Saturday At Three

The convention that football in England is played on a Saturday afternoon, kicking off at three o'clock, stems from the game's early days in Victorian times when for players, officials and spectators, the working week ended at Saturday lunchtime.  The strength of the church, The Lord's Day Observance Society (LDOS)  and the tradition that Sunday be a day of rest precluded organised football on the Sabbath.  With the decline in influence of the church and the LDOS it is probable that if football were in its infancy now,  Sunday would more likely be the preferred day for the majority of games.  The advent of the Premier League and Sky Sports broadcasting of live games in 1992 brought live Sunday football on TV; then we got live Monday night football, live Saturday lunchtime football, live Saturday tea-time football and from next season we are going to get live Friday night football.

The demands of television and the complicity of the football authorities bring problems for the fans that have been well documented. Inconvenient kick-off times combined with long journeys for instance. In this season's FA Cup, Liverpool's tie at Exeter City was switched to Friday night for the benefit of the broadcasters.  Ludicrously, Liverpool fans who wished to travel by rail found that their last train home left Exeter before the game had even kicked off! The switch, and the inconvenience to the travelling Liverpool fans, was justified by broadcasters on the basis that it was  " no different to their visits to Swansea on a Monday night in the Premier League and a Wednesday trip to Southampton in the League Cup, both of which they have done in the last 12 months." So that's all right then, having been thoroughly inconvenienced twice, by the third time they ought to be used to it.

And if it isn't bad enough when sufficient notice is given when games are rescheduled from the default Saturday afternoon, the broadcasters frequently demand last minute switches to accommodate their schedules. Oh sure, there are rules about the amount of notice they have to give, but at least twice this season these rules have not been complied with. Middlesbrough's trip to Charlton Athletic in the Championship was moved from Saturday to Sunday with only seventeen days notice given, and this after many away fans would have booked train tickets and possibly overnight accommodation as well as having bought their match tickets. Just another example of the lack of consideration that is shown to the fans by the leagues and broadcasters.

This is all a far cry from the days when the Football League ruled TV and radio coverage of the game with an iron fist. Highlights programmes like Match of The Day could not be broadcast before a particular time in the evening - I think it was 10 o'clock - because, in the Football League's view, any earlier and there might be a detrimental effect on attendances at games played during the afternoon. And BBC radio could only provide commentary on the second-half of Football League or FA Cup matches to stop fans staying at home and listening to games instead of attending them. Not allowing games to be shown live on TV at three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon was the work of then Burnley chairman Bob Lord, who in the 1960's convinced his fellow Football League club chairmen that televised games at that time would hit clubs in the pocket because of reduced attendances. 

That blackout remains in place, but is now being challenged by Virgin Media, who are proud to claim that they are " the only TV provider to offer all the available live games through one subscription." But, of 380 Premier League games scheduled each season, "only" 154 are shown live. Given their own way, Virgin Media would have all 380 games shown live. And here is why they argue this:

Fans are missing games: Fans are unable to watch their favourite teams live on TV because the Premier League does not allow games to be broadcast at 3pm on Saturdays. Our survey shows that 77% want more live Premier League games on TV.

Fans are not "unable to watch their favourite teams" rather, Virgin Media customers cannot. Fans go to games; customers sit at home and watch TV. And who are these people who want more live football and exactly how many are they? Presumably they are 77% of Virgin Media customers, many of whom may never have been to a live football match in their lives because it is doubtful that they are 77% of the 13.7 million fans who went to Premier League games last season. Virgin Media's claim that their motive for their campaign is that fans are getting a raw deal is disingenuous; they have looked at the number of games that are broadcast and figure that if it were all of them rather than 40% of them, they could significantly boost income by increased numbers of subscribers.

Contradicting Virgin's assertion is the evidence gathered by Against League 3 [1] who found that in non-League football, those polled were 100% against televised games at 3 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon and that even among Premier League fans, only 40% supported the concept. Naturally we should treat all such statistics, from either side, with some suspicion; both sides in the argument will have gathered evidence from sources that will most likely support their view.

The argument against televised football on a Saturday afternoon is that it will hit attendances at games, and especially at the lower levels of the game, and it is probably true. Say the choice is going to watch your local team on a dark, wet, cold and windy December afternoon, when they have just lost four on the trot and are likely to be trounced by the league leaders and having to spend money on transport, admission and refreshments, or alternatively sitting in a nice warm living room, with your feet up to watch a top of the table Premier League game without paying a penny more than your existing cable or satellite TV subscription. The given that choice, the "fans" that Virgin Media are talking about would pick the latter. The real fans -as opposed to "customers"- will choose the former.

You can watch football at The Emirates...

or in the pub...

There are already plenty of pubs and clubs showing games live on a Saturday afternoon courtesy of satellite feeds from the Middle East and you can stream games live on your laptop if you know where to look. And if these games are already available to view, then attendances are presumably already taking a hit anyway and legitimising the broadcast of these games may not have an impact. Except if it is made easier for people to watch a game on TV rather than go to one at their local club, then that is what they will do.

but this is how I like to watch it.

Personally, I'm in favour of the Saturday afternoon blackout staying in place, but equally I think that eventually it will be pushed aside. And when that day comes companies like Virgin Media will hail this as a victory for the customer. They won't care that the price of their victory may be another nail in the coffin of grassroots and lower league football.

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[1] Against League 3 can be found at http://www.againstleague3.co.uk/   According to their website,  "Against League 3 is a collective of football supporters formed in May 2014 to fight proposals from The FA to introduce Premier League B-Teams into the wider competitive football pyramid. The petition against those measures reached 34,000 signatories with the plans defeated in 2015.

Since then AL3 has fought against a number of measures that would severely damage the English lower leagues, including the scrapping of FA Cup replays and B-Teams in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy. We have also tirelessly researched league structures and cup competitions around the world and youth develop schemes employed in other nations as well as highlighted the need for reform and lack of transparency at The FA, notably the FA Council."