Football overkill is a TV turn-off

Let me first of all establish my credentials, just in case you suspect I could be a bit of a poser who only arrived on the scene when football became fashionable after Gazza's tears and Nick Hornby's soul-bearing. I've always really, really loved football. I risked suspension from the school team by accepting an illegal inducement (a month's bed and board in Great Harwood) to sign for Accrington Stanley. If by some chance you happen to be reading this, Mr Field, I never actually played in a proper match, honest.

I'm nearer 60 than 50 now and I still play regularly with the kids on the local park. Post-Rantzen, it can potentially be very embarrassing for shifty old blokes who saunter along the footpaths looking for a game. I shudder to recall how, as teenagers, we sniggered at the dad who, thinking he could play a bit, insisted on joining in every night.

Regular readers will know the lengths to which I went to suss out the whereabouts of the Nationwide live matches in the digital universe this forthcoming season.

I'm overwhelmed with optimism at the start of every football season, which has remained undimmed since becoming associated with Luton Town. I often get the impression that ITV's head of sport, Brian Barwick, and Terry Venables are as daft about football as I am. So why do I have this sense of foreboding about the two Premiership highlights programmes which have been announced for 7pm and 11pm on Saturdays?

I fear ITV have let the kids loose in the candy shop with the proliferation of football. Not everybody loves the game, and Saturday night round the telly was supposed to weld the family together. I'm worried about a backlash against the all-important football. Somebody should save us from ourselves.

There are some striking ironies here, and I don't just mean a self-confessed football nut bleating about the possibility of overkill. Twenty years or more ago, before the advent of satellite blew apart the market, there used to be bitter arguments between football and television about the rights fees.

Football looked at the variety shows that were a feature of the Saturday night schedules and engaged advisers from show business without ever making much impression on the cartel operated by the terrestrial broadcasters. Incredibly, the Office of Fair Trading acquiesced in one of the most blatant examples of unfair trading imaginable.

Now, the pendulum has swung to the other extreme. ITV, having invested £183m in the Premiership highlights for the next three years, needs some place to showcase them, and it is light entertainment, or family entertainment, which is being squeezed. When football, and one or two things more important, suffered at the hands of the hooligans in the 1980s, BBC and ITV were very dismissive of recorded highlights in the negotiations, despite that the fact the viewing figures had held up reasonably well in the face of constantly changing transmission slots. Live became the only game in town for negotiators described by Ken Bates on one never-to-be-forgotten occasion as "office boys".

Now it does not matter whether it's live, recorded or kiss my Arsenal. As long as it involves a ball being kicked and a move being analysed it's on the box. Amsterdam tournament? Champions' League? Ryan Giggs testimonial? That'll do nicely, sir. And it's not even the middle of August yet.

Someone told me the other day the viewing figures for the FA Cup final were down. But we are invited to subscribe for pay-per-match, despite not having seen any published figures of the two Nationwide League experiments, Sunderland v Oxford United and Colchester United v Manchester City. One definite among the many uncertainties of the coming season will be this: you will be reading more in your newspapers about football on television than ever before, because, if there is one thing we are obsessed with, it is television, as Big Brother has demonstrated.

Many of us may indeed be obsessed with football. But we delude ourselves if we believe it is a national institution. Even the Queen Mother's public standing would be damaged among lovers of the monarchy by over-exposure.

More women follow football nowadays, but not every one is a convert. That leading social commentator, the Aston Villa chairman Doug Ellis, once likened a certain football personality to a woman in that he said "no" when he meant ''yes''.

So, warm the set and cool the tinnies and don't disturb me until the World Cup starts. I just hope there aren't too many women who say ''no'' and mean ''no''. I may be wrong – it has happened – and Saturday 7pm highlights will become the best thing since sliced bread for those who can't or won't pay for satellite, cable, or season ticket. And for kids.

grahamkelly@btinternet.com