ITV help England’s cup bid 

15 July 2018 tbs.pm/66872

From the TVTimes London for 2-8 July 1966

INDEPENDENT TELEVISION are helping England’s footballers in their World Cup quest. By providing them with an unbeatable intelligence service … a private television channel on which they will be able to study all their rivals in action.

A special set will be installed by ITV in the England hotel. Then each evening team manager Alf Ramsey will be able to telephone ITV’s Master Control and ask to see whichever of the day’s Cup matches most interest England.

And whatever game or games the rest of the country are shown that evening, England will receive the game of their selection — in its entirety — over a closed circuit.

On Wednesday, July 13, for example, they will be able — if they choose — to watch Mexico, whom they meet the following Saturday, playing France, whom England encounter on July 20.

Bill Ward, executive producer of ITV’s World Cup programmes, said: “We all want to see England win; this is ITV’s way of helping them to dco it.”

Said Alf Ramsey: “ITV’s help could be of great value in keeping us right up to date with the performance of teams we are likely to meet.”

The matches that England’s soccer select will see will be relayed to them from a building in Foley Street, behind London’s Oxford Street. As will all the World Cup programmes on ITV.

Through Foley Street will pass all the pictures and commentaries. From a studio in Foley Street, Eamonn Andrews will introduce all the matches.

 

To take World Cup matches to the world – ITV’s £35,000 sound van. It will handle 15 different commentaries to 15 countries simultaneously

 

Heading the 50-strong team there will be Stephen Wade, who will produce the Cup programmes and Tony Flanagan who will direct them. They have been working on their plans for six months.

Coverage of the matches in television pictures — as TV Times has explained already — is being shared between ITV and BBC, the camera crew and technicians for each match being provided by one or other or both services.

From the ground the pictures will be transmitted to a centre at Shepherd’s Bush in West London, from which they will go out to the world, either “live” or recorded on tape or film. To 42 different countries, to audiences expected to range from 100,000,000 for the preliminaries to 400,000,000 for the Final.

World Cup coverage on ITV starts with a documentary on Friday called The World Cup Game which takes a look at the big business generated by soccer’s greatest contest. Watch on ITV. Every England game will be shown live.

Remember — ITV brings you your favourite programmes, PLUS super World Cup coverage.

In the case of “live” coverage — which is to be given to all England matches and to Saturday afternoon ones (including the Final on July 30) — there are few problems for Stephen and Tony. They have presented more “live” sporting programmes than they can remember.

But in order to interfere as little as possible with the regular popular programmes, other matches are to be recorded. Then the best one of the day will be edited and others pruned to just their highlights for showing in a 45-minute programme at around 10.35p.m.

“We believe,” said Bill Ward, “that viewers would rather see a longer version of the best game, showing the flow and pattern of the match, and just highlights of the others, rather than snippets of all four.”

A final assessment of the merits of each game will be made by a team headed by John Bromley, the programmes’ editor. The evening’s “star” match will be chosen.

Then comes what Stephen Wade calls “the crunch.” Editing for the late-night programme. The aim of the editing will be to preserve as much as possible of the play.

But the time budget is tight. Stephen and Tony have known editing of a football match report to take six hours. Two and a half hours is considered reasonable. The ITV team will have about one and a quarter hours!

 

MONDAY
ENGLAND v. URUGUAY
– live from Wembley.

The full match, as it is played. The first match in World Cup coverage.

 

TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY AND FRIDAY

The major part of the match chosen as the best of the day will be shown, followed by highlights from all other games of the day.

TUESDAY
RUSSIA v. KOREA (from Middlesbrough)
BULGARIA v. BRAZIL (Liverpool)
GERMANY v. SWITZERLAND (Sheffield)

WEDNESDAY
CHILE v. ITALY (Sunderland)
HUNGARY v. PORTUGAL (Manchester)
SPAIN v. ARGENTINA (Birmingham)
FRANCE v. MEXICO (Wembley)

FRIDAY
KOREA v. CHILE (Middlesbrough)
BRAZIL v. HUNGARY (Liverpool)
SWITZERLAND v. SPAIN (Sheffield)
URUGUAY v. FRANCE (White City)

 

 

GET the best out of the World Cup. Watch it on ITV. And win £1,000 [£18,500 in 2018 allowing for inflation] with it here. Or a brand-new car. Or a fantastic holiday in our easy-to-win contest for all the family that calls for NO specialised knowledge.

It’s an easy-to-do, easy-to-enter competition. On this page are pictures of eight soccer stars. Listed with them are the qualities that have taken them to the top.

Here, too, are eight cars — also of world class and with their own special qualities.

We want you to match them up. Pick the car you think most suited to the personality of the player. You might think, for example, that a racy Sunbeam Alpine matches the goalmouth opportunism of Bobby Charlton. In that case you would mark an H, the code letter by our Alpine picture, against Charlton’s name on the coupon.

Just jot down opposite each footballer’s name the letter of the car you think he should have. Use only the coupon on this page. It’s 3d. a line [1¼p in decimal, 25p in 2018] and there must be a different car for each footballer.

And the prizes? If you win, you can have your pick of any of the eight new cars listed here, or you can have the holiday of your dreams this year or next in any of the countries represented by the footballers we are using in this contest. That is, MEXICO, ITALY, SWITZERLAND, BRAZIL, PORTUGAL, SPAIN, RUSSIA or ENGLAND — or you can take the cash, £1,000 instead.

If you choose a car or a holiday as your prize, there will be a cash balance to make the value up to £1,000.

Postal orders must accompany entries of 6d. or over. They should be crossed and made payable to TV Publications Ltd. Employees of TV Publications Ltd. and their relatives may not enter. If there is more than one correct entry a “play-off” competition will be arranged.

The competition will be judged by the Editor of TVTimes and a panel. In all matters relating to the competition the Editor’s decision is final and legally binding. All entries must be received by Monday, July 11, 1966.

 

MY CHOICE 3d. 3d. 3d. 3d. 3d. 3d. 3d. 3d. 3d. 3d.
BOBBY CHARLTON                    
ANTONIO CARBAJAL                    
SANDRINO MAZZOLA                    
KARL ELSENER                    
PELE                    
MARIO COLUNA                    
LUIS SUAREZ                    
LEV YASHIN                  

 
Send to World Cup Contest, TV Times, 317 High Holborn, London, W.C.99, to arrive by Monday, July 11, 1966.

You Say

2 responses to this article

Paul Mason 30 July 2018 at 11:07 pm

I don’t know about outside the Granada region but I know that a strike wiped out ITVs World Cup coverage in 1970. My late mother had two strict rules- no football, and no blank screen in the evening. Having only a 405 line set there was no BBC2. So what did we do? When BBC1 was covering the goings-on in Mexico, we would watch the blank ITV and listened to a tape reel of Debussy and Chopin piano pieces, and all the squeaks and bleeps when the tape rewound. Dad’s was a radio man, as I am but mother vetoed that.
At least by the 1974 Cup we had BBC2. Oddly enough England didn’t qualify, just Scotland in ’74 and ’78 so coverage wasn’t as intensive. Happy Days?

Paul Mason 30 July 2018 at 11:12 pm

All the cars in the prize competition were BRITISH made, even those with US parent companies. Wonder how many D registration prizes still exist? I suspect they were all scrapped in the late 1970s.

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