England's quest to reach the finals of the , reaches its climax this Saturday with a make-or-break clash against France in Rennes, a match which we have live on 91Èȱ¬ Three from 1900 BST (kick-off 1930).
Ever since the was made two years ago it looked likely that this match would determine which country would go to China and so it has proved: England require just a point whilst France have to win. It's set to be a tense and exciting night for all involved.
I have been editing the 91Èȱ¬'s television coverage of women's football for five years now and this undoubtedly is the strongest national side I have seen in that time.
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I've just returned from a few days away to a fascinating and heated online debate about the Match Of The Day repeat.
If I'd been around, I would have intervened earlier.
There's a simple explanation for why the show is repeated so early on a Sunday...
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As many users of our 606 site will now know, the has been launched. Thanks to everyone for your patience.
It follows a long hot summer of debate and development. There has been lots of discusssion about our plans involving me and users, but plenty more hard work by the team here towards the goal of launching the site by the end of September.
I reckon they have done a great job making it all happen, but will save the congratulations for an email to them!
More importantly I do want to talk here about what we have done and find out what everyone thinks about it, including those who didn't like the old 606 as well as die-hard fans.
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Thanks very much for all your ideas on the moments you would like to relive in the .
It's really helpful and greatly appreciated. Rest assured, my team will go through all your comments and take on board some of the best ideas.
It confirms what an exciting and wide-open race it is for the main award this year.
It's no surprise to see so much interesting debate around people like Monty Panesar, Zara Phillips, Joe Calzaghe, Andy Murray, Jenson Button, Nicole Cooke, Steven Gerrard, Tim Don, David Walliams, Peter Crouch and so on..
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We've that Ashes highlights will be on 91Èȱ¬ Television this winter.
People have asked on this blog and on our message boards whether we listen to what audiences are saying - and I hope this is proof we do. Although the 91Èȱ¬ has a great cricket service on radio in Test Match Special and online, television's lack of any cricket was casting doubt on whether we're truly committed to the sport...
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Much time has been spent debating the so-called lack of British success in 2006 - but it has been an incredible sporting year.
And as the editor preparing for the show in December, I’m looking for your input. More of that later...
There have been some truly memorable moments.
For sheer emotion, I challenge anyone to have been unmoved by the normally ice-cool after clinching the Open at Hoylake - so soon after his beloved father Earl’s death.
I was in tears watching the television pictures at home as he sobbed on caddie Steve Williams’ shoulders.
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I'm writing this in the early hours of Sunday morning following a very lively Premiership afternoon and evening.
It's pretty much impossible to sleep until 3am or so after editing an MOTD, so I may as well use the time to send another blog entry into the ether.
At the time of writing, I can vaguely remember why we decided to do what we did with the show tonight, so will try to explain in due course!
On the vast majority of Saturdays nowadays, Match of the Day is much more sympathetically scheduled than it was at certain times in the past.
When Des Lynam left the 91Èȱ¬ in 1999, he had been unhappy for some time at the erratic slots which he, and the team, were regularly enduring.
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A fascinating start to the Euro 2008 qualifiers: England and Scotland with maximum points, and a great comeback by Northern Ireland against Spain after a bad start against Iceland.
I know a lot of people are interested in audience figures, so here are the key ones for the 91Èȱ¬ network coverage. The biggest audience in recent days was a peak of 9.1m for England v Andorra live from Old Trafford. Then we had 3.9m watching the climax of Brazil v Argentina on 91Èȱ¬ One; and 3.4m watched Wednesday's Match Of The Day with highlights of Macedonia v England and Northern Ireland v Spain. (The peak for Sky's live coverage from Macedonia was 2.6m.) Wales v Brazil rated at 1.1m on 91Èȱ¬ Three; and Germany v Ireland reached a high of 673,000 also on 91Èȱ¬ Three...
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Apologies to those of you who found you were unable to listen to the second-half commentary of the on the website yesterday. This was a mistake, which we will seek to ensure doesn't happen in future. Here's a more detailed explanation from the Five Live Interactive team:
"Radio Five Live and Five Live Sports Extra offer many of their commentaries online but some events are blocked because the online rights are not held by the 91Èȱ¬. Other commentaries, such as Premiership football, are available to UK users only because Five Live doesn't have permission to stream them to a worldwide audience. So if you try to listen to Premiership commentary through an internet provider that is not recognised as a UK ISP, you will hear an apology message rather than the football.
The system by which online streams are blocked and unblocked occasionally fails due to human or technical error. We obviously strive to avoid this as we know how frustrating it is for users. Unfortunately the second half of last night's England game was blocked when it should have been available to UK users and for that we apologise. We are now reviewing our internal processes in order to minimise the chance of this happening again."
When , it was always going to stir up a debate within sport.
Thursday's Five Live Sport examines Christie's new job and whether he is a suitable role model ahead of the 2012 London Olympics.
Our reporter, Arlo White, speaks to athletes, administrators and those closely involved with Christie's .
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We've just had a bumper weekend of three live international matches on 91Èȱ¬ TV - England v Andorra and Brazil v Argentina on ONE, and Germany v Ireland on THREE. And, to my slight embarrassment, I wasn't involved in any of them.
In my defence, we only had the England game in the schedules when I originally asked for the weekend off to go to my friend Guy's wedding in Teesside. And I did stay in the loop by getting to a match: on Friday evening, to be precise.
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Most journalists exhibit a hefty degree of cynicism from time to time.
And it's in the build up to football's transfer deadline that my cynicism levels reach their height.
While speaking to a director of communications at a Premiership football club this week, I inadvertently told him:
"The problem is that we don't believe a word you lot are saying at this time of year . . ."
He wasn't wildly impressed with my sweeping statement - until I quickly reassured him that he and his club were, of course, an honourable exception.
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