Sporting Life Watching Ourselves: 60 Years of TV in Scotland

We first got television in Scotland in 1952. 1952!

That's the year the Queen became Queen,

Prime Minister Winston Churchill scrapped the identity card,

the first-ever passenger jet flew across the Atlantic,

and President Eisenhower followed through...

on his election promise to visit Korea.

Tonight, we're dancing in the streets of Raith

and crying in Argentina,

as we celebrate the history of Scottish sports broadcasting.

Like many folk, there's nothing I like more

than slipping into my trackies, flexing my arm muscles,

and settling down in front of the telly

to watch other folk run about like eejits.

SportScotland defines walking more than two miles per day as a sport.

It's Scotland's favourite form of exercise,

but let's face it, it doesn't make great TV.

We need to liven this up a little.

That's better. Now we've got something we can work with.

BBC Scotland and STV started making their own

sports programmes in the late '50s, and right from the very beginning,

football was the number one attraction.

It kicked all other sports into touch, apart from rugby,

which kicked itself then gave itself a cauliflower ear.

The match you're about to see was played at Hampden

in front of a crowd of 135,000 people.

The coverage is a little primitive by today's standards,

but it's a good demonstration

of what made the game so attractive to broadcasters.

Football was made for television.

The game takes place in one easy-to-film location,

the action flows, and it's played out

against a camera-friendly backdrop of fans.

It's a goal!

The 1960 European Cup final has gone down as the best game

ever played on Scottish soil.

Drives one in, it's a goal!

My dad was there that day, along with everyone else and Scotland's dad,

and luckily there was no high definition in those days,

so you can't see them peeing on each other.

The referee was the only Scot on the pitch that day,

but our own brand of football can be just as TV-friendly.

Sometimes you just can't beat the blood and snotters

of the Scottish game.

It's eye-watering stuff, but it's oor eye-watering stuff.

Immediately under pressure.

Have a keek at this, if you dare.

The year is 1986,

the place is Easter Road, Edinburgh.

This is Graeme Souness's first game for Rangers.

I'd be angry too if my perm was that tight.

A red card has been shown to Graeme Souness!

FANS CHEER

This is no way to behave, kids. But it makes for great telly.

The low camera angle makes you feel like you're almost on the pitch.

Check the reaction of the Hibs fans in the background,

you'd think they'd just won the league.

Except you wouldn't, cos it's Hibs we're talking about.

But football wasn't the only show in town.

Right up to the mid-90s, programmes like Sportscene and Scotsport

were only allowed to show highlights from 30 games per season.

This left plenty of room for other sports to grab some screen-time.

Welcome back.

This has been a marvellous summer for bowling enthusiasts everywhere.

The consistently high standard now being achieved

by younger bowlers in particular

is perfectly reflected in the Scottish Junior Championship Final.

A sport you can play while you're smoking, no wonder we liked it.

Come on, son.

Come on! Come by. Come by!

Ooh, nice contact.

APPLAUSE

We're no bad at the bowls.

But if you want to be good at a sport, invent one.

That's what we did with golf.

A former producer of mine and the BBC described golf

as covering 36 football matches at the same time.

Somewhere, there is a goal being scored.

The average golf tournament takes place over a four-mile distance,

with over 100 players on the course at any one time.

Chaos compared to the bowls and the fitba.

If you want to watch it in the flesh, you're either stuck at a hole

or faced with an endless trudge around the fairways.

It's coming down in buckets,

and Bernard Gallacher, at least he knows the clubhouse is in sight.

If you ask me, it's much better just to sit back

and let the telly make sense of it all.

Now, Robert Lee with his second shot at 18,

and as usual, gives it the full welly.

It's also safer.

We're not bad at the golf.

But if you want to be really good at sport,

invent one so dangerous no one else will want to play you at it.

That's what we did with shinty.

How would you ever describe shinty? Who invented shinty?

It's just a load of madmen carrying things that look like hockey sticks

out to kill each other.

