Football Italia on channel 4

Redlips said:
Italian football is what the premiership is now, expect our game is faster and crowds are bigger.
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It seemed incredibly exotic at the time: all these players from all around the world!
This was at the time when a Dutch kid and a Bulgarian journeyman would see a crowd of thousands turn up to see a Boro reserve match.

Looking back now, what strikes me as a surprise is that the vast majority of players were still Italian. The 3 foreigner rule was still in place, and every team had at least 8 Italians.

Still, it seemed incredibly cosmopolitan at the time, even if they did tend to crank out 0-0 draws week after week. I remember once, a penalty made the goal of the week poll.

I also disliked most of the Italian stadia; I only liked the Genoa ground, though I quite like the redeveloped Udinese ground too.
 
mymatelookslikephilstamp said:
Football Italia was a huge part of my growing up. The sunday afternoon matches literally got me through 5 years+ of going to my nannas every Sunday until I was 15 (more and more against my wishes, the older I got!).

It was the era before the internet and budget airlines, when football in Italy felt like a far flung, exotic and almost never reachable destination!

Transworld Sport on a Sunday morning too - remember that? I used to sneak downstairs and watch it at the crack of dawn before anyone else got up. 5 minutes football news, a bit of athletics and then some random sports I'd never heard of before!
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Yep loved Transworld sport, as it was the only place you could see cycling other than the TDF (which was limited to 30 minutes each night on Channel 4). Used to love it, and it felt so exotic seeing sports from the US or Europe.
 
Loved watching Italian football as a kid. Didn’t have sky so this was the only time I got to watch live football most of the time.
Remember eagerly waiting to see Ronaldo come back from injury only for him to be seemingly injured straight away again.
 
Jostler said:
Yessss early Saturday / Sunday morning being up at the crack of dawn, downstairs to myself, causing absolute mischief and watching TWS followed by Arthur.

I also remember getting up around 5am one Morning and TDF highlights being on and being fascinated.
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Yep, Channel 4 was single handedly responsible for getting me hooked on cycling through their TDF coverage. July 1988 was a real watershed moment for me.
 
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Redlips said:
I use to love this show and the magazine show on a Saturday morning with a review of the pink gazetta dello sport over an espresso.

I loved the kits, the colour and the great AC Milan team.

It inspired me so much I lapped up the Anglo Italian cup.
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Used to prefer the Saturday morning show to the Sunday matches. Slightly changing, but can anyone remember Eurogoals on Eurosport? I think they used to show it on a Monday and showed you the goals from what seemed like every league in Europe!
 
Eurogoals was excellent. Loved the guitar riffs between match highlights too.

The very underrated Dave Farrar was the main commentator on there aswell. He pops up on Freesport's live Italian matches these days.
 
It was of its time when there was limited exposure of football in other countries and it was exciting to get an insight to Italian football. I think Kingy who used to post on here had something to do with it. Not sure if he initially helped create it or worked as a producer, etc.
 
The Italia 90 football game was quality and the last computer game I could beat the kids at. The Fifa games have had my life.
 
Getting back to James Richardson - I'm not sure what he's doing these days but his dry quips are sorely missed. One of his best was a preamble to one particular (Serie A) game played in freezing conditions which he described as having: "more ice than a west coast Rap convention"!
At least theres always the scandalously underused Gary Imlach to rely on for that brand of sarcasm these days.
 
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