Men of the Match; SUNDAY CHOICE

Byline: DANIEL LEE;NIGEL PIZEY;TERRY RAMSEY

Match of the Day at 40 10.15pm, BBC1

ABOUT 30 years ago, when I was a child, I used the spending money I'd saved carefully for weeks to buy my first record. It was an LP (for the CD generation, that's a long player) of top TV theme tunes. It had everything from Thunderbirds to Hawaii Five-O and a bizarre, jazzed-up version of Magic Roundabout. But the one that was my favourite was the tune from Match of the Day.

I soon progressed to buying those compilation records from Woolworth's featuring ropey versions of hits and dubious-looking sleeves bearing semi-naked women, but the MOTD theme tune remained unchanged. And it is still the same today. A fanfare echoing around the minds of all sports and TV fans.

So it is not surprising that a discussion of that enduring tune helps kick off (pun intended) this absorbing show marking 40 years of the much-loved programme and coinciding with the start of the new …