This is Skye beating Newtonmore to win

the Camanachd Cup for the first time in their 94-year history.

What a tremendous goal that was, it's Currie.

What a shot.

What's the plan tonight?

I don't know, probably just a quiet night and bed early.

It's customary for the winning team

to turn the cup into the world's biggest dram,

and the Skye boys were clearly in no mood to break with tradition.

THEY SING IN GAELIC

It's coming up to one in the morning

and Portree is getting ready to party.

You'd think after waiting so long to get their hands on the cup,

they'd be keen to hang onto it.

You would, wouldn't you?

The morning after these celebrations,

this venerable old trophy was found lying in the middle of the street!

Apparently, everyone thought someone else was looking after it.

Ach, that's all right.

If you think shinty's for the hard nuts, check out these guys.

Telly and rally cars were made for each other.

You need to have the reactions of a fighter pilot

to be part of this game.

I'm talking about the punters here, not the drivers.

If things aren't exciting enough already, look what happens

when the camera moves on board, wahey!

You don't get much closer to the action than this.

In this show, the BBC took TV's love affair with motor sport

and pushed it to its limits.

And first to go, Les Joiner.

In fact, as well as being that sales manager,

Les is the chief instructor with the Angus Gliding Club.

He holds a private pilot's licence.

I wonder if that's going to help him in this particular test.

This is Formula One for sensible drivers.

Who else but the Beeb could make a drama out of parking?

It may not look like it,

but this is precision driving we're looking at here.

Our final two events both carry extra points,

reflecting the added difficulty of the tests.

'As a young broadcaster, I would be asked,'

"Do you know anything about curling?"

"Do you know anything about indoor bowls?"

I didn't, but you wouldn't say no.

You'd say, "Not a lot, but give me a couple of days

"and I'll get up to speed."

So you suddenly became the guy who did all those other sports.

My goodness, it's up on one wheel, it almost... It's gone over!

That's incredible.

I would have thought that was a winner, but never mind.

Some sports are definitely better to play than to watch.

These are the sports telly hates.

Usually because the balls are too small.

Right, that's enough of that. Let's get back to the football.

Back in the '50s and '60s, capturing pictures

for major sporting tournaments

was often an endurance event in itself.

In 1962, footage of the World Cup finals in Chile had to be

motorcycle-couriered to Santiago Airport,

then flown to the USA to be edited and transmitted to London.

Viewers in Scotland first saw the footage three days after

the matches had taken place.

That's a long time to keep your fingers in your ears.

And people now who are used to

multi-camera coverage and satellite television

have no concept of what it was like in the '60s,

even the late '50s,

when we would try to make out vague shapes.

Every game seemed to be played in fog and mist.

But of course, the appetite for the game was so voracious

that you just wanted to see whatever football there was.

We literally used to film matches. The canisters were brought back,

one at the end of the first half and one at the end of the second half,

processed, and then edited

in the course of a very frantic Saturday evening,

in the hope that it would be ready in time for transmission

at around 10 o'clock.

Most of the time it was, we had a terrific team.

Occasionally, though, I would have to say something like,

"Well, we do have the Old Firm game coming up for you,

"but for the moment, we're going to

"the amateur swimming at Cumbernauld."

The 1974 World Cup in Germany was the first time

we had our own commentators at a major international competition.

It was also the first time our team were subjected

to the full glare of colour television,

and exposed to the cruellest, most unforgiving invention in TV history.

The slow motion replay.

Back in the days when Scotland used to qualify for World Cup finals,

our pundits actually had something to shout about.

'No! What a miss!'

With this miss, Scotland became the first team

to be knocked out of the World Cup without losing a game.

And modern television technology had claimed its first Scottish victim.

'There's not much he really can do about that.'

Four years later, we were back at the World Cup.

This time, for some inexplicable reason,

we actually believed we could win it.

# When the blue shirts run out in Argentina

# Our hearts will be beating like a drum. #

And, yes, you did just see

Kenny Dalglish holding hands with Graeme Souness.

