I suppose it was entirely fitting and in keeping with its often shambolic state that, without prior warning, Soccer Sunday ended its show today by announcing it was the last ever programme and it would be no more after 15 years of broadcasting.
So a series that regularly starts two months into the football season has decided it's now right to end 5 months early as well ... all this at a time when the two leading Welsh clubs are at their highest combined status for a couple of decades.
This was a programme that annoyed and frustrated Welsh football fans more than it entertained. As well is it regularly taking weeks off for no understandable reason, its broadcast time changed every single week, it could be on any time from breakfast to early evening. Add in its often amateurish production values, shoddy camera work, sloppy often over-dubbed commentary, terrible editing and poor presentation albeit there had been some recent improvement. Overall, it was a cringeworthy effort at the best of times.
Yet, for a regional programme, it had healthy viewing figures which had increased five-fold over the last couple of years. Earlier this year, viewers were informed that the show was endangered but guaranteed until the end of this season. Now it seems, they couldn't even be arsed doing that.
On the one hand, Welsh football fans were 'lucky'. This was the very last ITV region to have such a programme however and once ITV started cutting regional output, it was always on a life machine.
Like many, I've always had a love hate relationship with it and regularly found it infuriating but will miss its oddness, blandness and shoddiness as it was the only place I could see Cardiff City matches in some detail (I can't stand the thought of Cardiff City World).
It was amusing that final presenter Johnatan Owen ended it by announcing how the programme had imporved his acting skills by having to smile as his beloved Cardiff City lost while still smiling as Swansea City won. Bt the Jacks, forever belating about Bluebird bias in the media, enjoyed that!
Hope may remain. The contract goes to BBC next season so, hopefully, BBC Wales may do a show of sorts. Mind you, if we make the Premiership, that's all academic!
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