Thursday, November 29, 2018

Grandstand's opening titles in the Sixties



This is how Grandstand was introduced in the mid 1960s. Those four cameras showing different sports and the wonderful music are among my earliest television memories.

In those days the programme showed motor sports like scrambling, speedway and hillclimbing that I have not seen for decades.

And whatever happened to show jumping? It was huge.

Come to that, who was Sam Leitch? The opening item was always billed as "Sam Leitch's Football Preview".

Sometimes I turn on the TV on a Saturday afternoon still expecting Grandstand to be there. All I find is a repeat of Celebrity Bargain Hunt.

2 comments:

  1. One reason for the choice of sports shown on Grandstand was that they took place out of doors in daylight and could be covered by those big cameras that had four lenses in a turret that could be switched in front of the camera. Not having a zoom lens meant that you needed a minimum of two cameras to cover the action with the editor switching between the feeds from them.

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  2. Sam Leitch was the presenter of Football Preview on Grandstand.
    This was the forerunner of today's Football Focus.
    I loved old Sam back in the very early 1970s.

    Callum McCormick

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