Football on Television

Abstract

The British Film Institute monograph, Football on Television,¹ is a breakthrough, the first serious study of televised sport published in this country, and in concentrating upon the crucial problem of mediation — whether television ‘records’ or ‘constructs’ events — it makes an important contribution to a contemporary media debate. For sport, of all televisual events, appears to come to us ‘raw’, in the form of natural events which the television camera is fortunate enough to catch and record. It is this myth which Football on Television conclusively demolishes, demonstrating how a multitude of mediating influences act to shape our responses to a game often before a ball has been kicked. The monograph is of immediate relevance to the teacher in the classroom for it shows how ‘popular’ material can be used in a serious and educative way. And although it examines the television coverage of a specific event — the 1974 World Cup — the monograph both suggests a large number of approaches relevant to the study of televised sport in general, and has an obvious application to the study of domestic football coverage. I wish in this chapter however to focus attention upon the problems of teaching about televised football. What precisely are the difficulties of introducing the study of televised football into the classroom? How transferable are the approaches suggested in the monograph to the presentation of domestic soccer events of the kind habitually watched by many pupils? And are there any serious differences between the World Cup and domestic presentations which make necessary other approaches to those suggested by the monograph? The conclusions reached here are based upon a study of the 1976 Cup Final between Manchester United and Southampton undertaken with fifth form comprehensive school pupils.