Notts on the box
The 2000�s


1999/2000
In October 1999 Manager Sam Allardyce had quit 3rd tier/2nd placed Notts for the club he had served as a player (Bolton Wanderers), his assistant Gary Brazil was handed the vacancy but once the honeymoon period was over he could do no more than bum shuffle Notts from 7th to 8th to 7th and back again for five long frustrating months.

The Midlands ITV station CENTRAL disappeared from view during the course of this season to become part of the London based CARLTON 'empire'. The CARLTON brand would also be airbrushed from our screens just three years later as ITV companies continued to merge in an apparent desperate need to compete with the now widely available multi-channel services. Local East Midland news bulletins would still be called "Central News" on which a goal clips report from all Notts matches could still be found (albeit at break-neck speed). Lengthier Notts reports unspoiled by musical accompaniment could be viewed on "Nationwide League Extra" broadcast across all ITV regions in the dead of Monday night/Tuesday mornings.

30/10/99 Notts County 1 (Rapley) Bournemouth 1 (Warren) FA Cup 1st Round
               commentator: Rob Hawthorne with Brian Marwood for SKY
Extended highlights shown shortly after the game had finished that Saturday afternoon (Sky had still yet to broadcast a match live from Meadow Lane). Kevin Rapley put Notts ahead on 17 minutes, Christer Warren equalised for the Cherries in the 2nd half on 53 mins.


2000/01
Jocky Scott (left) was unveiled as Notts new Manager during the first summer of the new millennium. Gary Brazil stayed on as his number two. Scott proved to be Derek Pavis' 8th and final managerial appointment. Just over three weeks into the new season the announcement was made that Pavis, having been looking to sell the club for some years, had finally found a buyer.
Local news reports introduced Albert Scardino (an American) and his business partner Peter Storrie (a Londoner) as the new owners. The fans believed that Scardino and Storrie would restore Notts as Nottingham's no.1 club. Forest had once again lost their Premiership place and were now struggling in the 2nd tier - As Notts form improved over Christmas there was serious talk of the two Nottingham clubs swapping Divisions. Yet, other than Local News match reports, there was no significant TV coverage of any action to speak of (although Notts problems with the weather were well publicised - the ground had completely flooded back in November and Notts went 7 weeks without playing a home game). County failed to prize an opening into the play off zone and the season ended in disappointment, yet a big summer spending spree soon had expectations soaring once again.


2001/02
ITV snatched the rights to show Premiership highlights from the BBC and at some considerable cost ITV also bought the rights to show live games from the 2nd, 3rd and 4th tiers, which would, for the most part, be shown on their doomed new channel for digital subscribers (the ITV sport channel), this would screen live matches as well as highlights programmes.

"Soccer Sunday" was a new half hour show individually produced by the main ITV regional stations, these would  package highlights and goal clips from all their local sides games from the 2nd, 3rd and 4th tiers, the title was also retained for the handful of regional live games. The BBC were left with the FA Cup and England matches. Sky continued with Premiership and cup games both live and recorded.

The swaggering pre-season optimism at Meadow Lane quickly proved to be an embarrassing hubris as matters on the pitch began to suffer for a boardroom power struggle. The "new owners" were not actually the owners after all. Scardino and Storrie had been making the decisions since their arrival but the actual financial takeover of the club had been delayed with loan payments not forthcoming, this escalating problem was blamed to some degree on the World Trade Centre terrorist attacks of September 11th!

06/10/01 Notts County 0  Wycombe Wanderers 1 (Rammell)
               commentator: ? (probably Mark Tompkins) for ITV Sport channel
Due to a heavily truncated Saturday League programme (England were playing an important match that afternoon v Greece), this match chose itself as the featured game for ITV digitals' Sunday morning highlights programme "Football Second". The broadcast included an introductory section on the city of Nottingham, a section on the Notts team plus interviews with the acting Chairman Albert Scardino, Managing Director Peter Storrie and local Conservative MP Kenneth Clarke.
This was to be Manager Jocky Scott's last game in charge before he was sacked, with Notts slumbering in 14th Assistant Gary Brazil was once again seen to take charge of team affairs until the worsening situation prompted the poaching of Mansfield Town Manager Billy Dearden in January.

16/02/02 Notts County 0 Stoke City 0
               commentator: Mark Tompkins for ITV Sport channel
This Midlands derby was the 2nd Notts match to be featured on "Football Second". Notts were now next to bottom of the League, but this draw had at least ended a run of 6 straight League defeats.

