The Midlands ITV station CENTRAL disappeared from view during the course of this season to become part of the London based CARLTON Television empire. The CARLTON brand would also be airbrushed from our screens just three years later as ITV companies continued to merge in an apparent desperate need to compete with the now widely available multi-channel services. Local East Midland news bulletins would still be called "Central News" on which goal-clips reports from all Notts matches could still be found (albeit at break-neck speed). Lengthier Notts reports unspoiled by musical accompaniment could be viewed on "Nationwide League Extra" broadcast across all ITV regions in the dead of Monday night/Tuesday mornings.
30/10/99 Notts County 1 (Rapley) Bournemouth
1 (Warren) FA Cup 1st Round
commentator: Rob Hawthorne with Brian Marwood for SKY
Extended highlights were shown shortly after
the game had finished on the Saturday afternoon (Sky had still yet
to broadcast a match live from Meadow Lane). Kevin Rapley put Notts ahead
on 17 minutes, Christer Warren equalised for the Cherries in the 2nd half
on 53.
"Soccer Sunday" was a new half hour show individually produced by the main ITV regional stations, these would package highlights and goal clips from all their local sides games from the 2nd, 3rd and 4th tiers, the title was also retained for the handful of regional live games. The BBC were left with the FA Cup and England matches. Sky continued with Premiership and cup games both live and recorded.
The swaggering pre-season optimism at Meadow Lane quickly proved to be an embarrassing hubris as matters on the pitch began to suffer for a boardroom power struggle. The "new owners" were not actually the owners after all. Scardino and Storrie had been making the decisions since their arrival, but the actual financial takeover of the club had been delayed with loan payments not forthcoming, this escalating problem was blamed to some degree on the World Trade Centre terrorist attacks of September 11th!
06/10/01 Notts County 0 Wycombe Wanderers
1 (Rammell)
commentator: ? (probably Mark Tompkins) for ITV Sport channel
Due to a heavily truncated Saturday League
programme (England were playing an important match that afternoon v Greece),
this match chose itself as the featured game for ITV Digital's Sunday morning
highlights programme "Football Second". The broadcast included an
introductory piece on the city of Nottingham, a section on the Notts team
plus interviews with the acting Chairman Albert Scardino, Managing Director
Peter Storrie and local Conservative MP Kenneth Clarke.
This was to be Manager Jocky Scott's last
game in charge before he was sacked. With Notts slumbering in 14th, Assistant
Gary Brazil was once again given the responsibility of overseeing team
affairs until the worsening situation prompted the poaching of Mansfield
Town Manager Billy Dearden in January.
16/02/02 Notts County 0 Stoke City 0
commentator: Mark Tompkins for ITV Sport channel
This Midlands derby was the 2nd Notts match
to be featured on "Football Second". Notts were now next to bottom
of the League, but this draw had at least ended a run of six straight League
defeats.
20/04/02 Notts County 2 (Allsopp,Nicholson)
Huddersfield Town 1 (Irons(pen))
commentator: Mark Tompkins for ITV Sport channel
ITV Digital collapsed into financial chaos
towards the end of the season, fortunately the channel was still on-air
to cover highlights of the final day "Great escape" at Meadow Lane on "Football
Second". Notts secured their 3rd tier status with this memorable victory,
the 7th win of the final 10 games.
*This was in the days before administration automatically resulted in the docking of 10 league points.
16/11/02 Southport 4 (Pickford 2,Thomson,Lane)
Notts County 2 (Allsopp 2) FA Cup 1st Round
commentator:
Barry Davies for BBC1
This humiliating late Saturday night/Sunday morning Match of
the Day screening of the non-league (5th tier) v 3rd tier Cup tie was
Notts first proper appearance on regular analogue terrestrial TV for over
6 years.Despite being the main match (shown first) there were no team line-up
captions and the action was relatively brief.
County led 2-0 at one stage but at 1-0 Darren Caskey got himself
sent off, Southport eventually made the extra man count to send Notts crashing
out of the FA Cup with two late goals, it was County's first defeat to
a non-league club in the competition for 35 years.
Billy Dearden's post match interview (pictured) was also broadcast
on Grandstand's "Final Score" sequence.
