Ceefax RIP

Ceefax shut down last night forever.

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

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.