The 1978 World Cup was the most hyped event

in Scottish sporting history.

By now, nearly everyone had a colour telly,

making this the first football event to become a truly national occasion.

The pictures beamed out of this tournament

scarred our footballing psyche

and define our sporting identity to this day.

Drink up.

Dark times ahead.

# We're on the march wi' Ally's Army

# We're going to the Argentine

# And we'll really shake them up

# When we win the World Cup

# Cos Scotland are the greatest football team. #

PRESENTER: 'In the big land of Argentina, Peruvians and Brazilians,

'Spaniards and Swedes, are ready for the World Cup.

'The message from five million Scots is simple.

'You're wasting your time.'

Well, television played into this great hype.

We did a programme about the guy who wanted to hire a U-boat

to take some of the supporters across.

We knew this was just fantasy.

But we played it up.

Here's the situation. Television and popular journalism

hyped the Scotland '78 team out of all proportion.

It was the first time ever

that I'd actually seen footballers

participating in adverts. They were in everything.

They were selling every known commodity.

'Chrysler Avenger wins the World Cup for value,

'with style, toughness, and a championship performance.'

PR was beginning to sink in.

I mean, we had a players pool for appearances,

and going out and doing things,

and promoting the team,

and promoting the World Cup squads.

Bizarre as it may seem, these were the scenes at the squad sendoff.

As Neil Kinnock will tell you,

it's never a good idea to have a victory parade before the victory.

Viewed from today, this looks like some kind of deranged horror movie

with Ally McLeod as the leader of a mass brainwashing cult.

But back in '78, we genuinely believed anything was possible.

Then when we got Argentina,

we suddenly remembered who we were

and crashed out horribly. in the first round.

Scotland went on to qualify for the next three World Cups.

But something had been lost in South America.

And it wasn't just the Peru game.

In the wake of the World Cup,

we had to look elsewhere

for positive expressions of our national identity.

CROWD ROARS/ BAGPIPES PLAY

The following year in Glasgow, Jim Watt fought for the World Title.

And as commentator Harry Carpenter observes,

the atmosphere was in a league of its own.

'No country in the world knows better than how to receive its own favourite

'and Jim Watt tonight is a favourite.'

Jim carried Scotland's sporting hopes on his shoulders,

because at last, we were seeing some more Scottish sporting success,

after the embarrassment of Argentina.

Boxing isn't everyone's idea of a cosy night in front of the telly.

But in the '70s and '80s,

it was one of the jewels in the BBC's sporting crown.

'And Mercante moves in again, and this time it is the finish.

'It's over.'

The big fight generated as much excitement as cup finals,

and the entire nation united behind Jim Watt

and his attempt to become the second Scot in a decade

to become champion of the world.

Aye, you heard me. The second.

We were hard as nails in them days.

'The World Lightweight Champion.'

This footage from 1971 shows Ken Buchanan

being welcomed back to Edinburgh as World Lightweight Champion.

APPLAUSE

Fighters like Ken came up from the streets

and as you can see here, the bond between them

and the cities they grew up in were strong.

Small Scottish men have been challenging the world

to a square go since the year dot.

I think Walter McGowan is really going to be

the world champion.

And I know that because I trained with him for five years

and I know he's got what it takes.

He's a clean living boy and he's good in every way.

He's a great boxer. I think he's the best since Benny Lynch.

He's got a good tutor in his father,

and I think that's a great thing in itself.

This beautifully made film about World Flyweight Champion

Walter McGowan perfectly captures the ringside atmosphere

and the stark intensity of Walter's training regime.

I wonder if Martin Scorsese saw this before he made Raging Bull.

'Walter Roderick McKay McGowan.

'Bantamweight Champion of Britain and the British Empire.

'Now a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

'And maybe, once again this summer, champion of the world.

'He's a super mini-man.

