SPORT ON TELEVISION

SATURDAY afternoon's Grandstand on the BBC offered football fans everywhere a fresh vision of Hell: Gary Lineker and Trevor Brooking on their own in a studio, and they talking football.

This was clinically mind-numbing and probably infringed the Geneva Convention. At the start, Gary told us that the first week of the Premiership had thrown up enough action to provide a goal of the season competition, never mind goal of the week. He was right of course, but it was said with such umebullience that you felt as if you were in the dentist's waiting room.

It was enough to make you pine for Steve Ryder. Yup, that bad.

FORTUNATELY football was brilliantly served by the BBC in last Monday's Match of the Seventies, the series presented by Dennis Waterman which not only reviews the season but also places the game in a broader social context by interspersing news clips and music.

This week it was 1978-79, the season of Forest and Liverpool. That's less than 20 years, but my how things have changed.

The real blow to the solar plexus was hearing the match commentator describe Cyrille Regis as one of "the two coloured strikers in the West Brom team". Were we still saying coloured in 1978?

Actually, there were three "coloureds" at West Brom - Regis, Atkins and Cunningham - and they came to be known, almost inevitably, as The Three Degrees. As long as they didn't rock the boat.

It was, in fact, a landmark year for Britain's black footballers, as Viv Anderson of Nottingham Forest became the first to be capped by England.

Forest and the magnificent Brian Clough (all bow) had another first that year when Trevor Francis became Britain's first £1 million player. At the press conference to announce the move, Francis was asked where and when he would play for Forest. Cloughie piped up: "He'll play when I select him." God be with the days.

Cut to Francis in a recent interview, and he half-joked that the first job he had at Forest was to pour the tea for the lads in the dressing room. His team-mate, John Robertson, explained: "It was well known that nobody ever got star treatment at Nottingham Forest. It was a case of everyone being equal and that was Cloughie's way.

It's unlikely Alan Shearer is doing much tea-pouring in Newcastle.

SPEAKING of which, Kevin Keegan was, of course, European Footballer of the Year in 1979. And while he was plying his trade in Germany the prototype for this year's foreign invasion was being established with the arrival at Spurs off Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa, after Argentina's World Cup triumph, and a couple of Dutch players into the English first division.

ANOTHER, almost saddening image thrown up by the programme was of Liam Brady scoring a simply glorious goal against those same Spurs. Saddening in that it was a reminder that we never got to see the best of Brady, when he flourished in Italy.

If only Channel 4 had picked up Serie A in the early 80s. Let's face it, Brady must have been truly special to be named player of the year in that league, and we missed it.

BACK to the present, and the match between Chelsea and Middlesbrough threw up a curious sight. A free kick was awarded outside the box, and at one point the referee was being shouted at by: Vialli, Leboeuf, Ravanelli, Emerson, Juninho, Kharine and Hughes. The League of Nations turned Tower of Babel.

FINALLY, Eurosport presented Ugly Sight of the Week. It was the final of the European Snooker League, between Ken Doherty and Steve Davis (given that this was Eurosport, the match might have been three years ago, but we'll pretend it was recent). The league was sponsored by Dr Martens.

So anyway, Ken easily defeats Davis, and he is presented with his trophy: a huge, solid silver Doc Marten boot standing on multi-coloured snooker balls. It was the most comically grotesque piece of tat you could imagine. I'm sure Barry Hearn designed it.