Match Of The Day is my favourite football highlights programme, but sadly it will be moving to ITV from the BBC next season. The programme, I believe, has been going for at least 30 years and it may be many more than that. When it was first shown, just one match was shown on each programme, hence the name Match Of The Day, and since then it has improved enormously.

Basic format of the programme: -
One main match is shown, with lengthy highlights and expert analysis from the panel – 2 of Alan Hansen, Mark Lawrenson and Trevor Brooking. One other match has slightly shorter highlights of it shown, also with analysis from the panel. Two matches have short highlights, showing good chances, goals and other significant moments from the match. These games also feature player and manager interviews. The rest of the goals from the rest of the days Premier League games are then shown.

Panel: -
I find the expert analysis much better than on other channels like Sky Sports, where Andy Gray talks for far too long – he knows a lot about football but some of his tactical discussion is a bit pointless. On Match Of The Day Hansen, Lawrenson and Brooking talk sense and they get straight to the point that they are trying to make.

Host: -
In my opinion, Gary Lineker is a much better host for Match Of The Day than Des Lynam was, and I’m sure I recently read that ratings for the programme have gone up significantly since Gary Lineker took over. He has successfully played football at international level, so knows what he is talking about, and is a similar age to the panel members.

Goal Of The Month competition: -
Every month there is a competition for goal of the month where the viewer whose top three goals (out of 10) match the favourites of the panel wins tickets to any game in Italy, Germany, Spain or England (there may be more countries) and premium bonds.

Sadly Match Of The Day is in its last year
on the BBC and the new programme will be on ITV where annoyingly we will have to put up with advert breaks and Des Lynam, who will surely host the show. Hopefully the BBC will get the highlight s programme back and keep it for a few more decades.