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''Grandstand'' was a British television

sport Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

programme. Broadcast between 1958 and 2007, it was one of the

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's longest running sports shows, alongside ''

BBC Sports Personality of the Year The BBC Sports Personality of the Year is an awards ceremony that takes place annually in December. Devised by Paul Fox in 1954, it originally consisted of just one, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award. Several new awards have been ...

''. The last editions of ''Grandstand'' were broadcast over the weekend of 27–28 January 2007.

History

During the 1950s, sports coverage on television in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

gradually expanded. The

...
regularly broadcast sports programmes with an outside studio team, occasionally from two or three separate locations. Production assistant Bryan Cowgill put forward a proposal for a programme lasting three hours; one hour dedicated to major events and two hours showing minor events.

Outside Broadcast Outside broadcasting (OB) is the electronic field production (EFP) of television or radio programmes (typically to cover television news and sports television events) from a mobile remote broadcast television studio. Professional video camera a ...

members held a meeting in April 1958, and Cowgill further detailed his plans taking timing and newer technical facilities into consideration. During the development of the programme, problems arose over the proposed schedule which would result in the programme ending at 4:45pm to allow children's programmes to go out. Paul Fox insisted that the service was broadcast until 5:00pm to ensure a proper results service. Three weeks before the debut of the programme, sports broadcaster Peter Dimmock favoured naming the show ''Out and About!'' with Fox persuading Dimmock to agree on a new name, which was ''Grandstand''. ''Grandstand'' launched on 11 October 1958 from Lime Grove Studios with Dimmock as the presenter. Dimmock presented the first two editions and three weeks later, he was replaced by sports commentator

David Coleman David Robert Coleman OBE (26 April 1926 – 21 December 2013) was a British sports commentator and television presenter who worked for the BBC for 46 years. He covered eleven Summer Olympic Games from 1960 to 2000 and six FIFA World Cups from ...

. In the autumn of 1959, ''Grandstand'' was extended by an extra 15 minutes and would finish at 5:00pm every Saturday. According to Richard Haynes in ''BBC Sport in Black and White'', the 1960s saw the ''Grandstand'' name "become synonymous with the BBC's coverage of sport" and it "became a trusted vehicle for British viewers to access a variety of sports." The show was one of the most recognisable on British television, dominating Saturday afternoons on the BBC's main channel and covering nearly every major sporting event in Britain such as the

FA Cup Final The FA Cup Final, commonly referred to in England as just the Cup Final, is the last match in the Football Association Challenge Cup. It has regularly been one of the most attended domestic football events in the world, with an official atten ...

, Wimbledon, the

Grand National The Grand National is a National Hunt horse race held annually at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, England. First run in 1839, it is a handicap st ...

and the

University Boat Race The Boat Race is an annual set of rowing races between the Cambridge University Boat Club and the Oxford University Boat Club, traditionally rowed between open-weight eights on the River Thames in London, England. There are separate men's a ...

, as well as major international events like the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...

, the Paralympic Games, the

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games, often referred to as the Friendly Games or simply the Comm Games, are a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exce ...

and the

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

(from 1998

coverage would switch from Grandstand to

Match of the Day ''Match of the Day'' (abbreviated to ''MOTD'') is a football highlights programme, typically broadcast on BBC One on Saturday nights, during the Premier League season. The show's current presenter is former England international striker Gary ...

branding). A Sunday edition, named ''Sunday Grandstand'', launched in 1981 and ran on BBC Two (though a few pilot editions were shown on

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

in 1978, 1979 and 1980). Until 1998, the Sunday edition was usually only broadcast during the summer months, although there were exceptions, such as a special edition in January 1995 to cover the second Regal Trophy semi-final (Wigan v Castleford). From February 1998 ''Sunday Grandstand'' became a year round programme, incorporating the ''

Ski Sunday ''Ski Sunday'' is the BBC Sports weekly magazine-style television show covering winter sports, broadcast in the United Kingdom on Sundays in a late afternoon or an early evening time-slot. It began in 1978, and is currently presented by Ed Leigh ...

'' and ''

Rugby Special {{unreferenced, date=February 2021 ''Rugby Special'' was the main rugby union programme on the BBC in the UK. The show ran from 1966 and past presenters included David Vine, Keith Macklin, Cliff Morgan, Chris Rea, Nigel Starmer-Smith, Bill Beaum ...

