Midweek Match of the Day
When I joined 91Èȱ¬ Sport, we had a show called which ran every Wednesday night throughout the winter. It sometimes showed boxing or snooker, but most weeks we were frantically editing highlights of football: England and other home nations' internationals, FA Cup replays, and European club competitions were all given their first airing on Sportsnight. It seems incredible looking back, but none of those games were shown live anywhere in those days.
So, we were the only outlet for any of it, and the rapid turnaround made for some unbelievably hairy nights in the videotape area. Today, we have a rare chance to relive those days with an (2240 BST, 91Èȱ¬ ONE and UK broadband simulcast) for the midweek Premiership action. Six games are being played on the night, and we'll round-up last night's game, too.
The show tonight will inevitably be a little more rough and ready than the average Saturday night, though we hope that won't be too obvious. A producer putting together, say, a ten-minute edit for a Saturday or Sunday MOTD watches and logs the whole match, then has several hours to make the best bits fit, and to try to tell the story with a certain amount of finesse. Tonight, the sheer mechanics of getting an edit ready less than an hour after a game's finished means that we have two producers edting as the game goes along. One watching the game and making notes, the other piecing together the clips chosen by the former.
As on a Saturday, the programme editor allocates a duration to each match and the producers try to make everything fit. However, whereas there is time to weigh up all the merits of all the games (bar 1715 kick-offs) after the event on a Saturday, there won't be the same luxury tonight. The durations will constantly have to be adjusted as late goals go in and stories change. Also, given that you wouldn't include every booking in a short edit, a second yellow card for someone in the last minute may well mean the first yellow has to be included somewhere way back in a running edit.
It's good fun, but far from an exact science. The flexible live component of any MOTD is the chat and analysis between games. Again, the editor allocates time for this, but if something unexpected happens - say a manager has a lengthy post-match rant about a referee, or it becomes apparent that an important player is badly injured - then a studio segment may be squeezed elsewhere. On a Saturday, these adjustments can usually be made in mid-evening, tonight they'll probably happen at short notice. So, if you think we've been a bit cursory in discussing your team, it may well be that that wasn't our original intention!
Most such decisions are debatable, as is any given running order. A few Evertonians were unhappy to be on last on Saturday. As a Boro fan I've been there myself (often when I've been editing the show). All I can say is that we do think carefully about the order of matches. Someone has to be on last in any show, and I just felt , with Everton having led 2-0, was more expected and less newsworthy than , , and , , on their return to the top flight and with their big signing scoring on his debut.
I'd still stand by that running order, but if had been tonight it would have been well up the running order. I went to the game with Mark Demuth, who usually edits MOTD2, and though the , we thought . Square pegs in square holes, a fantastic togetherness and work ethic, and plenty of flair. Everton will be playing on a lot of Sundays if they progress in the , but they are much admired by our team behind, and in front of, the cameras on both shows.
The relaunch went fairly smoothly across all the shows at the weekend. The statistics flipper during the match interviews did change too quickly, as one or two of you pointed out, and will be adjusted. Other features of the new look will be refined as the weeks go by, but broadly speaking, we think things went OK. Whether we'll feel like that tomorrow morning having staged a six game, seat of the pants tonight remains to be seen!
