thirteenthman

1979 was probably the last Boxing Day league match shown on BBC1 (Leeds v Hunslet). 1980 saw a new deal signed with the BBC which was no longer exclusive, so any matches the BBC didn't show could be offered to ITV. This also saw the end of the Floodlit Trophy.

December 1993 0-0

According to the Rothmans Yearbook, it was 13/10/1990 Hull 3 Warrington 2, Greg Mackey got the DG. And as mentioned previously, a week later Warrington also lost to Oldham by 4 points to 2. Same season, Warrington also beat Ryedale York in the 1st round of the CC by 8 points to 1.

Not my collection sadly - there's a guy on Twitter who posts listings from old TV and Radio Times every day.

Trans World Sport was voiced by a guy called Bruce Hammal who used to do the voiceovers for Sky Sports many years ago. There was a similar type show that was only 30 minutes long which Kid Jensen used to do - something like Gillette World Sport or something similar. I think ITV used to show it in the middle of the night possibly?

C4 showed an hour of highlights of the Aussie GF in 1983, some 8 days after the game had been played. 8pm on a Monday evening. According to the Tv Times it was the first time the game had been seen on Tv in this country.

Yeah, a great night that. In 1997 they had their record attendance at that ground for the SL Grand Final against Cronulla when there were over 58,000 in. 2 weeks later when they played St Helens in the WCC there were just over 6000 in.

Brisbane played at QE2 Stadium between 1993 and 2003, which is/was an athletics stadium. It was known as ANZ Stadium when the Broncos played there. The 1994 WCC game against Wigan and the 1997 WCC matches were all played at that ground.

In years gone by, people turned out in big numbers to watch England or GB play the Aussies. Internationals played in this country featuring Australia and other nations have never been big crowd pullers (apart from 4N or 3N finals where a lot of poeple might have booked hoping to see England play).

Update from the Warrington Guardian on Sundays game, and they're saying that "it's thought that over 8,000 tickets have been sold", and organisers are hoping for a crowd over 10000. https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/23101396.tonga-v-samoa-rugby-league-world-cup-game-set-big-crowd/

Yeah, I got an email back from RLWC to say that my 2nd ticket for the final would be cancelled, although it's still showing on my ticket account at the moment.

Would this not be a decision made by Rugby League Ireland, rather than RLWC directly? Either way, for the sake of a day or two it's more than a little ill judged.

Row Z I think

I contacted the RLWC team, and they are aware of the issue with the two tickets for the final. Other than that, I've heard no more. However, I have to say kudos to the RLWC team, as I emailed a complaint about the so called category A seats we had last night on the front row at the HJ, where the view was blocked by the players and staff, stewards and assorted security men, and Jenna Brooks watching a screen (and doing little else) at pitch side. They have apologised for this and given us complimentary tickets for the QF. Fair play to them.

Yeah, the final is the only game I got tickets thru the post for, as the others I went for the print at home option. Strange.

The date I bought my ticket for the final doesn't tally with the date it states on my RLWC Ticket account (I've kept the email confirmation from 2020 and the tickets I bought for other games all tally), and it also says that I bought the 2nd ticket in December last year. Which I didn't.

Yeah, I didn't get double charged either!!! I bought a ticket for the south stand for the final and got that plus a seat for the north stand. Very odd.

Yes, I ordered mine when the tickets first went on sale.

Oddly enough, yes. I got two tickets in totally different stands for the final. On another topic, at last nights game we ended up on the front row near the middle which meant every time play went down to the east stand side of the ground we couldn't see anything for the players and coaching staff, and we had Jenna Brooks standing in the way of our view of the big screen. To top it off, we then got a load of security blocking the view because they'd heard that a load of PNG supporters were planning on invading the pitch at half time (which they clearly didn't).

On BBC1, England Samoa averaged 1.2m, peaking at 1.69 million. It was the 11th most watched non news programme on UK TV on Saturday.

Having been at the HJ last night, it would be an improvement in the ground at least to have some sort of idea what the challenges are for. In the NRL, the audio from the video refs go out over the PA, so everyone in the ground knows whats happening, but sat in the stand last night it appeared that the game just ground to a halt with no explanation.

I know there's a chapter in the 2005 book 'Seasons in the Sun: A Rugby Revolution' that confirms the story about the made up attendances in France. According to that, the organiser of the French games Tas Baitieri "let his imagination run a bit wild" with the figure for the game in Paris, and on one of the other games the "official" attendance was decided on before they even reached the ground...

Same with the games at Warrington, you have to print them out.

Status Quo performed at the final. The 1995 tournament even had its own theme song, One Heart, sung by Carol Decker from T'Pau.

It was the lowest for the 5 city metro area - Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. For some reason, the rest of Aus has its own ratings system, and when you add that to the metro ratings, plus the streaming figures (which are going up every year) and it does beat 2019, albeit not by much. And even then, the figures for the 5 city metro area only go back to 2001 as they had a different system prior to that. The womens tennis final in Melbourne at the start of the year looks like being the most watched programme of the year.