'Almost the last of his kind

'in a country where better social conditions and better feeding

'threatens to end Scotland's

'great line of Benny Lynches and Jackie Pattersons.

'Or, as the Kaiser called our soldiers, "These poisonous dwarves."'

# O Flower of Scotland... #

We also do a fine line in huge, big, rugby-scrumming big fellas.

# ..See your like again... #

Cranking up the atmosphere ahead of a big game

is something TV excels at.

The 1990 Calcutta Cup match against England was the first time

Flower Of Scotland was used as an anthem by the Scottish rugby team.

Oh, a wee fella! How did he get in?

There's no half-hearted lip-syncing or chewing of gum here.

These guys mean business.

# ..And sent him homeward

# To think again. #

'And I've never heard such an emotional rendering

'of Flower Of Scotland as we've just heard.'

The commentator for this game is, of course, Bill McLaren.

A man known simply as The Voice of Rugby.

'Gavin Hastings. Gavin Hastings with a kick throw.

'On goes Stanger. Stanger could be there.

'It's a try!

'A magnificent try for the 21 year-old!'

Everyone knows Bill's famous catchphrases

about big Doddie Weir "like a demented octopus,"

or "slippery as a baggie in a Border burn."

Just wonderfully graphic turns of phrase.

'Here he comes, sniping away.

'The baby-faced assassin, I call him.

'Doddie Weir, there.

'A great lamppost in the middle of the line out for Scotland.

'This is Quinnell. He's like a rhino on the charge, this big fella.'

As all the great live performers will tell you,

you need to rehearse your ad-libs.

In the run-up to the big games, Bill was like a student,

cramming for his exams.

There's no luck involved here.

He's using the cards to memorise the players' names

for his commentary.

'All arms and legs, he's like a mad octopus when he goes in there.

'He's as slippery as a baggie up a Border burn,

'is little Bryan Redpath there.'

The one that sticks with me, because the number of times I asked Bill

if he would come and speak at some function or other,

And Bill would never...

"A day oot a'Hawick's a day wasted, son."

'Your Royal Highness,

'ladies and gentlemen,

'The Commonwealth Games choir.'

In 1986, Bill faced his biggest ever challenge,

lending much-needed credibility

to the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh.

TV loves a spectacle, and this clearly isn't it.

32 African and Caribbean countries boycotted the games,

in protest against Britain's refusal to support

sanctions against Apartheid era South Africa.

Millions of pounds in TV revenue was lost,

and the whole thing only went ahead after Robert Maxwell stepped in

with a promise of financial support that never materialised.

Oh, well - at least the Scottish medal count was up.

'As Liz Lynch...

'..takes the 10,000m gold for Scotland

'and smashes the British record by an enormous margin.'

Our national obsession with football has blinded us to the fact

that we've produced more than our fair share

of successful sportspeople,

many of them competing in individual sports

or sports that only make it on to our screens

during an Olympic or Commonwealth year.

This is the start of the men's 100m Olympic final.

At this precise moment,

it's probably the tensest place on the planet -

especially for watching family members.

This is Margo Wells, the wife of Scottish finalist Allan.

'The Olympic final under way. Wells got away well,

'then it's Lara and on the far side, Leonard and Aksinin.

'But it's Wells on the near side.

'On the far side, Leonard of Cuba. They can't see each other.

'Leonard and Wells...'

Leonard won it.

But Allan hadn't lost it.

For once, that old foe, the slow-motion replay, was on our side.

'It is very, very close.

'Wells lunges at the line and takes the gold medal.'

He did it - he won it!

You deserve every ounce of that. That was raw brilliance.

In 2002, 6.5m people tuned in to watch this team of Scottish curlers

win Olympic gold for Britain.

Curling's one of those sports that's forever popping up on our screens,

but it's fair to say the players aren't exactly household names.

On their return home, our champions were hailed as local heroes

and, like it or not, there was no way

they were escaping from the cameras.

