Final Score

"Final Score" is a BBC TV programme, presented by Ray Stubbs, which runs on Saturday afternoons on BBC One in England. The programme provides viewers with the results from the main football league matches all across England, Scotland and occasionally Wales and Northern Ireland; in England from the Premier League to the Blue Square Premier, in Scotland from the Scottish Premier League (SPL) to the Scottish Division Three, and more frequently as of recent times, the Welsh Premier League and the Irish League. The programme also shows the league tables for most divisions that it shows the results of.

Early days

"Final Score" had been part of BBC's long-running show "Grandstand" as far back as the 1950s, when the results were broadcast on a device dubbed the Teleprinter, with each character of the results displayed one-by-one. Football fans, particularly those of lower division teams would wait anxiously for news on their team's result as live score updates during matches in those days were rare. The one-by-one letter typing by the teleprinter always heightened the anticipation.

The results came from the Press Association (PA), who appointed a correspondent to attend each match and report back the half-time and full-time scores to its offices in London. The PA would then use the technology of the day to provide a feed to BBC Television Centre. The Press Association still provide the vidiprinter results service to this day.

Technology gradually improved, but even the modern-day graphics (the Vidiprinter) used by the programme still emulate the original typing system. There are now Goalflashes throughout the afternoon for every match played in the English and Scottish leagues, plus the Conference making the nervous wait for results at 4.45pm a thing of the past.

The host of the main Grandstand programme used to present the scores and often try to reflect how each result affected the league (eg "Leicester go top of the league" or "Cambridge's thirteenth defeat in a row") which meant meticulous preparation was necessary.

After the majority of the results came in, the scores would then be collated and announced as the Classified Football Results in alphabetical order starting with the highest leagues first (up to 1992 the First Division, subsequently the Premiership). Remarkably, only two people have regularly read the football results on the programme: the Australian Len Martin (from the first programme until his death in 1995) and Tim Gudgin. This would be followed by the pools news and score draws and then the league tables although now the pools news element has been dropped in recent years due to the decline in the popularity of the football pools.

During its last few years there was no longer a main presenter for "Grandstand" so "Final Score" was broadcast as an indiviual programme which is broadcast from 1430 on the BBC's interactive service BBCi. The show starts its broadcasts to digital television viewers with pundits analysing the games in progress and all goal flashes and incidents are broadcast on screen with the vidiprinter. Viewers can also email in their thoughts about the scores and other topics. It is a rival show to Sky Sports' successful "Soccer Saturday" which pioneered the Saturday afternoon football scores service in 1998.

Present and future

The presenter of Final Score is Ray Stubbs. Each Saturday, Ray is joined in the studio by Garth Crooks and two other pundits from Lee Dixon, Steve Claridge, Martin Keown, Gary Pallister, Les Ferdinand, Graham Poll, Mark Bright, Paul Durkin and Carlton Palmer. When Ray is presenting other sports such as darts and snooker, Jake Humphrey acts as stand-in presenter. The show has reporters stationed at every FA Premier League game as well as several games from the Football League and the Scottish Premier League. It also features interviews with managers after the game conducted by the commentators for Match of the Day.

"Grandstand" ended over the weekend of January 27-January 28 2007, but "Final Score" still continues as a programme in its own right (as it has been, formally, since August 2001). The programme is also shown on the BBC Sport website, simultaneously broadcast with the BBCi show and the last 30 minutes are being shown on the BBC's International News channel, BBC World News.

In November 2007 a midweek version of the show was introduced. Rather than being a programme in its own right, it is a simulcast of BBC Radio 5 Live with graphics and the vidiprinter. The midweek version is shown when there are a lot of games taking place.

External links

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/score_on_bbci "Final Score"] at bbc.co.uk