Wasn’t it Jimmy who spottedRoche coming back at Delgado from a helicopter picture?
My father was on Know Your Sport the first year it was broadcast (1987/88). He won his first round heat but lost out in the quarter-finals. My recollection is that he didn’t find Magee very affable but found George Hamilton to be a thorough gentleman.
I only met Magee once myself but found him a bit brusque.
Somebody earlier talked about how he’d list off a load of other facts when he was asked a question by the special guest on Know Your Sport and that’s exactly what he did. I recall Mick Lyons being one of the very few guests to catch him out with a question - which was “who captained Meath to beat Dublin in the 1975 National League final?” Magee listed off a load of Meath captains of All-Ireland winning teams, but didn’t know the answer. Even at nine years old, I could have told him it was goalkeeper Ronan Giles.
Strangely enough, around about April last year, a man I didn’t know knocked on my door in Galway, He was looking for his son who was a student and was apparently living on my road. The son hadn’t been in contact with his family for two months and they couldn’t get in contact with him so the father came down to Galway to look for him to check he was alright. I couldn’t help him out as I don’t fraternise with the students living on my road but I did have a very good chat with him for about half an hour and it turned out he was on the Meath panel when they won that 1975 National League. A very nice man altogether. Mick was his name, I can’t remember his surname.
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I met Jimmy Magee one night in Tesco in Ardkeen in Waterford. It was just after the release of his autobiography and he was sitting at a little fold up table just inside the front door with a few books in front of him. No one else near him. No posters up or nothing. It looked quite sad to be honest. I regret not talking with him more because he seemed a nice man from our brief pleasantries and me exclaiming surprise of seeing him there and in fairness like most on here would have grown up hearing him on TV. But it just seemed so out of place, on his own in a big grocery shop at around 9pm selling off his book.
Also recall one of the funnier bits on Know Your Sport. I cant recall the exact way it unfolded, but essentially it was “this sports person was born in Dublin”, contestant buzzes in and names some random sportstar and is right. The stupid fucker saw him earlier on in the lobby so guessed he would be the sportstar and shot his load way too early and was copped.
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That was my first thought when I heard he died. I clearly remember watching that as a young lad. It was a descent so they were depending on helicopter pictures.
I never liked it when Jimmy was commentating on Ireland matches. Him commentating and us wearing white jersies always jinxed us
Know Your Sport was pretty awful when you think of it.
First round was the picture round, which was made up of pictures of sports people (I have it in my head that these were always GAA people) and the challenge was to identify them. Surely they could come up with something more adventurous than that.
The first picture would go up. The contestant would be thinking and all you would hear would be the buzzers going off to get in if the guy didn’t know.
Jimmy had a role to adjudicate who buzzed first, second etc.
‘John was first in George’.
‘Thanks Jimmy’
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It was awful! and because it was sports based, the contestants were fiercely competitive. The clicking of the buzzers of lads trying to buzz in, and it would be pot luck as to which of them would go off. And then the moaning out of the others when their one wouldnt buzz!
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Know your Sport was the best tv show anywhere EVER
I wasn’t allowed watch tv at 8pm until I was in secondary school and by then I didn’t want to watch tv with my parents so I sat in my room listening to Dave Fanning or Atlantic 252 or very bad reception of Liverpool on BBC radio 5.
So I never saw Know your Sport.
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It was on at 730 I’m almost certain
you get an idea of the shiteness here, albeit you have to suffer listening to the second captains cunts too.
Either way, I didn’t see it bro… I’ve vague memories of it alright but we were always shunted away from tv to be honest — Parents probably wanted a break from us I suppose — We got zig-zag and Simpsons — And cartoons and Baywatch/A Team/Night Rider on weekends but that’s about it.
I don’t recall that. Was always 7pm on Thursdays I think, maybe it moved to Tuesdays in latter years.
Know Your Sport was a great show. Cheap as chips to make too.
That was the golden age of television quiz shows.
I honestly don’t know why television has decided the humble quiz show is no longer wanted.
Something has to make way for all those cookery and house renovation programmes though, I guess.
I recall it been on at 7pm on a Monday for a good while. It was followed by the Pure Drop at 7.30pm.
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Ger Harrington on the right there was the chap who beat my father in the quarter-finals. A farmer from West Cork if I remember rightly.
I’m a bit older than you, Know your sport glory years were about 87/88 I’d say, before the simpsons or those other things I’d say,
I loved it, couldn’t get enough, a fella from not far away from us won an early series, think it was a ford Orion
Have you given up on University Challenge? It has been a slow burner this year with no standout contestant so far.
7pm on Thursdays would been Top of the Pops time, actually.
Agreed but it needs to have a little bit of thought.
Fifteen-to-One was the best example of a pure quiz show I think with just enough to keep it interesting.