September 16 – First Match on TV – Arsenal Can’t Lose
ALREADY here at OTFD we have told you about the first showing of Match of the Day in 1964, and the launch of Sky Television’s coverage of the Premier League in 1992. But it was on this day way way back in 1937 that football had its first flirtation with TV that would eventually lead to the close marriage the beautiful game enjoys with the small screen today.
The BBC had started its new television service in 1936 and it did not take long for some bright spark to think that John Logie Baird’s new invention might lend itself quite well to the game with the first match being broadcast only a year after the service began.
You might think the first game broadcast would be the FA Cup Final or an England match perhaps. But no, the first game to be shown was not even a competitive fixture. The BBC organised a north London derby of sorts to experiment with televising football, pitching the Arsenal first team against . . . . the Arsenal reserves.
We haven’t been able to find out the result of the match with records sketchy at best due to the fact that the match had no competitive significance. Similarly audience ratings are not known either but two years later only 10,000 people had TV sets so we can be sure the viewing numbers were some way short of that.
In the absence of any footage of the match itself, spend a couple of minutes having a chuckle at this take of an Arsenal team from the 1930s pitched against the Liverpool team of 1991 from Harry Enfield back when he was still funny.
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