Snow drifts, waterlogged pitches that blokes on the Somme would probably describe as "a bit muddy", short-sleeved shirts in the middle of sub-Arctic British winters, two-footed, studs-up tackles that barely got you a caution. Different game back then.
Brings back so many happy Sunday's sat on the sofa with my dinner watching Brian Moore introducing and commentating on so many great games.RIP Brian. COYI
Whoever made this,please take a bow Sir, it's the best thing i've ever seen on RU-vid. It made me laugh,cry,cheer,& wallow in nostalgia about past happier, carefree & wonderful times. My Sincere Thanks.🙂
This is one of the best theme tunes around. Reminds me of many a Sunday afternoon in front of the telly (after excusing myself from lunch early!) Remember, Modern Football is Rubbish!
Nostalgia!! back in 77, I was 13. In Greece "big match" was broadcasted every saturday , 2 matches every time. Then, after watching both, full of spirit I would take my ball and out to the field to meet my friends in another sunny afternoon. I remember, in a match the ball hit a pigeon and Brian Moore commented on that. What memories! Thanks for the upload
Apologies for not replying to your post sooner! Back in 1977 I was 10 and living in very rural North Wales. I used to wactch The Big Match andseem to recall it was shown on Sundays. Happy Days watching football on TV particularly when it was cold, wet and windy! Anyway I wish you well!
Hadn't heard this tune for years! My granddad used to watch all the sports programmes on a Saturday, and I grew up with the theme tunes. I loved this one, and had forgotten about it until I saw the end of a Benny Hill Show the other day. Great to hear it again!
I watched these shows from Oz when I came home from school,how good are the anthems? When English football had a soul.70’s best! I loved Jimmy Hill. The only thing that makes me excited about football these days is the Glasgow Rangers,they still have that ole fashioned passion.
Yes before that jack Hargreaves and Shaw Taylor ,I used to be impatience for those programs to finish to watch the big match and high chaparral with Sunday dinner
When police 5 came on it started the countdown for me to The Big Match and Sunday dinner, mum hated football but knew dad and I loved it so she always timed dinner to be served up just as it ended and then sit down to watch the film that invariably followed. Happy Days, miss you mum RIP! 🙂
Nostalgic theme tune, easy to remember and very refreshing. A main match with 2 others. Brian Boore's voice will come after the tune. Glad to hear it again after so many years.
The FA Cup final when that was the highlight of the football season, not many live matches back then so BBC and ITV had a morning and afternoon of back to back football before the game, it was absolute bliss.
Brilliant theme, I used to sing this one and ‘match of the day’ tunes in my pushchair as a baby, Mum said people used to assume it’d be a little boy in there - nope, just a baby of a footie mad family 😁
The Last Guitar Hero I remember very weil being on the terraces for such snow-strewn games in the biting, bitter cold. Loved it. Made getting home to a warm fire all the better.
@@sarahgould7296Sweeping the lines and getting the orange or yellow ball out rarely happens now because matches simply get called off now, but I did see a match last season with swept lines and yellow ball in December last season (2022/23 for anyone reading this in the future).
Was spontaneously humming this at work for ages...took me a while to track this tune down. God knows why I was humming it, i didn't even grow up in this era! lol
Loved Stuart Pearson's goal celebration when I was a kid. Strutting away stiff legged, teeth bared in something somewhere between a grin and a grimace, arm in the shape of a letter 'L' with a clenched fist at the end. Actually everything appeared clenched now I think of it. Great theme tune this. Didn’t hear it too often because I lived in the north west where Granada TV subjected us to all kinds of horrific musical crimes as excuses for themes. Can’t remember how they went and I’m not going searching. The Kick Off Match the show was called if you’re curious. Always preferred Gerald Sinstadt over Brian Moore (preferred Hugh Johns and Keith Macklin too) but the London show wiped the floor with the opposition when it came to themes.
@@leemorris2924 well is that the best you can do? The word woke really does upset you snowflakes doesnt it. Get back to uni or your left wing newspaper.
Aaaah ,what memories ! sunday lunch and the big match ,then out in the back garden to put my football through my dads greenhouse window for the umpteenth time ,the local glazier had more of my pocket money than I did !!
I remember this great theme music was played when it was shown in my country in the '70's. I had some friends who were children of British immigrants to my land, who followed English football, called the First Division in those days. Their teams were Stoke City and Q.P.R. so I chose one at random, to be part of it, West Bromwich Albion. Never really got into it like they did, but I do remember West Brom had three black players, quite rare at the time, who the coach knick named after the all girl black singing group 'The Three Degrees'. I remember seeing on one of 'The Big Match' telecasts that the real 'Three Degrees', went out on the pitch once to welcome the West Brom team as they run on, particularly the black, 'Three Degrees' on the team. Does anyone else remember this? P.S. Still have a soft spot for W.B.A. and hope they do well.
Warren, I remember the match you are talking about - when the 3 Degrees welcomed the players on to the pitch at West Brom. It’s great to know you, and children all over the World, were also enjoying the ‘Big Match’. I was a teenager in South London in the 1970s so often went to watch Chelsea, QPR, Wimbledon etc. Happy days!