'' programmes. ''Grandstand'' was not shown on 20 May 2000 as no major sporting events broadcast by the BBC were taking place. From the programme's launch until the lifting of restrictions on broadcasting hours by the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications in 1972, sports coverage was one of the few programming areas which was exempt from the broadcasting hours restrictions. Instead, sporting coverage and outside broadcasts were provided with a separate quota of broadcasting hours per year by the Postmaster General. By the mid 1960s this amounted to 350 hours per year. This meant ''Grandstand'' was a key part of the BBC's Saturday afternoon schedules, as the time the programme was on the air did not count towards the 50-hour a week restriction on normal broadcasting hours. Beginning in the early 1980s, a lunchtime news summary provided by

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

was included in the broadcast, functioning as a programme break between ''

Football Focus ''Football Focus'' is a BBC television magazine programme launched in 1974 covering football, normally broadcast live on BBC One on Saturday lunchtimes during the football season. From the 2009–10 season to the 2020–21 season Football Focus ...

'' and the start of that week's live events. In October 2001, the head of BBC Sports and Programming Pat Younge announced plans to revamp ''Grandstand'' by placing emphasis on broadcasting one particular sport rather than alternating between several sports.

''Final Score''

In the late afternoon, with many Football League and Scottish Football League matches approaching full-time, the programme would draw to a close with ''

Final Score ''Final Score'' is a BBC Television football news and results programme produced by BBC Sport. The programme is broadcast on late Saturday afternoons in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, usually on BBC One. BBC Northern Ireland opts away dur ...

''. This covered not only the results from all the matches, but also gave the results of the football pools. Perhaps the segment's most famous feature is the vidiprinter, a digital device which printed out the results as they came through, with the characters in each result appearing one by one. Only two people regularly read out the classified results on ''Final Score'' when it was part of Grandstand: the Australian

Len Martin Leonard Martin (17 April 1919 – 21 August 1995) was an Australian results reader. He was known in the UK for reading out the football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a go ...

(from the first programme until his death in 1995) and Tim Gudgin (from 1995 until Final Score was separated from Grandstand in 2001 – he continued to read the classified results until 2011). Whilst football was the primary focus of ''Final Score'', news and results from other sports, such as rugby union, and until 1987, racing results were also included. A shorter version was aired during the summer when football was out of season, and stand-alone editions of ''Final Score'' were broadcast on Boxing Day, New Year's Day and Easter Monday when there was a full programme of football fixtures and when ''Grandstand'' was not being shown.

Competition from ITV

Between 1965 and 1985, ''Grandstand'' faced competition from ITV's '' World of Sport'', but by the end of the 1980s ITV had stopped broadcasting Saturday afternoon sport in favour of other programmes.

''Football Focus'' and ''Final Score'' part company

In August 2001, the ''

'' section, having been the first feature on ''Grandstand'' since 1974, became a separate programme in its own right. This meant that ''Grandstands start time was now 13:00 rather than 12:15. At the same time, ''

'' also become a programme in its own right, running from 16:30, meaning that Grandstand only broadcast between 13:00 and 16:30. "Around the Grounds" and the half time sequence did remain within the ''Grandstand'' programme. In 2004, following the success of Sky Sports' ''

Soccer Saturday ''Gillette Labs Soccer Saturday'' is a weekly television programme broadcast on Sky Sports in the United Kingdom and Ireland during the football season. The programme updates viewers on the progress of association football games in the United ...

'' programme featuring reports from the afternoon's football matches, the BBC introduced its own football scores programme called ''Score''. It ran for the full duration of the afternoon's football matches, beginning at 14:30, and was available as an add-on service on the Red Button until 16:30 when BBC One joined the programme and at that point Score would become ''Final Score''.

Later years and demise

In its final few years, the show was rarely presented from a studio and as such there was no longer a main presenter. The show tended to be broadcast from wherever the main event of the day was taking place. The host would be associated with that feature; for example, Hazel Irvine would host snooker, Sue Barker for tennis, Clare Balding for racing or rugby league, and John Inverdale for rugby union.

2006 announcement

On 24 April 2006, the BBC announced that ''Grandstand'' would be gradually phased out after nearly 50 years, due to the increasing use of interactive services and the need to meet the challenges of the digital, on-demand world. This had been hinted at by the dropping of the "Grandstand" title from the BBC's coverage of the major international sporting events, like that year's

Winter Olympics The Winter Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'hiver) is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were h ...

and

. It was originally intended that the show would end in 2009, but this was brought forward to 28 January 2007.

After ''Grandstand'' ended

The last Saturday edition of ''Grandstand'' was broadcast on 27 January 2007, and the final edition was broadcast the following day, 28 January 2007, with a short tribute to the history of the show forming its final feature. Sport still features prominently on the BBC's schedules on Saturday afternoon as well as on

BBC Red Button BBC Red Button is a brand used for digital interactive television services provided by the BBC, and broadcast in the United Kingdom. The services replaced Ceefax, the BBC's analogue teletext service. BBC Red Button's text services were due to c ...

and

iPlayer BBC iPlayer (stylised as iPLAYER or BBC iPLAYER) is a video on demand service from the BBC. The service is available on a wide range of devices, including mobile phones and tablets, personal computers and smart televisions. iPlayer services de ...