The BBC now repeated Match of the Day programmes on Sunday
mornings at 8AM.
Football at Meadow Lane had, by now, become
almost an afterthought. Amid an endless parade of promises and excuses
from those apparently running it, the club disintegrated into farce.
With resources ever dwindling, Billy Dearden
was somehow able to steer the club away from the relegation zone and Notts
finished an unlikely comfortable 15th, but the real battle to secure 3rd
tier football at Meadow Lane next season had only just begun.
Undeterred by the calamitous events of
the past three years and the increasing suspicion of his motives, Albert
Scardino offered a new package in a last ditch attempt to own Notts County
once and for all. Scardino was seen off in a publicly messy bidding war
by Messrs Bhatia & Strang. However, they too were unable to secure
the necessary funds to complete the deal on time.
As the new season approached, all that
remained was a mere skeleton of a once great and proud founder member of
the Football League. These were desperate times.
Reports of Doom
Having now been in administration for a
Football League record of 14 months, and expulsion becoming an ever greater
threat, Notts were the feature of a good number of reports on numerous
channels during the August/September period - including BBC1's 30/08/03
edition of "Football Focus" which screened Harry Gration interviews with
Manager Billy Dearden and three senior players, and there was also the
07/09/03 ITV1 Central version of "Soccer Sunday" which offered an extended
report of what was being billed as possibly Notts last ever League match
v Luton Town. Fortunately, the following week, Notts were given a final
extended deadline of December 9th to come out of administration.
29/10/03 Chelsea 4 (Hasselbaink,Gudjohnsen
2,Joe Cole) Notts County 2 (Barras,Stallard) League Cup 3rd Round
commentator:
Trevor Harris for ITV1 Carlton London
Highlights of Crisis club Notts' trip to the
Premiership's biggest spenders was included on the London version of ITV's
Midweek
Sports Special, yet in the Midlands only the goals were shown in a
very brief report. Re-runs of the defeat could be seen on Chelsea's very
own television channel "Chelsea TV" during the days that followed the match.
On the Ball Feature
On November 1st 2003 ITV's football round-up
programme On The Ball* included a behind the scenes report from
the Notts perspective at Stamford Bridge.
* Following the demise
of "Saint & Greavsie", "On The Ball" had been revived with new unfamiliar
presenters for sporadic Saturday afternoon round-ups of European Champions
League football (and what ever little else ITV could get their hands on).
Premiership highlights returned to ITV in 2001 and with Gabby Yorath now
recognised as the main presenter, the profile of the programme was raised
until the loss of Premier League rights in 2004.
06/12/03 Gravesend & Northfleet 1 (Perkins)
Notts County 2 (Fenton,Platt) FA Cup 2nd Round
*LIVE* commentator: Rob Hawthorne and
Garry Birtles for SKY SPORTS 1
Also Match
of the Day Highlights - commentator: Simon
Brotherton for BBC1
Notts first live match for over 5 years was
not only shown live on SKY SPORTS 1 but also by specialist sports channels
across the globe. For the 2nd season running Notts found themselves lumbered
with an away FA Cup tie at a Non-League ground. Kicking off at 5:35 Saturday
tea-time, the Magpies managed to avoid a repeat embarrassment thanks to
an injury time winner, Gravesend had taken the lead shortly before half
time but were reduced to 10 men in the 2nd half. That nights Match of
the Day over on BBC1 hosted by Ray Stubbs included just over 5 minutes
of highlights and there were repeats of the whole match on SKY SPORTS 3.
*Gravesend & Northfleet changed
their name to Ebbsfleet United in May 2007.
11/12/03 Thirty Minutes - "Notts Withstanding"
Regional
Documentary programme for ITV1 for Central England.
This CARLTON production told the story of
"The battle to save Notts County" weaving in archive material to illustrate
the clubs' historical value.
On Wednesday 3rd December, just 6 days short
of the League's expulsion deadline, Notts County were finally saved, the
final deal was virtually funded by one anonymous supporter (later revealed
to be Haydn Green). Among those interviewed for the programme were former
manager Jimmy Sirrel, long serving former trainer Jack Wheeler, the administrator
Paul Finnity, current manager Billy Dearden, Notts longest current serving
player Ian Richardson (& his wife) and longtime local BBC radio commentator
Colin Slater (pictured).