20/04/02 Notts County 2 (Allsopp,Nicholson) Huddersfield Town 1 (Irons(pen))
               commentator: Mark Tompkins for ITV Sport channel
ITV Digital collapsed into financial chaos towards the end of the season, fortunately the channel was still on-air to cover highlights of the final day "Great escape" at Meadow Lane on "Football Second". Notts secured their 3rd tier status with this memorable victory, the 7th win of the final 10 games.


Paradise Heights
"Paradise Heights" was a BBC1 drama series set in Nottingham starring Charles Dale, Neil Morrissey and Ralf Little as three brothers who supported Notts County struggling to keep their discount warehouse business afloat.  The first episode, broadcast on 2nd July 2002, included a scene in which a young lady in a Notts shirt stripped topless to the accompaniment of Notts' terrace favourite "The Wheelbarrow song". Various other scenes throughout the series were shot in and around Meadow Lane.


2002/03
The Football league were unsuccessful in their bid to recover the outstanding payments owed to them from Carlton and Granada (the parent companies of the now defunct ITV Digital), and this cash crisis resulted in some clubs - including Notts - going into administration during the summer*. A new cut-price deal with Sky softened the blow, they would screen a live 2nd, 3rd or 4th tier game on Saturdays at 5:35pm and another sometimes on a Friday evening or Sunday afternoon.
There were no Football League highlights until a deal was struck with ITV on October 29th, "Soccer Sunday" returned to ITV in the Midlands 5 days later, the programme included an extended report of Notts final game of the season at home to Cheltenham Town (who were relegated that day).

*This was in the days before administration automatically resulted in the docking of 10 league points.

16/11/02 Southport 4 (Pickford 2,Thomson,Lane) Notts County 2 (Allsopp 2) FA Cup 1st Round
commentator: Barry Davies for BBC1
This humiliating late Saturday night/Sunday morning Match of the day screening of the non-league (5th tier) v 3rd tier Cup tie was Notts first proper appearance on regular analogue terrestrial TV for over 6 years.
Despite being the main match (shown first) there were no team line-up captions and the action was relatively brief.
County led 2-0 at one stage but at 1-0 Darren Caskey got himself sent off, Southport eventually made the extra man count to send Notts crashing out of the FA Cup with two late goals, it was County's first defeat to a non-league club in the competition for 35 years.
Billy Dearden's post match interview (pictured) was also broadcast on Grandstand's "Final Score" sequence.
The BBC now repeated Match of the Day programmes on Sunday mornings at 8AM.

Football at Meadow Lane had, by now, become almost an afterthought. Amid an endless parade of promises and excuses from those apparently running it, the club disintegrated into farce.
With resources ever dwindling, Billy Dearden was somehow able to steer the club away from the relegation zone and Notts finished an unlikely comfortable 15th, but the real battle to secure 3rd tier football at Meadow Lane next season had only just begun.
Undeterred by the calamitous events of the past three years and the increasing suspicion of his motives, Albert Scardino offered a new package in a last ditch attempt to own Notts County once and for all. Scardino was seen off in a publicly messy bidding war by Messrs Bhatia & Strang. However, they too were unable to secure the necessary funds to complete the deal on time.
As the new season approached, all that remained was a mere skeleton of a once great and proud founder member of the Football League. These were desperate times.


2003/04
09/08/03 Bristol City 5 (Peacock 2,Miller,Matthews 2) Notts County 0
It is thought, but not confirmed, that ITV in the West of England included highlights of this game as the featured match (with commentary) on their version of "Soccer Sunday"

Reports of Doom
Having now been in administration for a Football League record of 14 months, and expulsion becoming an ever greater threat, Notts were the feature of a good number of reports on numerous channels during the August/September period - including BBC1's 30/08/03 edition of "Football Focus" which screened Harry Gration interviews with Manager Billy Dearden and three senior players, and there was also the 07/09/03 ITV1 Central version of "Soccer Sunday" which offered an extended report of what was being billed as possibly Notts last ever League match v Luton Town. Fortunately, the following week, Notts were given a final extended deadline of December 9th to come out of administration.

