Football before the Internet..

It was an important coming of age moment when you learned the social skills needed for a crowd of blokes watching the scores through the window of Rumbelows.

 

I remember watching teletext for 90 minutes. Finally said 1.0 Watford but an own goal by our player. Next refresh 1.0 to the opposition. Mid 90s, probably year we got relegated from 1st Division as it was (Championship)

 

Ah yes teletext. On page 3 of 4 and suddenly it flashes to page 3 of 5. Hold on - that means a goal in the page Watford are on to make space for writing the scorer! Page flicks over West Ham 0 - 1 QPR (Bannister). State of Alert over.

 

Can't beat the good old days...

 

Seemingly, attendances were lower before every second of every match was streamed live.

 

The days of clenched buttocks & chewed knuckles.

 

Excellent example of the half-time scoreboard. No problem with getting a mobile signal in those days.

 

Was never a problem. Football was invented after the internet.

 

That's not true. I remember a time when the only way to watch a football match was at the pub, whereas now they're all online.

 

Get home home from school, make a massive bowl of Coco Pops and turn to page 302 on teletext for the day’s football news. About 2005 so there was a computer upstairs in the spare room but I couldn’t be arsed to wait for it to turn on and connect to the webz.

 

Even now the BBC scores update is up to 2 minutes later than the actual event, the quickest notification apart from being at the game with your own eyes appear to be the betting sites which take a nanosecond!

Gone are the days when someone got nicked for phoning a mate from a phone box outside The Vic with the greyhound racing result for the receiver to be able to dash into the bookies and put a winning bet on! (This actual happened around 1972) I remember the court case!

 

Ah yes, going to page 312 (I think) where you had the general football news round up. Page 4/12 would come on and you'd wait ages for it to get around to 3/12 and find the only Watford related news was a short sentence "Perryman satisfied after 0-0 draw".

 

Teletext? You were lucky to have teletext! We never had television let alone bloody teletext! We used to get football results by carrier pigeon until dad shot it so we could have something decent for Sunday dinner!
Actually i recall being in Oz in 87 and waiting a couple of days to find out the result of our cup semi with Spurs via UK newspapers. No it wasnt worth the wait.


and then there was the teleprinter.. where you had that glorious moment when you scored enough goals for them to write it in brackets after..
Watford 7(seven) Southampton 1- Watford 8(eight) Sunderland 0

 

Yes the teleprinter, with the eternity of hope when we played away and there was a ZERO after the home team, knowing we had at least a point or was it two! those 2 seconds were magical!

 

Or in the summer “Watford have acquired Steve Cherry”

 

A classic example of the limitations of ceefax was when Watford were home to NUFC in the 2nd(?) replay of that FA Cup tie.
It had gone to extra time...but was still 0-0.
Then suddenly the page was skipped - someone has scored !!
The page came round again Watford 1 NUFC 0 - Roeder
Now ceefax wasn't exempt from making errors and Roeder was at the time a NUFC player. Was it a goal for NUFC or an og for Watford ?
Had to wait until the radio footy results to be sure we had won.

 

A bit like reading "new articles" in the Wobby these days !

 

"watfor...." - I can't wait any longer - what was the score on the 1963 teleprinter report?

EDIT just checked on http://watford.fcdb.info/?pageno=5&orderby=date_desc and we won 1-4. 4 days before i was born !

 

Damn just seen it was a video not a picture in your posting so the result was shown anyway....!!

 

There was one evening game we played, away at Cardiff I think. It was the early 80s so no Ceefax. There were phone books then and at 10pm or so I was able to look up the dialing code for Cardiff. It only took a couple of tries dialing random numbers before somebody in Cardiff picked up the phone, being totally unphased by my asking what was the result (he didn't know himself, he had to yell across the room or house to ask also).

I got the result from him finally (think we lost). Dialling random numbers to know a result is quite definitely pre-internet.

 

I thought you was kidding about the times when the printer thing seemed to get stuck or they were awaiting an update!

For those that dont remember the days of the teleprinter/videprinter there used to be a cut off point when they got enough scores in they'd go over to the classified results. It was always a disappointment if your teams result hadnt yet come up and sometimes it didnt end there..
"The game between Watford and Port Vale is a late kick off"
Then they'd read through what seemed like every result in the country.. "and here are the scores from the Bournemouth & District under 10's charity shield tournament..." Before eventually they'd get back to the late kick offs.. about 6.30....
"Watford 4.... Port Vale.... 5"!

Surprised we didnt get a mention here!

 

I spent a small fortune ringing the club from Australia on their 'hotline' - gave that up after the cup replay against Liverpool when the club forgot to update the recorded message.

 

I remember sometime in the 90s, not being at the Vic for a wedding, dashing to find a TV for the teleprinter - cheering when 'Watford 3' appeared, and then choking as 'Derby 4' followed.

 

In the early 70's I remember having to wait until the Sunday paper arrived to find out who scored, in one away game, although we were in the 2nd highest division (2nd Division) info was so sparse, if sports report didn't give the information, it was a long old wait! Now you get it on your phone and some people on their watch! whatever next!

 

I miss the vidiprinter on Grandstand and the noise it made. Also loved the little updates under the rolling scores. Hated how s*** we were becoming back then though.

 

I'm a bit embarrassed to say that as a youngster, when the "classified results" came on, I would try and listen to the announcer (was it James Alexander Gordon) and guess the result before he gave the score based on the inflexion in his voice when he said the teams name.

 

Some c*nt tied his shoe laces together but he didn't care, he was a man, he played on anyway....

 

Perry. Digweed.

 

I recall teletext showing a watford goal, with goalscorer. Then the next time the page rolled around it was 0-0.

 

All read out by Amersham’s own David Coleman.

The proto Partridge.

 

Is that our all time tally?

W 2050 L 1967.

Relieved it’s all been worth it.

 

Prehistoric VAR?

 

Low, slightly quieter for the losing, higher & ever so slightly joyous for the victors.

The result repeated in the case of an outstandingly large score. Seven or more, I think.

Even & businesslike tone for a draw.

Jo Brand once did a one off reading which reversed this. Whilst the joke had worn off by Chelsea at home, it was an unsettling experience.

 

I watched The Birmingham Match on a fuzzy 15 inch screen high up on a pub wall.

Sound off.

I assume we won.