Yorkshire TV Football Highlights 1968-1983
Yorkshire football highlights were broadcast under a variety of different guises over the years; 'Soccer', Sunday Sport, Football Special and The Big Game. When the various ITV regional stations were due to begin screening regular Sunday afternoon football on 11th August 1968* Yorkshire Television had only been on air for a fortnight, but industrial unrest wiped out the opening weekend's coverage. YTV's camera crew were eventually assigned to cover their first televised football match on 25th August 1968 at Bramall Lane for Sheffield United v Millwall, Colin Addison scored the only goal in a 1-0 victory for the Blades.

*ABC Television had provided a weekend commercial service for both the Midlands and North from 1956 - July 1968, they began producing a football highlights show called World of Soccer that ran for three seasons...
1965/66  |  1966/67  | 1967/68

Yorkshire football commentators & presenters
The original YTV commentator was ex-professional footballer Danny Blanchflower, a very fine player in his day with Barnsley, Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur who had also captained Northern Ireland to the Quarter-Finals of the World Cup in 1958, but it soon became obvious to Yorkshire viewers that he wasn't so useful with the microphone as he had been with the ball and by the end of the 1968/69 season YTV had 'let him go'*. His replacement was Keith Macklin, already well known in the region having appeared on BBC North as a newsreader during the first half of the 1960's, YTV had possibly employed Macklin as a Rugby commentator as he had described Rugby League matches for the BBC's North of England home service in the 1950's & '60's as well as presenting televised Rugby Union in 1967**, nevertheless he became the voice of Yorkshire football from 1969 until the early stages of the 1976/77 season and he was also a member of the ITV commentary team that covered the 1974 World Cup in West Germany as well as voicing YTV's "The Indoor League" series. In 1982 Macklin joined Red Rose Radio where he continued to work until shortly before his death in 2009 aged 78, he had made a brief return to ITV earlier that decade voicing reports for "The Goal Rush".
Replacing Macklin in 1976 came 31 year old Martin Tyler who had previously worked behind the scenes on LWT's The Big Match and On the Ball from August 1973 before taking up a place in the gantry on behalf of Southern Television (see 1976 article here). Whilst with Yorkshire, Tyler commentated at the 1978 World Cup finals in Argentina and eventually became recognised as the network's no.2 behind Brian Moore***. When Tyler left YTV to join Granada for the start of 1981/82**** a 39 year old John Helm took over, Helm was a born and bred Yorkshireman and Bradford Park Avenue supporter who had worked for BBC Radio Leeds before joining the national BBC Radio Sports department, his party piece was the ability to rattle through the names of all 92 league clubs in record breaking time (around 26 seconds). Helm continued to commentate for Yorkshire and ITV for many years and also worked for Channel 5 from 2004 to 2007.

The presenter of Yorkshire football highlights from 1969 was Fred Dineage, chiefly associated outside the region with Southern TV's children's programme How, although he also popped up hosting the likes of World of Sport and Anglia's quiz show Gambit. Towards the end of regular regional highlights, ex-player Derek Dougan was employed by YTV as a post match summariser and sometimes co-commentator (Like Jimmy Greaves at ATV, Dougan had not served any club in the region in which he now worked, but this did at least grant him an air of impartiality)***, he also presented the programme when it moved to a Saturday night slot in 1980/81 as Dineage would end up fronting TVS highlights, John Helm then moved into the presenters seat for 1981/82. Following the relegation of the region's last remaining top flight clubs, Yorkshire's football coverage was severely cut for the final season of regional highlights in 1982/83.

* Danny Blanchflower had first commentated for Rediffusion on the Southern Junior Floodlit Cup Final between West Ham and Chelsea on 3rd January 1956 and later worked for CBS television in the USA on their National Professional Soccer League games in 1967. Back in 1961 he became notorious for turning down an appearance on the hugely popular TV show This Is Your Life by walking away from the host Eamon Andrews and his big red book (live on air) whilst protesting "I consider this programme to be an invasion of privacy. Nobody is going to press gang me into anything." He died in December 1993.
**Macklin also appears to have commentated for Southern TV football on at least one match during 1966/67.
***In 2007 Martin Tyler was asked for his most embarrassing moment, he recalled; "When an injury-stricken player was being taken from the field, I noted that it was a 'sad sight for Sheffield Wednesday fans'. Unfortunately, I inserted a stray H into the second word."
****Terry Neill may also have been a regular summariser for YTV around 1973/74.