; ''Final Score'' is still shown at the end of the football matches played on Saturday afternoon.

Presenters

Hosts included were Peter Dimmock,

, Frank Bough,

Des Lynam Desmond Michael Lynam, (born 17 September 1942) is an Irish-born television and radio presenter. In a broadcasting career spanning more than forty years, he has hosted television coverage of many of the world's major sporting events, presentin ...

, Steve Rider, Ronald Allison, Clare Balding, Sue Barker,

Barry Davies Barry George Davies MBE (born 24 October 1937) is an English retired sports commentator and television presenter. He covered a wide range of sports in a long career, primarily for the BBC. Although best known for his football commentary, D ...

, Dougie Donnelly,

Harry Carpenter Harry Leonard Carpenter, OBE (17 October 1925 – 20 March 2010) was a British BBC sports commentator broadcasting from the early 1950s until his retirement in 1994. His speciality was boxing. He was presenter of programmes such as ''Sportsnig ...

Harry Gration Harry John Gration (22 October 1950 – 24 June 2022) was an English journalist and broadcaster. He was one of the main anchors for the BBC Yorkshire regional magazine programme '' Look North''. He was often referred to as ''Mr. Yorkshire'' b ...

, Tony Gubba,

David Icke David Vaughan Icke (; born 29 April 1952) is an English conspiracy theorist and a former footballer and sports broadcaster. He has written over 20 books, self-published since the mid-1990s, and spoken in more than 25 countries. In 1990, Icke ...

John Inverdale John Inverdale (born 27 September 1957) is an English broadcaster who works for both the BBC and ITV. During his radio career, he has presented coverage of many major sporting events including the Olympic Games, Wimbledon, the Grand Nationa ...

Hazel Irvine Hazel Irvine (born 24 May 1965) is a Scottish sports presenter. Early life Irvine was born in St Andrews, Scotland. Educated at Hermitage Academy in Helensburgh, she achieved an MA in History of Art at the University of St. Andrews, and comp ...

Gary Lineker Gary Winston Lineker (; born 30 November 1960) is an English former professional footballer and current sports broadcaster. He is regarded as having been one of the greatest English strikers. His media career began with the BBC, where he has ...

Roger Black Roger Anthony Black MBE (born 31 March 1966) is a retired English athlete who competed internationally for Great Britain and England. During his athletics career, he won individual silver medals in the 400 metres sprint at both the Olympic Ga ...

Helen Rollason Helen Frances Rollason (''née'' Grindley; 11 March 1956 – 9 August 1999) was a British sports journalist and television presenter, who in 1990 became the first female presenter of the BBC's sports programme ''Grandstand''. She was also a re ...

, Ray Stubbs,

David Vine David Martin Vine (3 January 1935 – 11 January 2009) was an English television sports presenter. He presented a wide variety of shows from the 1960s onwards, most notably his coverage of major snooker tournaments for the BBC. Early life Born i ...

Alan Weeks Alan Frederick Weeks (8 September 1923, in Bristol – 11 June 1996, in Hove, East Sussex) was a British people, British television sports reporter and commentator. Personal life His family moved to Brighton when he was five when his father, C ...

and Bob Wilson.

Theme tune

The original theme was "News Scoop" by Len Stevens, which was used until 6 November 1971. From 13 November 1971 to 11 October 1975, another tune, composed by Barry Stoller, who also composed the ''

'' theme, was used. The programme's longest running and best known theme, composed for the programme by

Keith Mansfield Keith Mansfield (born 1941 in London, England) is a British composer and arranger known for his creation of prominent television theme tunes, including the '' Grandstand'' theme for the BBC. Career Other works include "The Young Scene" (the ...

, was first heard at the end of the 11 October 1975 edition (the 1000th edition of Grandstand) and remained until the end of the programme's existence.

