Arsenal’s match against Dinamo Zagreb goes out on the 78th anniversary of their involvement in the first ever live match, one of several initial false dawns before football’s TV ascendance

Arsenal are on the telly on Wednesday night. Some things never change. As the Gunners take to the airwaves to play Dinamo Zagreb in the Champions League, it is 78 years to the day since they took part in the world’s first-ever live televised football match. Happy anniversary, everyone.

The BBC’s selection of Arsenal as the first team to feature on its newfangled Television Service was a simple matter of geography and convenience. The newly refurbished Arsenal Stadium was the closest ground to the BBC’s Alexandra Palace HQ – Highbury had been the venue for its first-ever radio commentary, too, a 1-1 draw with Sheffield United 10 years earlier – and there was a ready-made gantry for cameras in the state-of-the-art East Stand.

Arsenal would face Arsenal Reserves in a specially staged friendly, the players having first been introduced to the viewers by George Allison, manager of the club and erstwhile BBC radio commentator. “The television demonstrations will show tactics on the field, shooting in goal, dribbling and goalkeeping,” began a preview in the Manchester Guardian. “Three cameras will be used, one being on the stands to give a comprehensive view of the ground, and two others near the goalmouth to give close-ups of the play and players and visual interviews. No film will be used, transmission being by radio direct to Alexandra Palace, which can actually be seen from the ground.”

So the schedule for Thursday 13 September 1937 on the BBC Television Service ran as follows:

3pm: Fancy That!

3.30pm: British Movietonews

3.40pm: Football at the Arsenal

3.55pm: Cartoon

4pm: Close

You’re mainly interested in Fancy That!, aren’t you. Well, this appears to have been a vehicle for the music-hall comic Douglas Byng, whose shtick involved the delivery of a relentless stream of double-entendre and barely disguised filth while wearing a dress. Marvellous. The BBC’s daytime output has gone downhill ever since. This particular episode guest-starred Cyril Fletcher, who is probably best remembered these days for reading out misprints from local newspapers in a preposterously mannered style on 1970s consumer show That’s Life!, but back in the day had an act even worse than that.

But we digress. Half the schedule was given over to Fancy That!, so by the time the news and Mickey Mouse’s Wayward Canary were factored in, there was only a quarter of an hour left for the Arsenal to strut their stuff. Nevertheless, the Observer was enthused: “The football demonstrations from the Arsenal ground showed that even on the small screen television can give something worth seeing from a game covering so great an amount of ground.” While the programme was only seen by a handful of viewers living near the BBC’s north London pile – media satirists! Insert your own glib comment about the figures BT Sport can expect on Wednesday night! – the experiment was deemed a success. Arsenal beat Sunderland 4-1 on the Saturday, which lent the whole affair good karma. Later in the year, the FA Cup final between Sunderland and Preston was shown in part. The following April, the England-Scotland international became the first game to be broadcast in full. Live football had arrived. It was, quite literally, on.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The scene earlier in 1937 at Arsenal’s training session before the season started.

Admittedly it would take another 46 years before regular live league football became a fixture on British television screens, though that wait would have been a whole lot shorter had the Football League and ITV not made such a ham-fisted mess of The Big Game, which launched – another anniversary ahoy! – 55 years ago last week.

Val Parnell, the impresario who lent his name to Sunday Night at the London Palladium, struck a £150,000 deal with the Football League secretary, Alan Hardaker, for a series of televised games that would kick off at 6.50pm on Saturday evening. ITV would join the action just before the end of the first half, at 7.30pm, a move designed to give afternoon match-goers a chance to get back to their sofas. “It’s viewing with a kick!” promised Parnell, a showman to his cigar-infused fingertips. What could possibly go wrong?

The first match in the series was between Blackpool and Bolton Wanderers. Unfortunately, a leg injury kept out the star turn, Stanley Matthews, while the main camera was placed behind one of the Broomfield Road goals, which made viewing all but impossible. Bolton won a dismal game 1-0.

And that would be that. The following week, Arsenal had been pencilled in for a home fixture with Newcastle United, but the Highbury board, miffed at the league pocketing Parnell’s cheque without dishing it out, turned the cameras away. ITV missed out on a 5-0 rout. The week after, Spurs hosted Aston Villa. Again ITV had wanted in. Again ITV were told to do one. And again ITV missed out on a spectacular, Spurs thrashing Villa 6-2. The Howard Keel Show was transmitted instead. No consolation to the armchair fan, but in all probability an improvement on Fancy That!