Scotsport


Scotsport was a Scottish sports television programme, broadcast on STV in northern and central Scotland between 1957 and 2008, as well as on ITV Border in southern Scotland.
It was first broadcast in 1957 as Sports Desk and continuing until the end of its football highlights show in May 2008. As such, the programme was officially recognised as the world's longest-running sports television programme; however, it has since been overtaken by Hockey Night in Canada.

History

Launching less than a month after the opening of Scottish Television, the programme first aired on 18 September 1957, as Sports Desk. The Scotsport title was adopted a short time later, and the vast majority of its coverage was of football, rather than sport in general, as the name might imply. The football coverage, in turn, concentrated mostly on Scottish Premier League clubs. The show also followed Scottish clubs in the UEFA Champions League via live matches and highlights programmes. Scotsport's main rival was the long-running BBC Scotland strand Sportscene, which continues to broadcast to this day.
Prior to the 2007–08 season, Scotsport faced competition for viewers of its SPL coverage. On 18 July 2007, it was announced that the SPL had signed a similar deal with BBC Scotland for non-exclusive television coverage of the league. This did not affect Scotsport's production, although the programme lost ratings. Scotsport continued in its 10.40pm-11.40pm Monday night slot for the remainder of the 2007–08 season, with Sportscene's SPL highlight airing later in the week on Wednesdays at 10pm on BBC Two Scotland.
On Hogmanay 2007, STV broadcast 50 Years of Scotsport, a programme taking a look back at the shows best moments over the 50 years it had been on air. Featuring colleagues from past and present, one of the show's most recent presenters, Grant Stott presented the Hogmanay special. A month before the anniversary programme aired, STV decided to axe Scotsport, after BBC Scotland won a five-year deal to show SPL highlights. The programme aired for the last time on Thursday 22 May 2008.
A smaller-scale sports magazine show, STV Sports Centre was launched on Friday 5 March 2010 but axed fifteen months later.

Presenters

Despite being one of the world's longest-running sports television programmes, there were only five main anchors in its 51 years on air, largely due to the 32-year tenure of Arthur Montford, who retired in May 1989. Montford was succeeded by Jim White, Jim Delahunt, and finally, the pairing of Grant Stott and Andy Walker, who also anchored STV's Champions League coverage.
Other key members of the Scotsport on-air team during its run included the likes of Bob Crampsey, Jock Brown, and Gerry McNee.
In 1982, Sally McNair joined the show and become the first female TV sports journalist in Scotland. Six years later, Hazel Irvine became co-presenter of the Friday night preview show, Extra Time - she defected to the rival Sportscene programme in 1990.
A controversial revamp of the SPL highlights show in 2004 saw the arrival of Sarah O'Flaherty and Julyan Sinclair, who co-anchored Scotsport SPL on Monday nights for two seasons.
In its latterday run, match commentators included Archie Macpherson, Jock Brown, Ian Crocker, Rob MacLean, Ken McRobb and David McKinney.

Spin-off shows

Scotsport Rugby Sunday was a short-lived spin-off, specifically focused on rugby union in Scotland. Richie Gray presented the series, featuring news and highlights, including coverage of Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors, lower league club rugby and women's games.
STV Rugby, an hour-long Celtic League highlights show was launched in September 2009, and continued on and off until the end of the 2011-2012 season.