An understandably frustrated Billy Dearden
left the club on January 6th. Gary Mills, an ex-Notts player, filled the
Managerial vacancy three days later, a move that came with the expected
fanfare on East Midland versions of Central & BBC News, largely due
to Mills' lengthier playing days with East Midland rivals Forest and Leicester.
With Notts next to bottom of the table,
Mills was always facing a steep challenge and ultimately he could not save
County from a relegation confirmed at the end of April, yet destined from
the start of the season. A philosophical fan base would accept, for now,
that it was better to have a relegated club than no club at all.
Late Tackle
"Late tackle" was a late night Sports series
exclusive to BBC1 viewers in the East Midlands, the 06/04/04 edition was
presented from Tommy Lawton's old pub in Lowdham and included interviews
and (all too brief) archive footage relating to the Notts legend.
ITV1's "The Championship"
Sadly for Notts, ITV decided to drop the
regionally produced "Soccer Sunday" programmes (which had showed every
local goal from all Football League Divisions) and replaced them with "The
Championship" which was a networked highlights show all but solely devoted
to the league of the same name at the earlier time of 10:30am. At the very
end of the programme a handful of goals from the lower leagues would be
shown (usually involving the teams going for promotion) and sometimes there
would be a full report on a specific club or player, Chester City were
featured the weekend Notts played there.
Central TV studio's in Nottingham closed
There was a new regional football chat
show on ITV1 with a goals round-up, the Midlands version was called "Central
Soccer Night", but this did not go out until late Thursday nights.
Another regrettable example of ITV's
shift away from regional commitment was the decision to close their Nottingham
studio's in Lenton which had only recently celebrated the 20th anniversary
of the first broadcast of Central News East, the final edition from Nottingham
was broadcast in February, from then on Central News East was piped from
a studio in Birmingham!
15/12/04 Notts County 2 (Gordon 2) Swindon
Town 0 FA Cup 2nd Round Replay
*LIVE* commentator: Martin Tyler and
Chris Kamara for SKY SPORTS 1
At long last, some 15 years after they first
began showing football matches, SKY TV finally came to Meadow Lane for
a live broadcast. A reward of a 3rd round home tie against Premiership
high flyers Middlesbrough would be a pay day that Notts could ill afford
to squander, County's financial woes had continued as the club slumped
to rock bottom (92nd) of the entire Football League in September, Manager
Gary Mills had finally been sacked at the start of November. Under temporary
Player/Manager Ian Richardson, home form slightly improved enough to lift
Notts (at least points wise) away from the trapdoor to Non-League. This
latest home win in front of Live TV cameras gave supporters something other
than yet another relegation battle to look forward to.
Howard Wilkinson, who had been joint Notts Manager with Jimmy Sirrel during Notts top flight spell in the 1980's, returned to the club as a Director on December 30th 2004, a report was squeezed into that evening's shorter holiday edition of BBC East Midlands Today.
08/01/05 Notts County 1 (Scully) Middlesbrough
2 (Doriva,Job) FA Cup 3rd Round
commentator: ? (we think it was Jim Proudfoot) for SKY
5th bottom of the Basement League Notts at
home to the Premiership's 6th placed club - Surely a Cup tie ripe for BBC1
highlights, but gone were the days when a handful of Saturday matches were
pre-selected to be filmed and, no matter what the result, broadcast as
featured matches. All Premiership teams now had full camera crews following
them both home and away for every match they played with the resulting
footage appearing on a myriad of channels across the globe in various forms.
Had Notts held on to their 2 minute lead they could have expected to see
themselves featured at the beginning of that nights' edition of Match
of the Day, but as it was - the BBC's flagship football programme was
able to feature the day's Cup upsets wherever they had occurred and Notts
were reduced to a goals only report towards the end of the programme. SKY
however did show over 7 minutes of the game during one of their programmes
and the whole match was later broadcast on Middlesbrough's own TV channel
Boro
TV which was exclusive to cable subscribers in the Teesside area.
