This Sunday marks the end of the football season across Britain for 2026. Both the FA Cup and Premier League have been decided, but competition for promotion and relegation for some teams will be going down to the wire. By Sunday night, some will be celebrating, while others will have to wait until next year.
All of these games will be played on a Sunday.
For football fans growing up in Britain during the 1960s and 70s, there was one thing you could rely on every week: Saturday was the day when football was played.
There were no Friday night games or Sunday afternoon games with a start time around midday, or four in the afternoon. And the only Monday Night Football was a game played across the pond in the USA that was often referred to as ‘American football’, just in case we got it mixed up with what they called soccer.
Games for British teams in European competitions were played midweek, but domestic football? No, Saturday was sacred.
And outside the World Cup, the only game that was ever broadcast live on television was the FA Cup Final. Football wasn’t timed to suit global television audiences.
In the absence of football being broadcast live, all we had was the BBC’s Match of the Day highlights on Saturday night. Commercial television gave us a Sunday afternoon recording. Where I lived it was called Star Soccer, and it mainly showed the games of teams based in the Midlands. We only got to see teams like Liverpool, Leeds Utd, and Arsenal, if they happened to be playing an away game against a team from the Midlands.
In the 1960s and 70s, the football calendar revolved around a simple national routine, crowds gathered at grounds across the country on a Saturday, and almost every match kicked off at the same time — the magical hour of three o’clock.
For millions of football supporters, it became a part of British life. If you were a dedicated fan, you would plan your weekends around the football game on a Saturday afternoon. Away games took more planning, but you knew they would always be on a Saturday at the same time, regular as clockwork.
The only exception was when the British weather intervened. Games were often postponed once winter took hold, resulting in the necessity of rearranged games on a Wednesday at some point. And Wednesday night then became the ritual day for any postponed game to be replayed on.
The Saturday Football Ritual
It’s Saturday, and often shops would close early. Men headed home from the pub for a quick lunch before setting off to the match with friends, sons, brothers or fathers. And it was mostly men. Scarves were wrapped tightly against the cold, programmes and your ticket were bought at the turnstiles, and terraces slowly filled with the sound of rattles, chants and cigarette smoke drifting through the air.
Away supporters would arrive and be taken to “their” end of the ground, accompanied by a large police presence. Soon enough, the ritual verbal abuse would start as rival fans aimed their hostility at each other. Some rivalries were more intense than others, but football hooligans found their fame in the 1970s.
Whichever team you supported, whether it was a big Division One side like Liverpool, Leeds United, Manchester United or your local lower-division side, the experience was similar across Britain.
At 3pm sharp, football began almost everywhere.
Why Saturday?
There was a reason why football on Saturday afternoons became so sacred.
It was because there was a law against television showing live games at that time. Britain introduced a rule in the 1960s preventing live football broadcasts between 2:45pm and 5:15pm on Saturdays. At the time, it was to protect the game.
The idea behind it was simple enough. If fans could watch top teams on television, smaller clubs might lose paying supporters at the gates. There was a genuine belief that live television might end up killing off the game as a spectator sport.
The blackout still exists today in a modified form, although modern streaming and international broadcasting have changed the landscape dramatically.
In the 1960s and 70s, however, the rule helped protect the tradition of attending matches in person. Football was something you went to, not there to be consumed from the sofa.
That made football on Saturday feel special.
And to help us find out what was happening, we had…
Results were an event.
Going to a game meant that if you wanted to know what was happening elsewhere, you waited for updates on the radio or checked the results after the match. Most of the time, you had no idea what was happening in other games. No smartphones with internet, just the occasional rumour spread amongst fans that a rival was either winning or losing.
For those at home, watching the BBC’s Grandstand, or ITV’s World of Sport, became one of the great rituals of Saturday evenings as we waited for the football results.
And for those that didn’t go to the game, we had the BBC teleprinter that gave us updated reports of late goals and results as they came in. The teleprinter was a remarkable thing. It made the noise of a typewriter — click, click, click — before delivering an updated game score or result.
Often slowly, which only added to the suspense.
Liverpool 1… Then the teleprinter would stop.
Coventry… It would stop again.
Fans of both teams waited patiently to see if Coventry had performed a miracle against the giants from Merseyside.
Then it would start again.
… City 0.
Needless to say, the teleprinter delivered either joy or sadness, depending on the result of your team.
Families gathered around radios listening to the classified scores being read.
“Division One…
Queens Park Rangers 3…”
Hard to believe, I know, but back in 1975/6, QPR finished second in Division One — just one point behind Liverpool.
And then there was the ritual of checking the Pools’ coupons to see if you had managed to get enough draws and points to be able to cancel going to work on Monday.
Results were checked carefully, and children copied them into league tables printed in newspapers.
Then came the television highlights.
Programmes like Match of the Day and the regional ITV football shows became essential viewing because they were often the only chance fans got to see goals from matches around the country. Unlike today’s instant clips, endless replays, and online access to games going back years, football highlights once felt fleeting. You might never see the goals again.
Football Before the Premier League
The football world of the 1960s and 70s was very different from the modern game. Stadiums were simpler, rougher and noisier. Many grounds still had huge standing terraces, concrete steps and barriers. Some were desperately in need of modernisation, and safety was a genuine concern.
Players earned far less money than today. Sure, some players, like George Best, gave the game a hint of glamour, but this was also the world of Norman “Bites Yer Legs” Hunter and the Charlton brothers. They looked just like the blokes on the assembly line or factory floor.
Fans travelled to away games on packed supporters’ coaches or special football trains. Rivalries were fierce, but there was also a strong sense that clubs belonged to their communities. It was local, tribal and part of working-class British culture.
It was a time long before big business saw the opportunity to make money, and billionaires bought clubs to be their own personal plaything. Football wasn’t yet a global entertainment industry, but things were beginning to change.
How Football Changed
The biggest transformation came during the 1990s with the arrival of the Premier League and the explosion of satellite television. Suddenly, matches were spread across the entire week: Friday night football, early Saturday kick-offs, Sunday matches, Monday night football, and midweek televised fixtures.
Television money changed everything.
Football was nonstop, as clubs became global brands, and some were listed on the stock market (and some also went bust). Gradually, money took over, and the rest is history. For the average fan, ticket prices rose sharply, and kick-off times increasingly served television rather than travelling supporters.
Today, fans can watch football from almost anywhere in the world instantly on phones, the internet, tablets or streaming services. But something about the old Saturday ritual still lives in the memory of those who experienced it.
When Saturday Belonged to Football
For many people, football in the 1960s and 70s wasn’t just about sport. For a few hours every Saturday, the whole country seemed to stop for football, as every game started and, more or less, ended at the same time.
Shortly after, you had an updated table for Divisions One to Four. By five in the evening, everyone knew what their league looked like. There was no waiting for games on Sunday or Monday; we knew who was top, who was bottom, and who was in between. Everyone had played the same amount of games, other than those postponed by the good old British weather.
It’s not the same today, although this Sunday, all twenty premiership teams will play their final games at the same time. And I can guarantee that Tottenham and West Ham fans will be keeping a close eye on the score of their games for ninety minutes.
It might not be Saturday, but it will feel just like it was in the old days.
Photo by Mario Klassen on Unsplash
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