David Prentice on Everton on TV – Liverpool Echo

27 Jul 2013 09:00

Tommy Eglington, scorer of Everton’s first live televised goal

It might be a slice of social and sporting history – but to your average Evertonian it’s become a video nasty! It is an unavoidable fact that the first-ever Match Of The Day, screened on August 22, 1964, famously featured Liverpool against Arsenal.

Then when MOTD went colour in 1969, they also chose Anfield – “because we wanted a colourful place,” explained producer Alec Weeks to the ECHO on the day of the match.

But what of the Blues?

Did Harry Catterick’s notorious reluctance to allow TV cameras into Goodison Park give their neighbours a headstart in embedding all things Anfield into the national consciousness?

Apparently not.

Everton’s first appearance on national TV screens came earlier. Much, much earlier.

Blues fans will be acutely aware of Everton featuring in Pathé newsreels shown at cinemas  – most memorably in the 1933 FA Cup final when numbered shirts were worn for the first time.

But Everton’s first ‘live’ appearance on the small screen is not so well known.

It was unearthed this week by a couple of ardent Everton historians.

Billy Smith, the creator of the exhaustive and outstanding bluecorrespondent.co.nr site (the site which seeks to upload a newspaper report of every Everton match ever played) has just uploaded his 1948 offerings.

And Steve Johnson, webmaster of the equally excellent evertonresults.com site, has scrutinised the reports to reveal that the Toffees’ first live TV screening was big news at the time.

Under the head: TELEVISION, SOCCER NEW LOOK – But Everton Board Prefers the Old Style  The Liverpool Daily Post of  January 31, 1948. (written before Everton had defeated Wolves in the previous round) reported: “Whether it is Everton, as we know, or Wolverhampton Wanderers, Fulham want the fifth round tie next Saturday to have the New Look. They propose to televise it. London message last night suggested Everton nor Wolverhampton Wanderers had objected to Television. True in one sense, but misleading in another.

“Everton chairman, Dr. Cecil Baxter, told me last night: ‘We have not even considered such an offer. The board have previously voted themselves as opposed, in principle, to television’.”

A week later, the Liverpool Evening Express revealed that the TV screening wasn’t as cut and dried as first planned.

Under the headline FARRELL CHOSEN TO PLAY AT LEFT HALF – First Match Televised, Pilot wrote: “There was at one time a doubt airing the televising for the aerial was struck by lightning yesterday. However, the £300 structure was repaired in time.

“Everton brought about 4,000 spectators with them and certainly they made themselves heard both on the streets of London in the morning and at the little ground, which five minutes before the game looked no more than comfortably filled.”

Clearly TV had little impact on the gates of what was a  golden age for football attendances.

The fifth round tie was drawn 1-1, Tommy Eglington enjoying the honour of scoring Everton’s first live televised goal, and ahead of the replay the ECHO’s  Leslie Edwards wrote:  “If Fulham win their fourth round replay it will need to be placed on record that no-one even mentioned the possibility of their doing so before the (Free £25 bet offer) Kick-off. Not even armchair critics. This well-known category will be multiplied a thousandfold and more by television.

“The first of the number has made himself known to Everton in a letter in which he explained that having witnessed by television their match against Fulham last week, he is convinced he can tell them where they went wrong.

“He encloses an interesting letter to Mr. Theo Kelly by suggesting that television spectators can never hope to capture the thrill of being present because of the artificiality of the medium.” Some things never change.

Sky might offer tactics boards, 3D action and commentaries by fans, but it will always be an artificial experience.

Everton’s next live TV appearance was 15 years later – the second half of the 1963 Charity Shield match against Manchester United at Goodison Park, shown during Grandstand.

DETAILS of all of Everton’s live TV games can be found at the site www.evertonresults.com/misc.htm