Soccer Night

Soccer Night is a regional television football programme on ITV in United Kingdom between the 1990s and 2008.

The programme concept began in 1990 on Granada Television in North West England. Granada Soccer Night, which was shown late on a weekday night, presented by Elton Welsby as a replacement opt-out from the networked Midweek Sports Special.

Granada's head of sport Paul Doherty had been unhappy with the network coverage of Oldham's run to the Littlewoods Cup Final in 1990, and took the initiative to launch their own regional programme. Central Television also chose to launch their own show at the same time.

It showed highlights of midweek football matches, particularly League Cup games. In its earliest years internationals and European club games were also a regular part of the show.

Clive Tyldesley was the lead commentator at launch in 1990, often being sent outside the Granada region to cover matches of North West interest covered by other companies. Alistair Mann was also part of the original team, making his commentary debut in 1991. Rob Palmer, John Helm and Gary Bloom also had spells as the main voice of the programme.

Future series featured Rob McCaffrey, James Cooper and Peter Stevenson as the programme's host.

Featured studio guests included north west players and managers, as well retired professionals and coaches. The show's iconic theme tune was "Shall We Take A Trip" by Manchester band, Northside.^[1][2]

By 2004 following multiple mergers and the formation of ITV plc, versions of the original programme were developed for all ITV regions in England and Wales - a late night magazine show, focusing on Football League clubs, was introduced for the 2004–05 season to replace the long-standing Sunday afternoon highlights programmes owing to cutbacks at ITV plc. The theme tune used was "Beautiful Day" by Irish band U2, which was at the time used by ITV as the theme for all their football programming

تم إلغاء جميع برامج "ليلة كرة القدم" في إنجلترا في مايو 2008 ضمن تخفيضات إضافية في إنتاج قناة ITV الإقليمية. استمر برنامج " أحد كرة القدم الويلزي " لستة أشهر أخرى بتغطية مباريات كارديف سيتي وسوانزي سيتي خلال النصف الأول من موسم 2008/2009، لكن تم إلغاؤه في ديسمبر 2008. عُرضت أهداف من مباريات دوري كرة القدم المحلي في برامج الأخبار الإقليمية على قناة ITV خلال موسم 2008/2009، وبعدها فقدت القناة حقوق بث ملخصات مباريات دوري كرة القدم لصالح هيئة الإذاعة البريطانية (BBC) بدءًا من موسم 2009/2010.