Bring back the classified football results
Even in the internet era, there's still room for the uniquely comforting, mildly-dramatic official run-through of the scores. All together now: "Sheffield United one...."
Words: Dennis Ashton
Without warning, the BBC recently announced the end of an era. No longer would the classified football results be read out at 5pm on Saturdays. At a stroke, the BBC has removed part of the soundtrack of our lives.
For many of us, 5pm on Saturday meant Sports Report and the reading of the classified football results. The phrase carries its own importance:
‘Classified’: the word carried order, unlike the random scores on TV’s vidiprinter
‘Classified’: authoritative, accurate and reliable
But the significance of the classified football results went far beyond hearing how your local team had fared that afternoon. They could change lives forever. The classified football results carried with them a fortune on the football pools. Correctly forecast eight drawn games, and you could win £75,000. It was a life-changing sum for a working class family.
So in homes around the country, 5pm was a huge radio event. It was a time for fantasy, a time for dreams. What would you do with £75,000?
In our house we would gather around the radio as 5pm approached. Mum would pause from preparing tea and anxiously screw her apron in her hands. She would hush my brother and me into uneasy silence.
Dad would sit in his armchair, the Daily Mirror open at the sports page. There was a list of all the fixtures for that day, with tiny spaces to enter the scores.
5pm arrived. The rousing music ‘Out of the Blue’ – Sports Report. Then the announcement:
…and here are the classified football results, read by James Alexander Gordon.
Then the incantation began.
Football League, Division One…………….
Arsenal – two, Sheffield United…….
…..but you knew the result before James Alexander Gordon had given the score. His intonation revealed everything.
A muted cadence, a drop in tone at the end meant that Arsenal had won:
Arsenal – TWO, Sheffield United – one.
But a balanced, even rendition for each team signified a draw:
Arsenal – two, Sheffield United – two.
An almost excited rise in the note and a microsecond pause delivered an away win:
Arsenal – two, ……. Sheffield United – THREE.
The results continued through the divisions, clearly and rhythmically. Even when the Blades result had been covered, we continued to listen in silence. The results Dad was writing down held our futures in the balance. He must not miss hearing a single score.
But the ritual reading had its own fascination. The geography of Britain was laid before us.
Swindon Town – one, Tranmere Rovers – nil.
Where the heck were Swindon and Tranmere?
Eventually James Alexander Gordon plumbed the depths of the Scottish League Division Two and it was all over for another week.
Mother put on her apron and indicated that we should follow her into the kitchen. Dad resignedly folded the Daily Mirror and looked down at his hands. Hands condemned to another week of manual work for meagre pay, the fantasy gone.
Or not quite! There was always the promise of 5pm next Saturday and that elusive jackpot. Now, where was next week’s pools coupon?
When my brother and I grew up and had families of our own, we still listened to the classified results in respectful silence. We wanted to hear how local teams had gone on, teams with which we felt an allegiance, like Rotherham and Chesterfield.
We smiled when rival teams lost and grinned if we heard ‘Sheffield Wednesday – nil’. We listened through the Scottish leagues, hoping that Motherwell had beaten Celtic or Kilmarnock had defeated Rangers.
We listened for teams we had adopted over the years simply because of their names, teams like Cowdenbeath, St Mirren and Stenhousemuir.
We waited for the wonderful result that never came: Forfar – four, East Fife – five.
And we’re still not sure where Tranmere is!
The BBC thinks that the classified football results are no longer relevant in a society where Lotto has replaced the Football Pools and scores come live from all kinds of media.
But even in this internet age, the classified football results still have a place.
Recently, they were delivered by the dulcet voice of Charlotte Green, a reason for retaining them all on its own. We listen to the classified results in our cars, our kitchens, our gardens. We still care about the results of rivals, local sides and adopted teams. For these are the real, official football results delivered at the proper time and in the right way.
Hopefully, the BBC will change its corporate thinking and restore this part of our football heritage. After all, it was the soundtrack to our lives they were playing.
Dennis Ashton has been a Blades fan for more than 70 years. An astronomy writer and broadcaster, Dennis has been an astronomy columnist for the Sheffield Telegraph and the Times Educational Supplement, and is currently a presenter for Wonderdome Planetarium. Visit his website here.
Thanks, Dennis – what a gloriously evocative piece!
My father was a keen Lincoln City supporter who wouldn’t make it home from Sincil Bank in time for 5pm, so from the age of about 9 years’ old I took over from my mother the (to me) really grown-up task of writing down the results in those ridiculously small spaces the newspapers allowed. It was a tremendous honour and a weekly ritual for, as you say, those football pools could change lives forever. I think the most he ever won was about £60 – but even that was welcome back then.
At first, they didn’t mean an awful lot to me as girls didn’t really play football or take much interest in it in those days, but over the years of course I came to recognise all the names, and also the significance of James Alexander Gordon’s inflections. Bless him.
My father was a teacher, so we definitely had to use the atlas to find out where Swindon and Tranmere were – and it’s stood me in good stead as a Blades’ supporter, travelling to these outlandish places. Ah the joys of Walsall and Wigan, Stevenage and Scunthorpe . . . And also those wonderful sounding names of Queen’s Park Rangers, Sheffield Wednesday and Wolverhampton Wanderers (the suffixes were always given in full, weren’t they – none of your Boltons or Burnleys but always Bolton Wanderers or Burnley Athletic!).
And Dad always told us the tale of when he was a student on work placement at a school in Coventry, where one of the pupils, noting his non-Brum accent, said “you don’t come from Coventry, do you sir?” He replied that he came from Lincoln and asked if anyone knew where Lincoln was . . . to which some wag at the back of the class replied, “yes, sir, bottom of Division Three”.
And then, of course, those delicious Scottish names. Kilmarnock and Stenhousemuir as you say – as well as Queen of the South, Heart of Midlothian and my own particular favourite, Hamilton Academicals.
There is most definitely a case to be made for the Classified Football Results’ return – new sports minister, Michelle Donelan MP had better get her finger out!
Thanks again for such a wonderful trip down memory lane.
Sue.
Brilliant, I am 45 and I have great memories of "helping" my grandparents fill out their coupon, and the mild rage of my dad when the results went against his team Brighton. Even last season I tuned into five live to hear that music and the results. It punctuated a Saturday, even with "late kick off" changing from delayed kick offs to TV coverage and half five kick offs. This is a wonderful ode to a great loss.