Match of the Day

Name: Match of the Day
Genre: Documentary

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Barry Stoller's theme, unchanged since 1970, over whatever graphics the decade happens to allow.

Match of the Day rebuilt its titles: two distinct opening sequences are catalogued here across seasons 7 and 62, running between 44 and 53 seconds.

At 53 seconds at its longest, it opens well above the 37-second median for documentary sequences in this catalogue.

It arrived on BBC One in 1964, when Grandstand, This Is Your Life and Top of the Pops were also on the network.

Only 139 of the 2,618 shows catalogued here changed their titles at all; Match of the Day did so once.

All 2 opening title sequences

44s

Fan upload of the 1970 titles — the season Barry Stoller's theme arrived. Counting a season per football season from 1964/65, that is the seventh.

53s

Fan upload of the 2025/26 titles; counting a season per football season from 1964/65, that is the sixty-second. Fifty-five years on, the same theme.

1964–2006BBC OneDocumentary

Forty-two years of the chart, and a Phil Lynott instrumental called Yellow Pearl for a theme.

1962–ITV / BBC TwoDocumentary

College Boy by Derek New, and a split screen that has stacked two teams on top of each other since 1962.

1965–2003BBC OneDocumentary

Live demonstrations of things that did not work yet, opening on graphics that promised they would.

1963–1966ITVDocumentary

"The weekend starts here" — the British pop programme that put the Beatles, the Stones and Motown on the same stage.

1965–1985ITVDocumentary

ITV's answer to Grandstand, which is remembered now almost entirely for the wrestling at four o'clock.

1968–1997BBC OneDocumentary

The midweek sports programme, and the strand most of British sports broadcasting learned its trade on.