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MARK LAWRENSON: The football results are part of our heritage. They are sacrosanct. For the BBC to cut them is madness. They have lost the PLOT
- The BBC has decided to axe the traditional reading of classified football results
- Fans were outraged by the decision with many calling for them to be reinstated
- BBC’s statement on getting rid of the tradition has been criticised by many
- Classified results were a traditional part of Mark Lawrenson’s Liverpool career
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The reading of the football results at 5pm on a Saturday is part of the BBC’s heritage. To do away with it is absolute madness and I am beside myself about it. What a joke.
I grew up listening to Sports Report and so did so many people of my generation. At tea-time on a Saturday, that was what you did. You turned on the radio and waited to see how your team had got on that day. And if you were a real football fan you listened to every score from every division.
Yes, times have changed. There are different ways to access the scores now. There are different media. I get that. But I worked for the BBC for 25 years and I love it. I also understand it, or at least I thought I did. Certain things should be sacrosanct and this is definitely one of them.
BBC bosses said the decision – made without any notice – had been made to save on time
The pioneer: John Webster reads the classified football results in a tradition that stretched back to the 1950s
When I played at Liverpool, we were never quite on the team bus in time to hear the results but we all wanted to know them so the bus driver would listen to the BBC, write them down and then read them out to us.
Kenny Dalglish was behind that as he always wanted to know the Celtic score. But it became part of our matchday routine and it was the same for other people around the country, wasn’t it?
The BBC make some strange decisions these days. I loved all my years there and have absolutely no axe to grind. The Beeb has been part of my life.
James Alexander Gordon was an icon of broadcasting for the millions that tuned in to Sports Report over the years
But I was shocked when I read about this in yesterday’s Daily Mail and to be honest the statement was all wrong. To thank ‘everyone who has read the classified results over the years’ without even naming some of the great broadcasters who have performed that role was very poor indeed in my book.
What really winds me up is that somebody from the BBC sports department has actually agreed to this. They have thought it is a good idea. How can anyone even think that?
Maybe it is all motivated by money, so much is at the modern BBC. But how much would it really cost to keep that small but vital part of the service going?
Charlotte Green took over from James Alexander Gordon and was warmly received by many
The BBC is a public service broadcaster isn’t it? So which part of the public’s best interests does this serve? People will get in their cars on a Saturday afternoon, turn on the radio to hear the scores and they just won’t be there any more. I can actually imagine people doing it. Some of those people actually leave matches they are at a few minutes early, get to their car and tune in.
Those are the people who have been let down by this decision. They are licence fee payers who will think they deserve more. There will always be cuts at the BBC, I know that, but some things you just don’t cut.
There are some things that the BBC should never do and I am afraid this is one of them. They have lost the plot.