territory in 1964, continuing until 1967. David Coleman took up the challenge between '67 and '73, being covered by Barry Davies for some shows in '72 and '73. That much loved gentleman, Jimmy Hill, presented MOTD from '73 to '88 and was succeeded by current presenter, Desmond Lynam, in '88. He, in turn, is occasionally covered by Ray Stubbs.

• Brian Clough was reportedly so ecstatic at Nottingham Forest's three-two win at Old Trafford in 1986 that he contacted the BBC requesting video copies of the complete match for each member of his team. The fact that his son, Nigel, scored the winner in the last minute may have had something to do with it.

• Regular match commentator, John Motson, made his debut on MOTD in October 1971 with a scoreless draw between Chelsea and Liverpool. Motson commentates to this day and, indeed, has compiled a complete season-by-season record of the programme for BBC Books entitled, oddly enough, Match Of The Day. Videophiles may well be interested in the three BBC videos covering each of the decades since the programme began, which are available.