football scores

football score

In gridiron football, the safety (American football) or safety touch (Canadian football) is a scoring play which results in two points being awarded to the scoring team. Safeties can be scored in a number of ways, such as when a ballcarrier is tackled in his own end zone or when a foul is committed by the offense in their own end zone. After a safety is scored in American football, the ball is kicked off to the team that scored the safety from the 20-yard line; in Canadian football, the scoring team also has the options of taking control of the ball at their own 35-yard line or kicking the ball off themselves. The ability of the scoring team to receive the ball through a kickoff differs from the touchdown and field goal, which require the scoring team to kick the ball off to the scored upon team.Despite being of relatively low point value, safeties can have a significant impact on the result of games, and Brian Burke of Advanced NFL Statsestimated that safeties have a greater abstract value than field goals, despite being worth a point less, due to the field position gained off of the safety kick.

 Final Score

Final Score is a BBC Television programme produced by BBC Sport. The programme is broadcast on late Saturday afternoons in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, usually onBBC One. BBC Northern Ireland opts away during the last ten minutes to cover local results, BBC Scotland runs a different programme altogether – Sportscene Results. Final Score is also broadcast on Boxing Day, New Year's Day and Easter Monday plus a special Sunday edition on the final day of the Premier League. The programme, which is currently presented by Jason Mohammad, provides viewers with the results from the main football league matches played on that day.

Final Score is also broadcast on Saturday afternoons on the BBC Red Button and online for two hours before the BBC One broadcast begins. This programme features a live studio discussing the day's play as it is being played while also showing audio coverage clips of a large number of matches that are being played.

After the domestic broadcast concludes, an additional half-hour is broadcast live on BBC World News, the BBC's internationally-broadcast news channel.

The round-up covers games from the Premier League to the Conference National, in Scotland from the Scottish Premier League (SPL) to the Scottish Division Three, and more frequently in recent times, the Welsh Premier League and the Irish League.

The programme includes interviews with managers, players and studio pundits. It concludes with the day's scores being read by Mike West. Tim Gudgin used to read the scores until his retirement in 2011. There is also a review of the league tables for most divisions.

Early days

Final Score had been part of BBC's long-running show Grandstand as far back as 1958. The football results appeared on a device dubbed the Teleprinter, with each character of the results displayed one-by-one. Football fans, particularly those of lower division teams would wait anxiously for news on their team's result as live score updates during matches in those days were rare. The one-by-one letter typing by the teleprinter always heightened the anticipation. In the early days, the presenter stood next to the Teleprinter with a camera pointed at the actual printer.

The results came from the Press Association (PA), who appointed a correspondent to attend each match and report back the half-time and full-time scores to its offices in London. The PA would then use the technology of the day to provide a feed to BBC Television Centre. The Press Association still provide the vidiprinter results service to this day.

The host of the main Grandstand programme used to present the scores and often try to reflect how each result affected the league (i.e. Portsmouth go top of the league) which meant meticulous preparation was necessary.

After the majority of the results came in, the scores would then be collated and announced as the Classified Football Results in alphabetical order starting with the highest leagues first (up to 1992 the First Division, subsequently the Premiership). Remarkably, only three people have regularly read the football results on the programme: the Australian Len Martin (from the first programme until his death in 1995) and Tim Gudgin. Gudgin read the results for the last time on 19 November 2011, then retired at the age of 81. He cited the BBC's decision to move the programme from London to Manchester as one of the reasons for his departure and the difficulty of travelling from his home in Hampshire, particularly in winter. The classifled results were then followed by the pools news and score draws and then the league tables although the pools news element has been dropped in recent years due to the decline in the popularity of the football pools.

Whilst football was always the mainstay of Final Score, news and results from other sports, such as rugby union, and in the early days, racing were also included. A brief version, usually lasting for 5 to 10 minutes, was aired during the summer when football was out of season.

Changes

Technology has gradually improved and by the 1980s a live shot of the actual Teleprinter had been replaced by a computer screen version, at which point the Teleprinter became referred to as the Vidiprinter. However, the modern-day vidiprinter used by the programme still emulates the original typing system. There are now Goalflashes throughout the afternoon for every match played in the English and Scottish leagues, plus the Conference and since 2007 the Welsh Premier League, making the nervous wait for results at 4.45pm a thing of the past.

Present

The current presenter of Final Score is Jason Mohammad, taking over from Gabby Logan. It was previously presented by Ray Stubbsuntil he left the BBC in 2009. Pundits who appear on the programme include Garth Crooks, Steve Claridge, Robbie Savage, Martin Keown, Matt Holland, John Hartson, Gary Pallister, Les Ferdinand and Mark Bright. The show has reporters stationed at every FA Premier League game as well as several games from the Football League (All games from The Football League Championship) and theScottish Premier League. Reporters include BBC Sport regulars such as Ivan Gaskell. It also features interviews with managers after the game, conducted by the commentators for Match of the Day.