Life's a Pitch

A few friends and I went over to Stratford last night to see the live recording of BT Sport's "Life's a Pitch" show. The main attraction was the chance to see around the BT Sport studios at what was formerly the London Olympic's Media Centre.

If you live in south-east London, it's a doddle to get there as it's ten minutes from North Greenwich or similar if the Tunnel's clear to the Westfield Shopping centre. A quick pint in The Cow and BT Sport pick you up outside and ferry you onto the site and the venue. 

The studios themselves are pretty cavernous and we arrived at the end of The Clare Balding Show. Des Kelly, the host of Life's a Pitch, welcomed the standing audience of around 30 to the set and we got a five minute brief about how the show was filmed, who the guests were and what to do and what not to do. 

The show runs 10-11pm Monday to Wednesday and 9.30 to 11pm Thursday. If you haven't seen it before, it's worth a look. Easy viewing, latest football and sports news with a couple of journos, two guests and a singer. One of my mates is a Spurs fan so he was chuffed to learn that David Pleat was on the show, although Pete and I were not so impressed that Palace-fan and comedian, Sean Hughes, was also up. 

David Pleat gave an interview we've probably all heard him give a dozen times before but he is always fairly relevant and I got the impression Mr Pleat had plenty more he'd like to say beyond the careful wording for live TV. He told us that the beige shoes he wore to match his suit the day he galloped uncontrollable onto the Wembley turf were auctioned off for the Luton Town Academy a number of years back and fetched a staggering £4000. 

The conversation moved on former Addick, Paulo Di Canio and Pleaty told us it was him who brought the passionate Italian to English football when boss at Sheffield Massive. He had travelled to Glasgow to watch Paulo and three separate taxi drivers had exactly the same conversation with him. They all guessed he was there to see Di Canio - "he's the only player in the team" - and all three told him that Di Canio wouldn't be playing that night. Sure enough he wasn't, but Pleat had heard enough to persuade his Chairman to fork out without having seen him himself. 

Sean Hughes was next up and was good entertainment, mercifully keeping the Palace references low before we got a lovely song from Katie Melua (she is tiny) and a recorded piece from husband and former Wolrd Superbike champion, James Toseland. The cast then galloped through the morning's back-page newspaper headlines before Katie sung us out. Back to Stratford and I was back home and in bed before Midnight.

If you fancy it, all you need do is register with lostintv.com and you should get a date for a show within a couple of weeks.