29/10/03 Chelsea 4 (Hasselbaink,Gudjohnsen 2,Joe Cole) Notts County 2 (Barras,Stallard) League Cup 3rd Round
commentator: Trevor Harris for ITV1 Carlton London
Highlights of Crisis club Notts' trip to the Premiership's biggest spenders was included on the London version of ITV's Midweek Sports Special, yet in the Midlands only the goals were shown in a very brief report.
Re-runs of the defeat could be seen on Chelsea's very own television channel "Chelsea TV" during the days that followed the match.
On the Ball Feature
On November 1st 2003 ITV's football round-up programme On the ball* included a behind the scenes report from the Notts perspective at Stamford Bridge.
* Following the demise of "Saint & Greavsie", "On the ball" had been revived with new unfamiliar presenters for sporadic Saturday afternoon round-ups of European Champions League football (and what ever little else ITV could get their hands on). Premiership highlights returned to ITV in 2001 and with Gabby Yorath now recognised as the main presenter, the profile of the programme was raised until the loss of Premier League rights in 2004.

06/12/03 Gravesend & Northfleet 1 (Perkins) Notts County 2 (Fenton,Platt) FA Cup 2nd Round
*LIVE*  commentator: Rob Hawthorne and Garry Birtles for SKY SPORTS 1
Also Match of the Day Highlights - commentator: Simon Brotherton for BBC1
Notts first live match for over 5 years was not only shown on SKY SPORTS 1 but also by specialist Sports channels across the globe. For the 2nd season running Notts found themselves lumbered with an away FA Cup tie at a Non-League ground. Kicking off at 5:35 Saturday tea-time, the Magpies avoided a repeat embarrassment thanks to an injury time winner, Gravesend had taken the lead shortly before half time but were reduced to 10 men in the 2nd half. That nights' Match of the day over on BBC1 hosted by Ray Stubbs included just over 5 minutes of highlights and there were repeats of the whole match on SKY SPORTS 3.
*Gravesend & Northfleet changed their name to Ebbsfleet United in May 2007.

11/12/03 Thirty Minutes - "Notts Withstanding"
Regional Documentary programme for ITV1 for Central England.
This CARLTON production told the story of "The battle to save Notts County" weaving in archive material to illustrate the clubs' historical value.
On Wednesday 3rd December, just 6 days short of the League's expulsion deadline, Notts County were finally saved, the final deal was virtually funded by one single supporter who chose to remain anonymous.
Among those interviewed for the programme were former manager Jimmy Sirrel, long serving former trainer Jack Wheeler, the administrator Paul Finnity, current manager Billy Dearden, Notts longest current serving player Ian Richardson (& his wife) and (pictured) longtime local BBC radio commentator Colin Slater.

An understandably frustrated Billy Dearden left the club on January 6th. Gary Mills, an ex-Notts player, filled the Managerial vacancy three days later. This event came with expected fanfare on East Midland versions of Central & BBC News, largely due to Mills lengthier playing days with East Midland rivals Forest and Leicester.
With Notts next to bottom of the League, Mills was always facing a steep challenge, ultimately he could not save County from a relegation confirmed at the end of April (yet destined from the start of the season). A philosophical fan base would accept, for now, that it was better to have a relegated club than no club at all.

Late Tackle
"Late tackle" was a late night Sports series exclusive to BBC1 viewers in the East Midlands, the 06/04/04 edition was presented from Tommy Lawton's old pub in Lowdham and included interviews and (all too brief) archive footage relating to the Notts legend.


2004/05
In spite of some effort by the European Commission to redress the balance of Televised football power , SKY continued to enjoy dominance over live league matches. The BBC wrestled back Premiership highlights from ITV who were once again left with highlights of the rest of the leagues which had undergone yet more pointless cosmetic re-naming during the summer, the 2nd tier of English League football was now to be known as "The Championship" whilst the lower divisions became "League One" and "League Two", but there was no disguising the fact that Notts were once again about to ply their trade in the basement division.

ITV1's "The Championship"
Sadly for Notts, ITV decided to drop the regionally produced "Soccer Sunday" programmes (which had showed every local goal from all Football League Divisions) and replaced them with "The Championship" which was a networked highlights show all but solely devoted to the league of the same name at the earlier time of 10:30am. At the very end of the programme a handful of goals from the lower leagues would be shown (usually involving the teams going for promotion) and sometimes there would be a full report on a specific club or player, Chester City were featured the weekend Notts played there.

