I had absolutely no worries on my mind, just Newcastle United and girls, specifically Rosie | OneFootball

Sunday afternoon at Steptoes house.

It seems that the latest fashionable TV slot for the Premier League is to be Sunday at 7pm.

The usual complaints about a total disregard for away fans will be raised, but we all know that the days of any consideration for fans, passed a long time ago.

I’m guessing it will not be that long before every game will be shown, staggered between Friday night to Monday night.

If you are one of the travelling 3,000 amongst us , this will continue to be a logistical nightmare, but football today is a TV sport geared for the armchair fans.

This will just be more sport for the masses to watch at the weekend

Or should I say, not to watch?

I’m lucky enough to be able to subscribe to all the stations in order to get what’s needed, therefore I could choose to spend my entire Sunday afternoon watching Premier League, or French, or German, or outer Mongolian matches.

And guess what, I watch none of them.

I pay all this money and I hardly ever switch it on. That’s because I only watch Newcastle united.

Is that just me?

These days, I just can’t get excited about watching a game between Palace and Bournemouth.

Having said that, I should admit that even if Kyle Minogue knocked on my front door dressed in her gold hot pants and invited me upstairs to look at her record collection, I probably wouldn’t get excited about that either.

It’s an age and prescription drugs thing.

How life has moved on for this child of the 70s. When I was a kid, you could count the live TV football games on one hand. Possibly on one thumb.

Therefore, Sunday afternoons were very special because they revolved around “Shoot”.

For the youngsters reading this, Shoot was the local football show, which I think lasted about 40 mins. One game and no analysis.

My dodgy memory was that it didn’t do away games? It was just Newcastle United at home one week and Sunderland the next.

But I don’t think that can be right?

Because if all our games were on the telly, surely there would be far more Tony Green and Supermac footage on YouTube?

I do remember that sometimes the announcer would say that this week we are going to join Yorkshire TV, or Granada TV coverage, but the real highlight would be when the baldy dome of Brian Moore would appear to introduce the Big Match from London Weekend Television.

Happy days!

The Big Match had three games on it, which equated to blanket coverage in 1973.

If Newcastle were playing in London I’d be hoping that we would be one of the featured games, only for baldy Brian to announce “and for our third game we are going into division three for the top of the table clash between Orient and Charlton.”

What???

The sad truth was that Newcastle United and the TV cameras were not close friends in the 70s.

While we seemed to regularly get to watch Frankie Worthington, Tony Currie and Alan Hudson, the rest of the country didn’t get the same opportunity to see Terry Hibbitt.

All of which meant that Newcastle United on the telly back then, was a massive event to this 14 year old.

After Shoot had finished, on would come the Persuaders, which was two playboys in the South of France, rescuing some beautiful woman from the clutches of evil, who for some reason would always appear in a bikini sometime during the show.

Then it would be the Golden Shot, which was a quiz programme with someone trying to break a piece of string with a crossbow. These days, Bob Monkhouse would be arrested for possession of an offensive weapon.

Finally, it was Catweazle. No, I have not a clue what that was all about, even 50 years later.

This 14 year old loved his childhood.

Granted, looking back, the Jinky family house resembled Steptoe and Son’s and what they fed us would probably get my parents arrested today. Spam, peas and Smash, or a Vesta ready meal for tea, were the norm, but they were much simpler times.

I may have received a pair of second hand football boots and a bloody Spirograph for Christmas, but I had absolutely no worries on my mind, just Newcastle United and girls, specifically Rosie.

Well, that’s not quite true. there was one thing that had me stressing out regularly.