Notable live events

Foinavon Foinavon (1958–1971) was an Irish racehorse. He won the Grand National in 1967 at odds of 100/1 after the rest of the field fell, refused or were hampered or brought down in a mêlée at the 23rd fence. The fence was officially named after ...

winning the 1967

Grand National The Grand National is a National Hunt horse race held annually at Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, England. First run in 1839, it is a handicap st ...

at odds of 100/1 following a 23rd fence pile up in which every other horse fell or was remounted – the fence was subsequently named in Foinavon's honour. * Golfer

Tony Jacklin Anthony Jacklin CBE (born 7 July 1944) is a retired English golfer. He was the most successful British player of his generation, winning two major championships, the 1969 Open Championship and the 1970 U.S. Open. He was also Ryder Cup captain ...

hitting the first live televised

hole in one In golf, a hole in one or hole-in-one (also known as an ace, mostly in American English) occurs when a ball hit from a tee to start a hole finishes in the cup. A ball hit from a tee following a lost ball, out-of-bounds, or water hazard is not a ho ...

in Britain during the

Dunlop Masters The Betfred British Masters is a professional golf tournament. It was founded in 1946 as the Dunlop Masters and was held every year up to 2008, except for 1984. Dunlop's sponsorship ended in 1982, and the name sponsor changed frequently therea ...

on 16 September 1967. *

Gareth Edwards Sir Gareth Owen Edwards CBE (born 12 July 1947) is a Welsh former rugby union player who played scrum-half and has been described by the BBC as "arguably the greatest player ever to don a Welsh jersey". In 2003, in a poll of international ru ...

scoring one of the most memorable tries in history, in the

Barbarians A barbarian (or savage) is someone who is perceived to be either uncivilized or primitive. The designation is usually applied as a generalization based on a popular stereotype; barbarians can be members of any nation judged by some to be less c ...

All Blacks The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks ( mi, Ōpango), represents New Zealand in men's international rugby union, which is considered the country's national sport. The team won the Rugby World Cup in 1987 ...

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

match at

Cardiff Arms Park Cardiff Arms Park ( cy, Parc yr Arfau Caerdydd), also known as The Arms Park, is situated in the centre of Cardiff, Wales. It is primarily known as a rugby union stadium, but it also has a bowling green. The Arms Park was host to the British E ...

on 27 January 1973. * The first known streaker at a major sporting event during an England v France Rugby Union match at

Twickenham Twickenham is a suburban district in London, England. It is situated on the River Thames southwest of Charing Cross. Historically part of Middlesex, it has formed part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames since 1965, and the boroug ...

on 20 April 1974. * Cambridge sinking in the 1978

and again in 1984, after colliding with a stationary barge. * A fight breaking out on air between staff in the newsroom behind presenter

on 1 April 1989. This was later revealed to be an

April Fool's Day April Fools' Day or All Fools' Day is an annual custom on 1 April consisting of practical jokes and hoaxes. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting "April Fools!" at the recipient. Mass media can be involved in these pranks, which may ...

joke. * The Hillsborough football ground disaster on 15 April 1989. * The Grand National on 3 April 1993 being declared void after two false starts – 30 horses ran the race when their jockeys mistakenly assumed the course officials waving red flags were protesters. *

Roland Ratzenberger Roland Ratzenberger (; 4 July 1960 – 30 April 1994) was an Austrian racing driver who raced in various categories of motorsport, including British Formula 3000, Japanese Formula 3000 and Formula One. Having had sporadic success throughout the ...

and

Ayrton Senna Ayrton Senna da Silva (; 21 March 1960 – 1 May 1994) was a Brazilian racing driver who won the Formula One List of Formula One World Drivers' Champions, World Drivers' Championship in , , and . Senna is one of three Formula One drivers fro ...

fatal accident An accident is an unintended, normally unwanted event that was not directly caused by humans. The term ''accident'' implies that nobody should be blamed, but the event may have been caused by unrecognized or unaddressed risks. Most researcher ...

s during the

San Marino Grand Prix The San Marino Grand Prix () was a Formula One championship race which was run at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari in the town of Imola, near the Apennine mountains in Italy, between 1981 and 2006. It was named after nearby San ...

on 30 April and 1 May 1994 (Sunday Grandstand). * Jockey

Frankie Dettori Lanfranco Dettori (; born 15 December 1970), better known as Frankie Dettori, is an Italian horse racing jockey based in the United Kingdom. Dettori has been British flat racing Champion Jockey three times and has ...

winning all seven races at Ascot on 28 September 1996. * The evacuation of

Aintree Racecourse Aintree Racecourse is a horse racing, racecourse in Aintree, Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside, England, bordering the city of Liverpool. The racecourse is the venue for the Grand National steeplechase (horse racing), steeplechase, whi ...

on 5 April 1997 due to an IRA bomb threat that caused the cancellation of the Grand National (the race took place two days later).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Grandstand 1958 British television series debuts 2007 British television series endings 1950s British sports television series 1960s British sports television series 1970s British sports television series 1980s British sports television series 1990s British sports television series 2000s British sports television series BBC Sport BBC Television shows Black-and-white British television shows Olympics on television English-language television shows