Central TV studio's in Nottingham closed
There was a new regional football chat show on ITV1 with a goals round-up, the Midlands version was called "Central Soccer Night" but this did not go out until late Thursday nights.
Another  regrettable example of ITV's shift away from regional commitment was the decision to close their Nottingham studio's in Lenton which had only recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of the first broadcast of Central News East, the final edition from Nottingham was broadcast in February, from then on Central News East was piped from a studio in Birmingham!

15/12/04 Notts County 2 (Gordon 2) Swindon Town 0 FA Cup 2nd Round Replay
*LIVE*  commentator: Martin Tyler and Chris Kamara for SKY SPORTS 1
At long last, some 15 years after they first began showing football matches, SKY TV finally came to Meadow Lane for a live broadcast. A reward of a 3rd round home tie against Premiership high flyers Middlesbrough would be a pay day that Notts could ill afford to squander, County's financial woes had continued as the club slumped to rock bottom (92nd) of the entire Football League in September, Manager Gary Mills had finally been sacked at the start of November. Under temporary Player/Manager Ian Richardson, home form slightly improved enough to lift Notts (at least points wise) away from the trapdoor to Non-League. This latest home win in front of Live TV cameras gave supporters something other than yet another relegation battle to look forward to.

Howard Wilkinson, who had been joint Notts Manager with Jimmy Sirrel during Notts top flight spell in the 1980's, returned to the club as a Director on December 30th 2004, a report was squeezed into that evening's shorter holiday edition of BBC East Midlands Today.

08/01/05 Notts County 1 (Scully) Middlesbrough 2 (Doriva,Job) FA Cup 3rd Round
               commentator: ? (we think it was Jim Proudfoot) for SKY
5th bottom of the Basement League Notts at home to the Premiership's 6th placed club - Surely a Cup tie ripe for BBC1 highlights, but gone were the days when a handful of Saturday matches were pre-selected to be filmed and, no matter what the result, broadcast as featured matches. All Premiership teams now had full camera crews following them both home and away for every match they played with the resulting footage appearing on a myriad of channels across the globe in various forms. Had Notts held on to their 2 minute lead they could have expected to see themselves featured at the beginning of that nights' edition of Match of the day, but as it was - the BBC's flagship football programme was able to feature the day's Cup upsets wherever they had occurred and Notts were reduced to a goals only report towards the end of the programme.
SKY however did show over 7 minutes of the game during one of their programmes and the whole match was later broadcast on Middlesbrough's own TV channel Boro TV which was exclusive to cable subscribers in the Teesside area.

Notts did just enough for the remainder of the season to avoid any serious relegation worries, but their final position of 19th in the Basement was their worst for 36 years (and joint 2nd worst finish of all time). Any joy to be derived from Nottingham Forest's relegation to the 3rd tier of the English Leagues for the first time in over 50 years was somewhat tempered by Notts failure to capitalise.


2005/06
Shortly after the close of the previous season Notts unveiled yet another new manager, former Iceland and Stoke City boss Gudjon Thordarson (pictured). ITV's Sunday football programme "The Championship" had now moved to an earlier slot of 9:30am and for this new season they also found the time to show goal reports from all matches played in the 3rd and 4th tiers (there was a special extended report on Torquay United on the weekend they visited Meadow Lane).
Despite making a very encouraging start to the season (topping the table in August/September) County quickly faded and in February began a shocking run of just 1 win in 16 that saw Notts make a daring bungee jump into the snapping jaws of relegation to non-league. Such was their terrible end-of-season form, the Magpies went into their final fixture requiring a victory to guarantee safety - thus ensuring plenty of pre-match hype on the local news. Notts only managed a draw (a 2-2 at home to Bury) and although it condemned them to their worst ever League finish, it was still enough to avoid the drop thanks to results elsewhere. Soon afterwards Jeff Moore was installed as the new Chairman and Thordarson then left by mutual consent.


2006/07
On June 12th 2006, Steve Thompson became the 7th Manager to be appointed by Notts this decade, Thompson was an unpopular choice having been assistant to Colin Murphy during the mid 1990's fall from grace. Howard Wilkinson took on a more hands-on role under the guise of 'Technical Director'.
A solid start to the season included an impressive run in the League Cup which saw Notts perform a giant killing act at Premiership Middlesbrough as well as claiming the scalps of Championship sides Crystal Palace and Southampton, sadly Notts' exploits in this competition were unrewarded by the Television companies with only goal reports of these ties screened on ITV's midweek highlights show "The Carling Cup".