You look at me... For the very beginning, just now,

in about 30 seconds, when I say, "Good evening

"and welcome to Reporting Scotland. Our golden girls are back.

"I'm live with our curling gold medallists at Glasgow airport," OK?

It's one thing playing the sport in front of millions of people...

Hold up your medals, or something. Just wave, do whatever you want.

..but it's another thing entirely to have to perform on demand.

Documentary films give us a chance

to look even further behind the scenes.

'But Jimmy is more than an ordinary farmer.

'He's a specialist in his sphere,

'and his pedigree sheep command a high price.'

When he's not mucking out the byre,

Jimmy is Jim Clark, Formula One champion in 1963 and '65.

This is a double life that Superman would be proud of.

It's hard to imagine Jenson Button

getting down and dirty with the sheep.

Or Jackie Stewart, for that matter.

Jackie was a three-time world champion

and Formula 1's first international superstar.

Stewart fully embraced the playboy lifestyle

we associate with the drivers of today.

This film, produced by his son Mark, brilliantly evokes

the glamour, excitement and danger of motor racing

in the '60s and '70s.

Sport provides great material for film-makers.

This groundbreaking series was written and narrated

by novelist William McIlvanney, who treated football with a gravity

normally reserved for historical documentary.

Here, he considers the merits of two of our greatest managers.

'Two men who have achieved more success as managers

'than they did as players are Jim Maclean and Alex Ferguson.

'Dundee United are a far more impressive team

'than Jim Maclean's limited financial resources

'could lead us reasonably to expect.'

'He's scored! Oh, what a great goal.'

'The second phase of his career

'has brought him more acclaim than he enjoyed as a player.'

'Oh, he shouldn't have done that. Ferguson scores.'

'Aggressively competitive though he was as a player,

'Alex Ferguson was to inspire far more goals as a manager

'than he ever scored himself.'

The success of Scottish football managers is a real phenomenon,

hewn from the coal faces of the central belt,

these are tough, authoritarian characters,

men who only use hairdryers for one purpose -

to blow away lowly sports reporters.

JET ENGINE ROARS

Jock, can I just stop you here?

Conducting a post-match interview can sometimes be a sport in itself.

-Come on, hurry up, man!

-BLEEP.

This is Jock Wallace after his team has won.

I'm just waiting to get the word, Jock.

No, Jock, we're just waiting to...

Imagine what he'd have been like if they'd lost?

-Come on!

-OK, Jock Wallace, congratulations -

a match that you really had to win twice. It must've been quite a blow.

Yeah, they've done it. They've won it once, that was enough.

Live interview, you just never know what you're going to get.

And that, of course, is what keeps

the adrenaline pumping through your veins.

Well, you think I'm going to answer a stupid question like that?

-I'm only asking it.

-Well, I told you earlier,

-I won't be

-BLEEP

-answering it.

And make sure that that's cut, and I'll tell you something -

-don't ever

-BLEEP

-offer me that again.

-BLEEP.

If you think the reporters get it tough, what about the players?

They can't even enjoy their half-time cuppa

without the air turning blue.

BLEEP. BLEEP.

-Kenny, you

-BLEEP

-had three balls

-BLEEP

-and punched three balls when it's there.

-BLEEP.

We're lost.

Well, managers are very temperamental.

They don't like to lose.

I can't think of a guy who jumps around with joy when he's lost.

Some of them reacted in different ways,

but basically they were looking for you and gunning for you.

And, as if temperamental managers aren't enough to deal with,

there are days when...

Well, just about everything seems to be against you.

Can I just point out

that there are missiles being thrown all around us, here.

BLEEP.

-Motherwell was one each. Got some wrong information.

-Oh, no.

-It was one each. Do the link - the whole link again?

-BLEEP.

-Right, OK.

-It was one each.

-BLEEP.

Well, communication with people inside a television studio

could be fraught because, remember,

television wasn't as slick as it is now.

The format of our sports shows has changed very little over the years,

but that hasn't stopped desperate producers from trying

all sorts of fancy tricks to spice things up.

