Football Focus is a BBC television show, broadcast on BBC One on Saturday lunchtimes, covering football, presented from the 2009/2010 season by Dan Walker. The programme is broadcast from MediaCityUK in Salford, Greater Manchester.
The programme previously formed part of the Grandstand programme but has since August 2001 been considered a show in its own right. Prior to the launch of Match of the Day 2, it was often the first chance for viewers (apart from the viewers of Sky Sports) to see analysis of the Sunday and Monday Premier League games. The programme is now a weekly magazine, with reports from across the country at all levels of English and Scottish football. It previews the weekend's fixtures along with updates from the early Premier League game. Since BBC have the rights to the Premier League, Football Focus also shows highlights from the midweek matches. A version of the programme which looks at world football airs on BBC World News.
The theme song for the programme is different for each new season. For the 2002/03 season it was "Backaround" by Elevator Suite. The 2003/04 season featured a cover of the Stevie Nicks track "Stand Back" by Linus Loves featuring Sam Obernik. For the 2007/08 season it was "Kill The Director" by The Wombats and for the 2009/2010 season it was Jetstream by Doves, from the album Kingdom of Rust.
As of 2012, presenter Dan Walker is usually joined by the BBC's main football pundits such as Mark Lawrenson, Lee Dixon, and Martin Keown. Match of the Day commentators, including Steve Wilson, Guy Mowbray, Jonathan Pearce, and John Motson often check-in with game previews from the stadiums.
Read more about Football Focus: Presenters
Famous quotes containing the words football and/or focus:
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“Carlyle is not a seer, but a brave looker-on and reviewer; not the most free and catholic observer of men and events, for they are likely to find him preoccupied, but unexpectedly free and catholic when they fall within the focus of his lens.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)