Like Pavlov's dog I am conditioned to respond to certain things in certain ways. One of those is childlike excitement at hearing the Mariachi-style music of Match Of The Day starting up on a Saturday night.
But in recent years the BBC has conducted a ruthlessly efficient reconditioning campaign to rival that of A Clockwork Orange. The result? I am emotionally dead to MOTD.
By the time it is screened at 10.30pm I've generally seen all the goals, understand the debating points and have seen/heard the arguments on social media or on radio. Essentially, MOTD is offering nothing new.
In spite of paying more than £170m for rights to some of the most desirable sporting footage going the BBC is wasting its opportunity - and I'm not alone in suggesting it has totally lost its touch.
MOTD is a programme with no unique selling point. The biggest issues generally boil down to how bad and overpaid the presenters are or Lawro's hideous choice of shirt.
MOTD does little more than lull me into sleep - and that's a terrible failing by the BBC.
To avoid adding to the wave of negative commentary about the programme, here's four things I believe MOTD urgently needs to do before it becomes seriously at risk of extinction.
Develop the Conversation on Social Media
One thing football fans love to do is talk and debate the game, but beyond the anti-MOTD tweets it's near impossible to have an informed discussion on social media.
A verified Twitter account #BBCMOTD does exist with almost 200,000 followers, but a brief glance through the tweets from this account reveals it is woefully misused.
#BBCMOTD should be at the centre of all football debate, bossing the agenda, prompting debate and engaging football fans.
On Facebook the Match of the Day page has 1.5m likes - pretty impressive. Fans comment in the thousands, but the activity from MOTD is again, dreadful. When I looked on Tuesday 16 December, the last post was the about the programme's running order from 8 December (1,074 likes and 277 comments by the way - fans care).
Instagram drew a blank. Where's the green room pictures? Why doesn't MOTD give fans something extra?
On social media MOTD is missing a massive opportunity. That's a straight red.
Learn From BBC Question Time
#BBCQT has become THE current affairs/political event of the week. Not only does it engage its fans on social media, but it also makes its studio space work much harder.
#BBCQT does not have a fixed set, instead roaming around the country to get opinion and it works. This is something MOTD could easily achieve.
Beyond this the things which really work are: 1) the live audience and 2) the panel.
MOTD is gagging for a live studio audience similar to #BBCQT and even the 5 Live Debate. Why not have 100 passionate fans who have the chance to ask a questions based on the day's action? It works on Question Time and it would work on MOTD.
But what really gets to me and millions of others are the pundits. If reports are to be believed they are paid thousands to appear. And for what? I'm not going to go into a rant about it here, it gets boring.
What I believe would work better is a revolving Question Time-style panel of experts, from ex-players, managers, refs and writers to offer insight around the day's games and what they mean for the season. To be honest, I wouldn't be against the likes of Mr Lineker chairing.
In short, the days of a presenter and two pundits lazily running through highlights are gone.
Have a Personality
Love it or loath it, Soccer AM has a personality. It's laddish, it's silly and guess what, it's popular. If MOTD was a mate of mine I'd not know how to describe him.
'Nice bloke, but a bit dull' might be the best I could do.
Be Number One at Analysis
It constantly amazes me, when a great pundit offers insight, how little I really know about football. But I rarely get that from MOTD. It has no authority.
Gary Neville's efforts have won much praise. Please BBC learn from him.
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after all you say yourself by 10.30 u no the scores and all the debate points.
so dont watch it
ps
is teh old boys click on bbc --they all play golf together,and all tongue and grove each other
but as long as gabby yorath doesnt do a football show
Gary Neville has been a revelation on Sky, but he does have the advantage of a lot more time. Revista La Liga is an excellent show and one I feel MOTD could learn from, intelligent people talking in a reasonable & insightful manner.
I don't think a studio audience is the way to go either, we have enough phone-in shows for angry fans to vent.
If the potential for a bun fight could be removed perhaps then the programme could move ahead in that direction. Either way, MOTD does need steering in the right direction if not a complete refit.
It as never been about not know a result, for decades people took down the football results at 5 o'clock to check their football coupons and then watched MotD each evening.
You "WATCH" MotD to see the goals and incidents you've heard about.... And another thing, not everyone has SKY, not everyone owns all these fancy others forms of comunication......
If you want to fix something thats broke FIX Huffington Post....... misleading headlines, pointless waste of time non stories. And on times just stories that are just plainly ~NOT TRUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I note that Huffington Post seems to be running a campaign against MOTD - this is the third time you have had a pop at MOTD.
Why? And don't tell me it's because you want to see it improve - you have another reason. What is it?
I don't want it dumbed down with celebrity talking heads on there and turned into some teen/early 20's orientated programme, jazzed up to the nines. And I'm not interested in other supporter's inane views. I get enough of those on Radio 5 live and Talk Radio.
All I want to do is watch the football, listen to a few comments inbetween the highlights, a couple of replays of the action like dubious decisions, etc. and I'm happy! Why complicate things.
Like you, I just want to watch a bit of footy (I'm no longer the huge supporter I once was) and listen to a bit, but only a bit mind, of interesting analysis. OK, thrash around a few dodgy decisions and the like but I don't want the theory of football relativity explained to me.
Alan Shearer gives the impression of having had a charisma by-pass whilst doing a great impression of a plank, and Alan Hasen although very knowledgable about the game tends to get boring after a while. Gary Lineker, ever the smug, wise cracking (at someone elses expense) chameleon type presenter who never puts forward an opinion of his own in case it may offend someone. All good footballers in their day but now is definitely the time for a complete change and a new team to run it at far less expense than this overpaid crew.
Shearer, I could partially agree with you but he does at least give the impression he knows what he's talking about and doesn't keep interrupting unlike Hanson, who seems to love the sound of his own voice. That said, Hanson also seems to know what he is talking about.
I must disagree with your opinion of Lineker. His position, essentially as chair of the programme, does not really allow him to cast a view of any situation (unless it is clearly an issue of legallity etc. i.e. racism and the like, when he will, and should, denounce it) But with that in mind I think he carries off his role very well.
In the event of a complete change on MOTD who would you lke to see up there? I don't know enough about the game these days to know who is who!!!
I have recently been watching some reruns of The Big Match and it reminded me of when MOTD was great i.e. we got to see lots of the game and a little comment. I have been watching football for over 45 years so I do not need some so called pundit to enlighten me. I have probably been to and viewed more games than any of them and please dont give me the line that because I have never played the game professionally I need them to tell me what is happening.
BBC should be looking at ways to cut budgets ..... look no further than MOTD and ditch the over-paid and over-rated ex-pros.