Johnny Nic is dismayed at the decision to pull the 5pm reading of the classified results. The BBC must think again and restore a cultural cornerstone…
The BBC’s decision to abandon the reading of the classified results at 5pm in 5Live’s Sports Report on Saturday is a terrible decision. Some traditions are worth keeping.
Obviously, results can be obtained in myriad places now, the reason for keeping the classified results is nothing to do with information per se. It is a cornerstone of our cultural life.
Those 5pm readings are a unifying time when we all can come together. In an ever more fragmented world, to know that millions of football fans are, at that moment, all listening, matters. Many are doing so as they walk out of the ground, one ear plugged in. “How did Barrow do?” a pal will ask, and you listen, “lost 2-1… but Pools must’ve got a late winner, 3-2 away at Orient, good result, that.”
These simple exchanges of information may seem small and insignificant to those who work out the cost of everything but know the value of nothing. Yet, they are part of simple warp and weft of our community lives.
Charlotte Green’s timbre, the intonation which tells you the result a second before it is completed, inherited from James Alexander Gordon, is the people’s poetry. It has the heft of truth and holds in its hands, everyone’s hopes and dreams. It cannot just be cast aside as though it is worthless, old and in the way.
From the archive: A Football365 love letter to… results readers
You always know that even if you’ve missed updates throughout the afternoon, as long as you can turn on the radio at 5pm, all the info you need will be there. Even if you know your club’s own score, that doesn’t matter. There is beauty in the collation of the results of all the games played up and down these lands. It is a bookmark in the week, a place to return to for comfort and security. For all the ups and downs, for all the glory and heartache, the classified results can be relied on as an anchor in life’s choppy waters. Only a ghoul would think that is worth so little that it can be jettisoned. Do you not realise that it is one of the ties that binds.
OK, the 5.30pm live game has reduced the length of Sports Report, but here’s a reminder, without results, you don’t have a show. The whole thing is about results. In deleting the classifieds you are deleting the most important thing. And what for? Largely in favour of a few…
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