Notts did just enough for the remainder of the season to avoid any serious relegation worries, but their final position of 19th in the Basement was their worst for 36 years (and joint 2nd worst finish of all time). Any joy to be derived from Nottingham Forest's relegation to the 3rd tier of the English Leagues for the first time in over 50 years was somewhat tempered by Notts failure to capitalise.
ITV1's "The Championship"
"The Championship" continued in its' Sunday
mid-morning slot but the comprehensive round up of the 3rd and 4th tiers
was dropped for the opening edition, however - after a deluge of complaints
- it was restored the following week. A special feature on County striker
Jason Lee was included on the 19/11/06 edition with Lee duly scoring for
the cameras in that weekend's 2-1 home win over Wrexham.
Notts said to be the most stressful club to support
In January, the media picked up on a Littlewoods
Pools study into the stresses and strains of being a football fan. Analysing
the histories of all league clubs both on and off the pitch, Littlewoods
published a league table which exposed those who caused their fans the
most stress and anxiety, Notts County came out on top of all the 92 clubs.
At the time this story ran, few Meadow Lane regulars were in the mood to
contest the findings having witnessed their team lose 6 of their last 7
home league games - a run that effectively ruined Notts play off aspirations*.
Disappointing though this was, County's final points tally was their best
in six season's.
*The play off finals returned to the re-built Wembley Stadium in May having been played at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff since season 2000/01.
Notts
were the headline story on BBC1's "East Midlands Today" on 31/07/07 - The
pevious night County had played Forest in a pre-season friendly which ended
with a pitch invasion and fighting between rival fans. County were back
in the news in September amid rumours that the Supporters Trust (now the
majority shareholders) had scuppered a potential takeover by Adam Pearson
(a popular former chairman of Hull City). On 10th September, four members
of the board resigned including Chairman Jeff Moore and also Howard Wilkinson
who said "Any Trust model with regards running and operating a football
club is wrong and does not work. I don't think I can work in a situation
where that is going to be the predominant factor." Trust head John Armstrong-Holmes
was announced as acting chairman the following day.
Five weeks later, after only 2 victories
in the last 17 competitive matches, Steve Thompson was sacked to make way
for a former Notts striker and terrrace hero of the 1980's, Ian "Charlie"
McParland (pictured), who was appointed manager on 18th October. Reports
including interviews with McParland were aired on both BBC and ITV1's local
TV news programmes.
The goal from Notts' most embarrassing
of all their FA Cup exits to non-league opposition was shown as part of
a goals round-up on BBC1's "Match of the Day" on 01/12/07, a brief Alan
Hansen analysis of the farcical Havant & Waterlooville winner at Meadow
Lane was also included. The woeful cup performance typified County's season,
their league status was only secured with a win on the penultimate Saturday.
A lengthy report on the 19/04/08 match at Wrexham a week earlier had been
included on the ITV1 WALES exclusive "Soccer Sunday" programme.
On 25/04/08 the BBC's East Midlands edition
of "Inside Out" included a feature on ex-Notts player Justin Fashanu who
had committed suicide 10 years earlier, Howard Wilkinson and Colin Slater
were among those interviewed.
Jimmy Sirrel (1922-2008)
The passing of County's greatest ever manager
Jimmy Sirrel at the age of 86 on 25th September was marked by both BBC
and ITV's local news programmes, there was also a mention on BBC1's "Football
Focus". The funeral took place on 7th October - Among those attending were
Sir Alex Ferguson, Howard Wilkinson, Lawrie McMenemy and Dave Mackay who
all gave interviews to the local TV news crews. Ex-Notts players were the
pall bearer's including the current Notts manager Ian McParland, it was
the lead story on the main 6pm bulletin of "Central News East" who devoted
much of the programme to interviews with various people such as Dean Yates,
Tommy Johnson, Les Bradd and local MP Ken Clarke.
*Another long-time servant of the club also passed away during the course of this season, Jack Wheeler (the club's trainer from 1957-1983) died on 10th January at the age of 89.
13/10/08 Notts County 1 (Forrester(pen)) Brentford
1 (Poole)
*LIVE* commentator: Ian Darke and Don
Goodman for Sky Sports 1
The first ever league match to be covered
live by SKY at Meadow Lane saw Notts stretch an unbeaten League Two run
to 9 matches. In an entertaining Monday night game, Brentford took the
lead through Glenn Poole on 35, the same player handled the ball in his
own box on 63 and Jamie Forrester equalised from the resulting spot kick.
