Richard Haynes is Professor of Communications, Media and Culture and Member of the Stirling Media Research Institute at the University of Stirling, UK. He is author or co-author of several books on the relationships between sport and the media including The Football Imagination: The Rise of Football Fanzine Culture (1995), Football in the New Media Age (2003) and Power Play: Sport, the Media and Popular Culture (2009).

Acknowledgements.- 1. Introduction: Why BBC Television Sport?.- 2. Pre-War TV Sport.- 3. Lobby, Dimmock and the Monopoly of Post-War Televised Sport.- 4. Innovation, Eurovision and the World Cup.- 5. Televising Test Cricket.- 6. Sportsview: Television's Sports Page.- 7. Cowgill, Coleman and Grandstand.- 8. Prestige of the nation: International 'Rugger'.- 9. The Grand National.- 10. Boxing and The Power of Promoters.- 11. Golf: From Minority Interest to Commercial Megolith.- 12. Today's sport on your screen tonight: Sport Special and Match of the Day.- 13. From Eurovision to Global BBC Sport: Sweden, Rome, Tokyo.- 14. Wimbledon, Colour and the Open Era.- 15. They think it's all over... 1966 and the New Era of TV Sport.- Notes.- Bibliography

This book provides the first detailed account of the formative decades of BBC televised sport when it launched its flagship programmes Sportsview, Grandstand and Match of the Day. Based on extensive archival research in the BBC's written archives and interviews with leading producers, editors and commentators of the period, it provides a 'behind-the-scenes' narrative history of this major institution of British cultural life. In 2016 the BBC celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its television coverage of England's World Cup victory. Their coverage produced one of the most oft-played moments in the history of television, Kenneth Wolstenholme's famous line: 'Some people are on the pitch, they think it's all over ... it is now!' as Geoff Hurst scored England's fourth goal, securing England's 4-2 victory. It was a landmark in English football as well as a watershed in the BBC's highly professionalised approach to televised sport. How the BBC reached this peak of television expertise, and who was behind their success in developing the techniques of televised sport, is the focus of this book.