ITV1's "The Championship"
"The Championship" continued in its' Sunday mid-morning slot but the comprehensive round up of the 3rd and 4th tiers was dropped for the opening edition, however - after a deluge of complaints - it was restored the following week. A special feature on County striker Jason Lee was included on the 19/11/06 edition with Lee duly scoring for the cameras in that weekend's 2-1 home win over Wrexham.

Notts said to be the most stressful club to support
In January, the media picked up on a Littlewoods Pools study into the stresses and strains of being a football fan. Analysing the histories of all league clubs both on and off the pitch, Littlewoods published a league table which exposed those who caused their fans the most stress and anxiety, Notts County came out on top of all the 92 clubs. At the time this story ran, few Meadow Lane regulars were in the mood to contest the findings having witnessed their team lose 6 of their last 7 home league games - a run that effectively ruined Notts play off aspirations*. Disappointing though this was, County's final points tally was their best in six season's.

*The play off finals returned to the re-built Wembley Stadium in May having been played at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff since season 2000/01.


2007/08
SKY's 15 year monopoly of live Premiership games was finally broken, but it made little difference to the armchair fan as 2 of the 6 live Premiership packages had been won by SETANTA SPORTS - a rival encrypted service that fans still had to pay to view (SKY took the other 4 bundles).

Notts were the headline story on BBC1's "East Midlands Today" on 31/07/07 - The pevious night County had played Forest in a pre-season friendly which ended with a pitch invasion and fighting between rival fans.
County were back in the news in September amid rumours that the Supporters Trust (now the majority shareholders) had scuppered a potential takeover by Adam Pearson (a popular former chairman of Hull City). On 10th September, four members of the board resigned including Chairman Jeff Moore and also Howard Wilkinson who said "Any Trust model with regards running and operating a football club is wrong and does not work. I don't think I can work in a situation where that is going to be the predominant factor." Trust head John Armstrong-Holmes was announced as acting chairman the following day.
Five weeks later, after only 2 victories in the last 17 competitive matches, Steve Thompson was sacked to make way for a former Notts striker and terrrace hero of the 1980's, Ian "Charlie" McParland, who was appointed manager on 18th October. Reports including interviews with McParland were aired on both BBC and ITV1's local TV news programmes.
The goal from Notts' most embarrassing of all FA Cup exits to non-league opposition was shown as part of a goals round-up on BBC1's "Match of the Day" on 01/12/07, a brief Alan Hansen analysis of the farcical Havant & Waterlooville winner at Meadow Lane was also included. The woeful cup performance typified County's season - Their league status was only secured with a win on the penultimate Saturday. A lengthy report on the 19/04/08 match at Wrexham a week earlier had been included on the ITV1 Wales exclusive "Soccer Sunday" programme.

On 25/04/08 the BBC's East Midlands edition of "Inside Out" included a feature on ex-Notts player Justin Fashanu who had committed suicide 10 years earlier, Howard Wilkinson and Colin Slater were among those interviewed.
 


2008/09
The BBC lost live FA Cup and England home match rights to ITV and SETANTA from this season.

Jimmy Sirrel (1922-2008)
The passing of County's greatest ever manager Jimmy Sirrel at the age of 86 on 25th September was marked by both BBC and ITV's local news programmes, there was also a mention on BBC1's "Football Focus". The funeral took place on 7th October - Among those attending were Sir Alex Ferguson, Howard Wilkinson, Lawrie McMenemy and Dave Mackay who all gave interviews to the local TV news crews. Ex-Notts players were the pall bearer's including the current Notts manager Ian McParland, it was the lead story on the main 6pm bulletin of "Central News East" who devoted much of the programme to interviews with various people such as Dean Yates, Tommy Johnson, Les Bradd and local MP Ken Clarke.

13/10/08 Notts County 1 (Forrester(pen)) Brentford 1 (Poole)
*LIVE* Sky Sports 1
The first ever league match to be covered live by SKY at Meadow Lane saw Notts stretch an unbeaten League Two run to 9 matches. In an entertaining Monday night game, Brentford took the lead through Glenn Poole on 35, the same player handled the ball in his on box on 63 and Jamie Forrester equalised from the resulting spot kick.

2009/10
TV rights for the Championship, League One and League Two plus the League Cup will be shared by the BBC and SKY, the BBC will be able to screen 10 live Championship matches and are also expected to produce a highlights programme.
 
 

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