Yorkshire football theme tunes
During the 1979/80 season Yorkshire were using Keith Mansfield's "Sporting Highlights", this is believed to have been YTV's football theme tune since around 1970 and it was still being used when the programme was retitled as The Big Game before a new theme tune was adopted for 1981/82.

The Yorkshire region's teams 1968-1983
YTV's football coverage quickly became synonymous with Don Revie's Leeds United who were arguably the best side in the entire country until well into the mid-1970's. In stark contrast to Leeds, the region's other top clubs Sheffield Wednesday, Sheffield United and Huddersfield Town would all sink into the 3rd tier for the first time in their respective histories, the latter pair even spent time in the 4th, yet all three still enjoyed their success stories and each played their part in making YTV football history (promotion was not something Leeds were able to celebrate in those days).
Many of the region's other clubs also enjoyed the good times, none more so than Hull City who spent more than a decade in the 2nd tier, briefly to be joined by Mansfield Town for one single season before both were relegated in 1978. Rotherham United and Barnsley then had their turn competing in the upper echelons of the football league after achieving promotion together in 1981.
Sadly the region lost one of its' league members in 1970 when Bradford Park Avenue failed to gain re-election following a succession of calamitous campaigns at the foot of the 4th division (the one Park Avenue match known to have been covered by YTV on 21/Dec/1968 survives in the archives). Becoming the only club in town had no positive effect on Bradford City who, after relegation in 1972, languished in the 4th division for 9 of the next 10 seasons. But the region was to add another three league clubs to its' roster in July 1974 when ITV signals from the high powered Belmont transmitter in Lincolnshire began to relay Yorkshire signals instead of those previously relayed from Anglia;* Grimsby Town, Scunthorpe United and Lincoln City were all now YTV clubs whilst the ITV regional preference of Hull City supporters no longer had to be fought over.
Another club who YTV 'shared' was Middlesbrough - Odd considering that the coverage area maps of the day suggest households beyond Northallerton would have struggled to pull in satisfactory YTV signals, whilst Middlebrough itself was clearly well within the Tyne Tees boundary**, yet ITV stations were competing to maximize advertising potential in fringe/overlap areas and, as Middlesbrough was still in the county of North Yorkshire in 1968, there was enough of an excuse to send YTV cameras to Ayresome Park. York City too found themselves attracting the attention of both YTV and Tyne Tees, especially after they won promotion to the 2nd tier in 1974.
Largely ignored over the years were Doncaster Rovers, Halifax Town and Chesterfield who were unable to climb out of the lower leagues, although the Shaymen went close in 1971 as did the Spireites in 1980. That same year saw Grimsby Town prove to be the most successful 'Belmont' acquisition when they were promoted as champions of the 3rd tier. Sadly the final season of regular regional highlights in 1982/83 saw YTV unable to cover a top flight club, Leeds United's glory days had very much deserted them and it was Sheffield Wednesday who would soon be flying the flag for the region at the highest level in a new era in which live coverage superseded highlights.

*Anglia Television (based in Norwich) continued to broadcast to a smaller region after relinquishing the Lincolnshire mast to YTV (the switchover date is often cited as 1st January 1974, but in fact the switch did not occur until 30th July 1974). Some homes around the Chesterfield, Mansfield and Lincoln areas received ATV/Central who would occasionally feature the clubs from those towns on Star Soccer, but all three were primarily recognised as YTV teams.
**In March 1971 a new high powered transmitter on Bilsdale West Moor (positioned 20 miles south of Middlesbrough) was added to the growing family of colour TV masts. Although original plans designated Bilsdale to be a Yorkshire Television mast, by October 1970 it had been agreed that the transmitter would relay a Tyne Tees signal. Colour reception of Yorkshire Television was first made available via the Emley Moor mast near Huddersfield on 15th November 1969 (Huddersfield v Portsmouth was presumably Yorkshire's first colour match, although some earlier games were recorded in colour for test purposes).

What matches were shown
The following season links detail all the Saturday matches recorded by Yorkshire Television cameras for local highlights, the re-edits of other region's games are not included. For midweek games (which were networked) go here, for full details of networked Wembley Cup finals go here and for European finals see here. Given dates are for when the match was played (not the broadcast). Non-Yorkshire based matches are in italics.