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Football Match on Large Screens

As normal the fans are packed into Coventry City's Highfield Road ground for a match. The difference is that the game is being played 130 miles away in Cardiff.

News 1965 3 mins

From the collection of:

Logo for Media Archive for Central England

Overview

The Coventry City manager Jimmy Hill was a great football innovator and in 1965, when in charge at Coventry City, he trialled an idea that would enable fans to see away games without ever having to leave Coventry. He arranged for matches to be projected onto big screens at Highfield Road via a private television circuit. In this ATV Today news item John Swallow asks fans their thoughts.

To show up better on the black and white screen, Coventry City borrowed Stoke City's striped shirts for this match. Television production was provided by a company called Intertel. A month later the same company pioneered another genre by producing the first pop videos for a client even more famous than Jimmy Hill: The Beatles.