Anyone know the scores?

[haka]

I expect a few Exewebbers will recognize themselves here: a look back at the various ways people followed the Saturday scores, pre-internet ...

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/that-1980s-sports-blog/2021/mar/31/lost-art-tracking-down-sports-football-scores-teletext

If you'd been at SJP then it was essential to time your journey home properly. A TV screen on Sidwell St, or Sports Report on the train to Topsham/Exmouth (whoever had the radio was everyone's friend). Away games were even more challenging: a car radio if you were lucky, or a trip on coach/train with no information at all.

Sometimes the results could be a mystery until Sunday morning.

 

[fred binneys head]

I can remember watching a full game on teletext, Mansfield at home it was, in the early 90s. I watched teletext for 90 minutes, waiting for the score to change. But it didn’t. We drew 0-0.

The next day I found out the game had been postponed.

 

[Oldsmobile-88]

The Rediffusion TV shop in Sidwell St just down from the Summerland St junction.Usually a crowd of about 30 people around the shop front waiting for the classified results or the scores coming through on the Teleprinter.

Teletext was state of the art for football scores & league tables.Could be a bit frustrating waiting for the pages to turn,then you hit the hold button when the Grecians division came on.

 

[Greyhound]

Gilbert usually had his radio.

 

[Oldsmobile-88]

Gilbert usually had his radio.

Legend,with that radio pressed to his ear relaying the scores to anyone close by.

 

[Oldsmobile-88]

Midweek away games when I was a kid you usually you had to wait until the morning paper for the results.
The first thing I scanned for on my morning paper round.
The football results were not always given out on the previous night news programmes.

Teletext was a revolution in getting the results quickly.

Devon Air started in late 1980 which was a huge boost for the reporting on games involving Exeter & Torquay.

 

[Exehausted]

I couldn't wait for results. I used to look up the 'phone number of the club we were playing in a copy of the Rothmans Book of Football and ring the club and ask what the latest score was. I would usually ring at least four times during a match, sometimes more. That was from 1971 until teletext started. There couldn't have been many doing it because I always got straight through.

 

[fred binneys head]

I can remember city winning 1-0 at Colchester in a midweek game in our championship season and I only heard the result on the radio in the 10 o’clock news slot when they read out all the results of the day. I was jumping around the kitchen, hoping I hadn’t heard it wrong.

 

[haka]

I couldn't wait for results. I used to look up the 'phone number of the club we were playing in a copy of the Rothmans Book of Football and ring the club and ask what the latest score was.

I did that a few times (not 4+ times in one game though!). The problem of course was that they thought they were talking to their own supporters. I once called a club (may have been Northampton) and the nice lady answered the phone: "hang on, we've just scored, we're 1-0 up, yes!". I wasn't so nice in reply.

 

[Oldsmobile-88]

The best football coverage & the way the results & tables were laid out in the 1970s was in The Daily Express/Sunday Express.Especially when they were in the broadsheet format.
I cut them out then put them in my scrapbook That would be odd behaviour for a 11/12 year old these days