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New Article: Teletext- RIP

Ceefax shut down last night forever.

For those who are too young ceefax/Teletext was the internet before the internet existed.

Obituary...

For football fans, Ceefax has an almost mythological status. Many of its epitaphs relate to the football service, with ‘page 302’ assuming Old Testament proportions of deity. For years, Ceefax was the de facto method of keeping up to date with how your team was doing, unless you were part of the world’s financial elite who could afford to dial up Clubcall on a regular basis. The premise, particularly on match days, was simple. Fixtures would be laid out on a screen, and load across several pages. This would usually amount to three per division, though real aficionados could always tell when a glut of goals went in as the pages would extend to four, five or even six to accommodate the goal scorer’s details. The rotating nature of the pages added to the tension. At times, their cycle would be infuriating slow, as if the technician in charge of content had a conspiracy against your team.

Ceefax’s demise was inevitable in the face of instant news delivered to mobile devices, tablets and PCs. Like the The Pink or The Green ‘Un results newspapers, it is another part of our football heritage consigned to history. Whilst it would be easy to become maudlin, modern technology offers a wealth of services that simply didn’t exist a decade ago. Yet, in many ways, this transition can be seen as a microcosm of wider football culture: everything seems less personal and more functional now. Sitting in Starbucks with your iPad checking the football scores is an undoubted luxury, but it can’t match the camaraderie of a cold November night stood outside Tandy in a fog of breath and shared anticipation.

Goodbye old friend.
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Comments

  • Well said mate
  • Even now, the first thing I do when I get home after work is open up the new version of it (unless I need a poo)
  • Very good... it was like a pre-internet, delivering sports, news, reviews etc at the touch of a button. Miss it.
  • It used to be 140
  • RIP. London local sport used to be on page 390. Used to check it everyday for CAFC stories.
  • Always thought Ceefax far superior to ITV's Oracle.
  • Shame, we got a teletext TV early all my mates were so jealous, to think it was just different coloured writing basically
  • 302.....Magic numbers right there. Memories of school days!
  • Thought this went a long time ago. not seen it in years. It was like the football rumours site on the tv (except that only journalists could post rubbish made up stories)
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  • Great piece Smudge.

    Do you remember when telly developed and on the remote control they put on the four coloured buttons so you could navigate faster through the pages ?

    That was like upgrading from a Nokia to an iphone !
  • Wasnt page 140 the Oracle football scores page?
  • Though I never could get my head around the 'holidays' bit.

    After spending 500 notes on a 2 week holiday, you'd get there and some smart arse would always tell you they got it for 200 quid 'off teletext', yet I could never find the decent offers.

    Anyone else book holidays 'off teletext' ?
  • 140 was Oracle, wasn't it? The agony of waiting for it to flip back to page 1 of 4 at the 90 minute mark of away trips to grim Northern shitholes when we were 1 up (or, more likely, 1 down) is something I'll always remember as a kid - until those fancy tellies came along where you could flip between individual subpages yourself (oh, the luxury...)
  • Don't know what my ex-servicemen's club will do now - they can't afford sky, so have the teletext on to keep all the old boys up to date with the sport.
  • I stopped using ceefax and teletext when I got my first steam powered computer in 1998. Would always stick it as soon as I walked through the door to check all football news and not just CAFC. This feels like hearing the news that an old friend you haven't seen for a few years has passed away. RIP old friend. You served me well.
  • Teletext was one of the best inventions ever. As soon as I got in it would be 302 to see the footy headlines, then it would be 390 as there would be articles about the London teams. I also remember just sitting there for the full 90 mins waiting and hoping Charlton would score. The anticipation of when it was it was going to flick to the Charlton score was immense, "please please be 1 up Charlton oh ffs Why does that poxy Clive Mendonca always score against us whenever we play Grimsby"
  • I remember staying up late once to "see" Flintoff get a century in a test match against NZ on teletext, low point.
  • It was the Jeff Stelling of its day. when not going to away games used to sit in the Yorkshire grey glued to the Tele.
    the best match being the 4-3 comeback at Newcastle.
  • i used to play "bamboozle" at half time....
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  • haha page 302. ledge.

    if the tv reception was crap (like the tv in my old bedroom) then all the letters would scramble up. pissed me off big time.
  • used to book the odd boys week away in march to tenerife from teletext usually a long winded phone number

    page 313 was where the results would come thru

    311/312 was news in brief/gossip i think

    and as mentioned above there was the local stuff on 390 and was it 170ish on itv

    the build up as the screen flicked over to the charlton scoreline page was sickening and also if you had a bet on a match it was good for that sick gamblers feeling almost like the roll of a roulette ball
  • edited September 2012

    Though I never could get my head around the 'holidays' bit.

    After spending 500 notes on a 2 week holiday, you'd get there and some smart arse would always tell you they got it for 200 quid 'off teletext', yet I could never find the decent offers.

    Anyone else book holidays 'off teletext' ?

    didnt book holidays, i was a traveller and got a lot of my cheap flights while in this country 'off teletext' (RIP)... if it werent for not checking on teletext for flights to america one time and realising that i could afford to go to australia for my budget then a lot of happy times might (just might) not have happened the way they did?... cheers teletext, you were the nuts ;~)

    cute piece smudge7946!
  • Cricket on 340
    News 102 with local on 160 I think

    Something used to be on 330 - can't remember if it was footie or cricket

    All these numbers - 'bookmarks
  • edited September 2012

    haha page 302. ledge.

    if the tv reception was crap (like the tv in my old bedroom) then all the letters would scramble up. pissed me off big time.

    yea, forgot about that VG, the score would read something like this... d4rby C b-1 chprlt8n AtH Ft.

    oh for f**k sake did we win or not? ha!
  • Though I never could get my head around the 'holidays' bit.

    After spending 500 notes on a 2 week holiday, you'd get there and some smart arse would always tell you they got it for 200 quid 'off teletext', yet I could never find the decent offers.

    Anyone else book holidays 'off teletext' ?

    Still going on http://www.teletextholidays.co.uk/

    302 footy home page
    312 news in brief
    338 fixtures,results,tables home page
    390 regional sport

    I used to miss teletext so much when on holidays.
  • 670 (I think) Horse racing results
  • RIP. I used to use it when I was about 5 and didn't go to Charlton until about a year later. It'll be missed.
  • Remember they did a report per match by each division and when entering the number, 9 times out of 10 it would always be the alphabetical match after Charlton! So had to wait what seemed about an hour to flick through the other 11 match reports until it got back to the Charlton game. Usually as well, just as the report came up something would happen to distract me from reading it straight away and would get half way in and flip onto the next game or scramble like VG mentioned.... arghghg... There was a 'hold' button that I discovered to fix this though but I would usually piss my Mum off by leaving it on hold and disappearing off somewhere. Or do it on purpose to watch her frantically try and work out the remote as it was ruining watching grab-a-grand on Noel Edmunds house party.

    One other thing I never understood is why some TV's were silent when putting in your page numbers where others would send out a Spectrum stylee BEEEEP at 100 decibels per number. Could you switch this on/off?
  • Waking up on the sofa at 4am with the tele just randomly going through teletext pages with some creepy music.
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