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.
