By Andy Roberts,
ITV once had a go at it; with a stark honesty they named their show The Championship after the FA and Coca Cola's brave rebranding of The Best Second Tier Division In the World (tm). Their show contained extensive highlights from the Championship while giving just a cursory nod to the Football League's embarrassing undercarriage; briefly debuting the goal clips from Leagues One and Two.
In 2009, when Aunty took on the responsibility of the less glamorous divisions, encumbered as she is by a heavy public service remit, supporters of lower league clubs were buoyed by the notion that they might be afforded a less thrifty share of the airtime. This notion was reinforced by the exciting news that the BBC were giving the new programme the collective and inclusive title of The Football League Show.
This optimism was short-lived, as it became clear that 80 - 90 per cent of each programme would be given over to the Championship, with (most of) the goals from Leagues One and Two unceremoniously shoved to the back end.
So BBC Trust, we don't want you to worry too much about our usual share on the Football League Show, we got used to that pretty quickly. League Two footballers on Twitter can often be found joking about falling asleep before the goals they scored are broadcast. We also look forward to the rare appearance of the unfailing enthusiastic (or unapologetically patronising) Mark Clemmit at our grounds, as it guarantees a larger share of the Football League Show for our beloved side. It's part of the fun.
What we REALLY struggle with though, is the apparent total disregard we're shown in an international week when the Championship is not in play. We're not expecting an hour of extended highlights each... We're more aware of our standing in the world than that. But we do find it enormously difficult to understand why, just because the Championship isn't happening, the BBC thinks that the other two thirds of the Football League have suddenly become disinterested in seeing the goals from their teams' games on the Football League Show.
A simple 30 minute show, with straight-forward goal highlights from most games and a little snippet from Clem or somebody similar (or entirely different)... There must be room for that?
Thank you for listening.
Andy
A retired football commentator, aged 33 and a half.