08/11/08 Sutton United 0 Notts County 1 (Butcher)
FA Cup 1st Round
commentator:
Peter Drury for ITV1
On the back of three successive league defeats
and with last season's calamitous exit to Havant & Waterlooville still
fresh in the memory, Notts had good reason to be nervous going into this
cup tie against the South London Isthmian League (7th tier) outfit. A full
ITV camera crew turned up in hope of capturing an upset for the first edition
of their new Saturday night "FA Cup Highlights" programme, 9 minutes were
devoted to the match which saw Notts record a reasonably comfortable victory,
albeit by the odd the goal - Richard Butcher's header finishing off a good
move. Manager Ian McParland was interviewed after the game, as was the
scorer (pictured). Presenter Matt Smith and Robbie Earle analysed in the
studio. Notts was the 2nd featured match following Blyth Spartans 3 Shrewsbury
Town 1, there were also highlights of Leicester 3 Stevenage 0 and the Friday
night fixture Leeds United 1 Northampton Town 1, plus goals from all the
other ties.
30/11/08 Notts County 1 (Canham) Kettering
Town 1 (Solkhon) FA Cup 2nd Round
commentator: Clive Tildesley for ITV1
As one of only two cup ties played on the
Sunday, this match chose itself for inclusion on ITV's Sunday night highlights
programme (10:45-11:30pm). County had gone down 6-1 at Dagenham the previous
weekend and fell behind to their Conference (5th tier) opponents on 18
mins despite making a bright start, but Sean Canham equalised on 34 mins.
Ian McParland was interviewed after the game. Histon 1 Leeds United 0,
which had been shown live earlier in the day, was the main feature.
10/12/08 Kettering Town 2 (Solkhon,Seddon)
Notts County 1 (Smith) FA Cup 2nd Round Replay
*LIVE* commentator: Steve Bower and Paul Parker
for SETANTA SPORTS
Also ITV Highlights
- commentator: Jon Champion and Peter Taylor for ITV1
This was County's only live appearance on
the short-lived pay channel SETANTA SPORTS. Notts (in claret & sky
blue halves) took the lead through a nice build-up and a super strike by
Jay Smith on 43, but 90 seconds of 2nd half madness saw Notts fall behind
to a header on 53 and a well placed strike on 54. Notts player Jamie Clapham
was later hit on the arm by a bottle thrown from the home crowd. The defeat
meant that County missed out on an all Nottinghamshire home tie with Non-League
Eastwood Town in the 3rd Round. As the only replay to be played on the
Wednesday night, the Magpies exit was also the main feature on ITV's "FA
Cup Highlights", the tie took up 22 minutes of the programme including
manager interviews and studio analysis with Matt Smith, Ian Holloway and
Robbie Earle.
In February 2009, "Central News East" was
dropped in favour of a return to the the pre-1984 arrangement with one
news programme serving the whole of the Midlands, this change also saw
the comprehensive Monday goals round-up replaced by what was effectively
a discussion segment which merely focussed on the region's bigger clubs.
County went on to achieve their lowest
points total since being relegated to the 4th tier in 2004, yet they were
never in any serious danger of relegation thanks to the massive points
deductions meated out to Rotherham United (-17), Bournemouth (-17) and
Luton Town (-30) at the start of the season. By April, Notts had failed
to climb higher than 11th but hadn't slipped any lower than 17th, a pair
of statistics which partly accounted for County's 3rd lowest average attendance
since they moved to Meadow Lane in 1910. In the Spring, the Supporters
Trust (who still had the controlling interest in the club) degenerated
into a very public civil war and a splinter group then attempted to force
the removal of the Trust-head and club chairman John Armstrong Holmes.
This period of turmoil saw Notts embark on their poorest run of the season
in which they slumped to 20th, but Armstrong-Holmes survived the vote of
no confidence and a surprise final day victory away at promotion chasing
Wycombe saw Notts finish 19th.
(C)2001 - 2009 Up the Maggies
E-Mail:- upthemaggies@hotmail.com
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