They've crossed the pond...

I'll tell you something about football...

..wished us a merry Christmas...

..invited us back to their bachelor pad...

..and brought the banter of the terracing into the studio.

It's hard to listen to the likes of Arthur Montford

and Archie MacPherson without getting the warm glow of childhood.

One of the great things about Scottish sports broadcasting

is the sense of comfort and continuity it brings,

but it took the best part of 30 years

before we caught a glimpse of our first female reporter.

It's a season which promises much, and joining me here week by week

in the newly designed Scotsport studio,

will be the newcomer to our team - Sally McNair,

who will be taking her own particular look

at the wide world of sport and the people who inhabit it.

Nice to have you with us, Sally.

Very nice to be here.

I'll be covering the major sporting events in Scotland

with Arthur and Ian and having a look at as many different sports

as possible over the course of the season.

No cushy desk job for Sally.

Right from the start, she was in at the deep end.

Ah, martial arts. They'll be useful for interviewing Jock Wallace.

Some folks have been saying, Jock, that you were the sort of person

I would not be interviewing on the program.

What they don't realise is that we've met before.

-That's correct, aye.

-Do you remember the occasion?

-Outside Ibrox.

-When you got your new job.

-That's correct, aye.

It was a quite interesting interview.

The only female there out in the cold. I got some funny looks.

I'll leave you on this occasion to that veteran -

as he was so aptly called - Ian Archer.

I rather suspect Jock Wallace

might prefer to speak to Sally than myself.

I got a really good welcome from fans,

I got a really good welcome from football players,

from managers - obviously from the minority sports

cos they were getting coverage, in some cases for the first time.

And the main antipathy, I think, towards a woman

breaking into this formerly male-dominated world

was in the male press boxes of the likes of Hamden and Ibrox

because they just weren't used to that

and they liked things the way they were.

In the early days of television,

sport was thought of as a low-cost schedule-filler.

It's now one of the most expensive and popular things on the box.

Football in particular has been transformed by TV,

and not always for the best.

If you're an addict, which, I guess, I am,

you watch low-division English games at four in the morning,

you can watch German football, Spanish football, Italian football

- even Scottish football gets a wee look in every now and then.

When I was there, there were maybe three games live in a year.

Now you get three games live in a day.

Television is killing the game.

'Well, it'll be one of the smallest crowds

'at a Scottish cup final in many years.'

The evidence is there for all to see.

In recent years, even some of our big showpiece games

have taken place in half-empty stadiums.

Everyone's staying home to watch on the box,

and the irony is empty seats are pretty much the last thing

the TV cameras want to see.

'Those dens do leave a lot to be desired.'

But no matter how bad things get on the park,

there is no excuse for off-field behaviour like this.

Well, thanks for staying up late with us here tonight.

Make sure and make a date every Monday night at 11 for Scotsport SPL.

Yes, best wishes to Dunfermline on Thursday

and to Rangers in Moscow tomorrow night in that first leg qualifier.

PIANIST STARTS TO PLAY

We don't have Nikita, but if you missed out

on tickets for Elton John's gig at the SECC in December,

maybe this is a little consolation.

Thanks for staying up and watching. Night-night.

In 2004, Scotsport was given a radical make-over.

Sports shows were never meant to be like this.

When he's not tinkling away at the ivories,

Graham Spiers is a highly respected journalist.

Don't worry - I'm not going to let it end like this.

This is one of the greatest goals ever scored.

Thanks to television, it lives on forever.

MUSIC: "Easy, Easy" by Scotland World Cup Squad

'Mon the wee man!

# Ring-a-ding-a-ding

# Knock it over for the king

# And it's easy, easy

# Ring-a-ding-a-dong

# No, we know we can't go wrong

# And it's e-a-a-a-sy

# Come on

# Now we're really gonna roll Gonna get another goal

# Whoa, whoa, whoa, come on

# Just another one to win Stick it in, stick it in. #