Club ties for the TV?

IT WAS interesting to see that the first 32 games down for decision when the Premier League returns in England will be aired live on various television channels. The full schedule of what’s on and when appeared in various media outlets over the weekend, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one working out how many games I could potentially watch, based on the stations currently at my disposal.

I was quite pleased with the tally of 24 out of 32. And while I certainly won’t watch each and every game, it’s still nice to know that they will be there to be looked at if I so desire.

Even those without Sky in their homes will get to see a few matches, with the BBC also getting in on the act.

And with plans to show every game later on in the fixtures schedule too, football fans will certainly be spoiled for choice.

That got me thinking about the return of club G.A.A. fare from July 31.

TG4 have performed exceptional work in that field for a long number of years at this stage, while RTE also started showing a selection of Saturday night matches in 2019.

Let’s hope that this trend will continue, as it would be wonderful to spend the months of August, September and early October watching as many club matches as possible.

‘The Sunday Game’ could even perhaps branch out into reviewing games at that level before the inter-county season returns.

While the Davy Fitzgerald interview was of particular interest to Wexford watchers at the start of last weekend’s show, the programme is really struggling to fill 90 minutes with interesting material in our humble opinion.

That’s largely because producers are restricted to only showing highlights from games of very recent vintage as a result of restrictions imposed on them via the latest media rights agreement.

If they were able to pick half a dozen club matches to pore over from any given weekend after July 31, that would be a programme well worth watching.