Great days.. was watching it this week, and a Spurs fan was sitting on the roof.. as the camera panned, Brian Moore said ‘and there’s the best view in the house’.. and that was it.. 😀
RIP Sir Bobby Robson. I am no West Ham fan, in fact I am a Barnsley fan, but does anyone agree that if it was possible, that Bobby Moore deserves a posthumous knighthood? Probably the best English defender, definitely in the same mould of a gentleman as Sir Bobby Robson and a sportsman to the extreme. The shot of him in the '75 FA Cup Final where he is talking to a Fulham colleague and basically saying, 'Suck it up, mate! We gave it a good shot! There's next year!' No poncy paddy fits!
What a beautiful montage, well done. To be honest, I read somewhere that this theme came out in 1974 so I think you have got the dates more or less right. A newer version came out around 1978 and last about 2-3 years. Undoubtedly the best tune ITV have ever used for football coverage, and this was about my earliest memories of watching football.
As a “Yank” growing up and visiting family in the UK I always enjoyed “The Big Match” and English Premier Football….this brings back memories; thanks dear Sir.
Great signature tune, but The Big Match only covered London and the surrounding area's Living in Liverpool (the Granada region) we had our programme called "Kick Off". The only time we heard that signature tune was when I.T.V. screened the League Cup Final highlights on the following Sunday afternoon and of-course "The Big Match" would screen it!
1:45 i was there for that match. FA Cup 5th Round in the snow with the orange ball, February 1978. That was Bristol Rovers (my team) scoring the goal against Ipswich to level it at 2-2. Rovers then went on to score a third which was disallowed for offside. The replays on telly showed what we all saw live on the Saturday afternoon that the ball had ricocheted off an Ipswich defender, thereby playing all the Rovers players onside. Should have been allowed. Finished 2-2 and they thumped us 3-0 in the replay to stop us getting to the quarter-finals for the first time.
Back to a time when, as a young teenager I absolutely loved football. Don't watch it at all now. Totally ruined by greed now. There was something special about Sundays in the 70's.
The Bristol Rovers/Ipswich game, with al the snow. If I remember correctly, a FA cup tie, would never be played now days. This was a time when football was proper football. None of the premier league pounces
There might be more well known football theme tunes, but there are certainly no better. It actually matches the up and down flow of a game. Superbly done
This was the theme tune on Yorkshire TV, when Keith Macklin was commentator before Martin Tyler took over from him. We followed LWT on the music front.
MrSmelly1977 .... :DDDD uses this intro for his fragrance reviews, sooooo funny medieval trumpets .... i´ve turned it on at our work afterparty and started to dance (in a funny retro way) ... everybody was laughing out loud .... life has to be fun !!!!!!
After watching this about 30 lads would converge on our local park and play till dark. No proper posts though. CARDIFF COUNCIL failed to approve our requests, then took our Empire Pool for a rugby ground. But we swam in the Taff, and used jumpers for goal posts, then went to condemned buildings and sawed beams and made our own posts. F...k um.
Interesting to hear the whole of the theme tune rather than just the clip used to introduce and close the TV coverage. Lots of footage to bring back memories!
As a postscript, the updated version of La Soiree is featured on ITV4's Big Match Revisited programmes which are currently showing re-runs of LWT and Granada TV coverage from season 1978-79. Just as catchy as the original!
Bloody Stuart Pearson and McArie stopping my beloved Liverpool from winning the treble in 1977 Cup Final Still hurts to this day. The clips them celebrating bloody hurts still. Lol.
Brian Moore presenting. Saw one of these Big Match programmes repeated on BT Sport recently, they had a segment where Moore reads out viewers letters and gives out their full name and address...different times!
The good times - when my beloved Ipswich actually won things & had a god as a manager.... I wasted so many hours trying to save penalties like Paul cooper #1
So nostalgic! back when British football was THE PEOPLE'S GAME and not the over-priced, corporate load of sh ite it is today. Zero passion and full of executive types these days.
@fifthof Quite agree with you sir, Football as lost its way ..I ust to luv the Big Match more than Match of the day because they had a sense of humour ' BBC ok but to conservative. From that era I thought the Best Law Charlton trio were Pure Class n Formidable also Leeds n Chelsea were very hard to beat . My favourite manager Brian Clough RIP , he was very skill ful at motivating a team and getting the best out of each individual player. Also then teams played alot of Carpet football like my late dad ust to say and not Ego driven like today and had total respect for the fans too..Kind regards Glynn n Greetings from Stourbridge West Midlands UK 🤝
That save from Gary Bailey at 0.34. Just out of this world. He made a similar one in the same match from memory. Wish keepers were coached to hold the ball more instead of punch, punch, deflect etc. Remember Casillas v Chile 2014 day WC. Great keeper but what a rubbish pinch, ball going to his chest.
Gary Bailey, was a brilliant goalkeeper, seemed like he used to make outstanding game saving, saves every week. My favourite was the save against Brighton in the 83 Cup Final. In my all time great, United, GK's, Bailey ranks third, behind Peter Schmeichel and David De Gea. UNITED
