What would we do without the television? Probably curl up in to the foetal position and weep ourselves into a state of shivering, hopeless despair to be honest.
From Neil Armstrong taking those first, tentative steps on to the powdery surface of the moon to Lulu the elephant vacating her bowels on the Blue Peter studio floor amid comical scenes of guffawing pandemonium, the old idiot box has captured some of the most defining moments of our time.
Of course, with increasing demands from consumers comes fertile, technological advance. The widescreen tele, for instance, was ushered in so viewers could appreciate the full majesty of Fred Trueman’s shirt collar and impenetrable sideburns as he hosted The Indoor League, that earthy, 1970s peculiarity which showcased the ruddy-faced cut-and-thrust of a variety of pub games. Skittles, shove ha’ penny, bar billiards, arm wrestling, synchronised pork scratching packet rustling? You name it, The Indoor League championed it while Trueman, amid meanders of hoary whimsy, plumes of pipe reek and pearls of rugged, homespun Yorkshire wisdom, would introduce a series of craggy combatants who had faces like haunted caves and boasted varying sporting pedigrees and backgrounds. Look, here’s Stan Denton, a multiple dominoes champion from the Hat & Feathers in Barnsley, and Dennis Crouch, who owns a fish shop in Doncaster. By the time the duo had finished a vein-popping arm wrestle, a largely uninspiring spectacle which was punctuated by occasional grunts and gasps and resembled two glassblowers trying to move a rusting farm gate, both Denton and Crouch must have smelled like Captain Birdseye’s oxter.
“I’ll si’ thee,” grumbled Trueman as he bid all and sundry farewell with a reassuring wink and a flourish of a sizeable cardigan that could’ve shrouded the Great Shunner Fell. In many ways, The Indoor League blazed a trail for bamboozling televised pursuits. The broadcasting of Scottish football being by far the most absurd, of course.
By the time the 1980s and 1990s had come crashing onto the calendar, Trans World Sport had taken up the baton and embarked on an intrepid voyage around a variety of curious nooks and unexpected crannies in a bold effort to bring a series of eccentric athletic endeavours to the wider public’s attention. The rugged simplicity, for instance, of bow and arrow darts performed by the Mud Men of Papua New Guinea is often emulated in the Saracen Bar in Possil just before last orders.
The popular Southeast Asian pastime of Sepak Takraw, meanwhile, became essential viewing for a more discerning audience. In a nutshell, it was volleyball but instead of sets and digs with the hands, players had to use their feet, knee, chest or head to propel the ball hither and thither. In a sense, the aforementioned action in the Scottish fitba scene is similar but without the considered, competent use of the feet, knee, chest and head.
Trans World Sport was an educational escapade into uncharted sporting territory and you wouldn’t have been surprised if Gerald Sinstadt’s informative voiceover invited you to “join us after the break where we head to the San Blas Islands where the remote Kuna tribe take part in round two of the Rhythmic Cocaktoo Skull Hollowing Championships.”
Channel 4, the vehicle upon which Trans World Sport was presented, was never afraid to dip its toe into new waters. Which was handy because one of the sports in the weekly round-up of highlights was The Asian Toe Dipping Trials from the shores of the South China Sea.
Amid this veritable feast of oddities and obscurities - and I have made a few up here - it was hardly surprising that the noble and ancient discipline of Kabaddi became something of a hit. Kabaddi was as engrossing as it was straightforward; a gathering of bare-footed blokes from India jouking and wrestling in the confined space of a dusty court and pawing away at one another in a nip-and-tuck attempt to tag them while continually murmuring ‘Kabaddi, Kabaddi, Kabaddi’ in the same respiration against a backdrop of intrigued onlookers, sombre village elders and the odd, roaming Ox. It was, basically, a sport you may have played in the school playground, minus wandering cattle and health and safety rules. Presumably, the heid bummers at Channel 4 looked at the possibility of broadcasting similarly high energy exercises from break times such as Panini sticker swapping, the class room to tuck shop sprint and awkward, bumbling advances on female classmates asking if they’d like to come to the school disco?
Kabaddi really was quite enchanting and, in these times of gee-whiz gadgetry, glitzy gizmos and scroll and swipe distractions, its raw simplicity romanticised a more visceral, rough-and-tumble way of passing the time.
And on that note, I’m off to the local for a pint of Pale and an arm wrestle.
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