East Midlands (106fm)
The Heart 106 Football Phone-In was brought to an end on 9 July 2006 to the dismay of its loyal following of listeners and callers alike and was replaced with the 'Time Tunnel Challenge' from 10 July 2006.
It was presented by former Nottingham Forest European Cup winners Garry Birtles and Kenny Burns, former Derby County Championship winner Roger Davies and former Leicester City player Alan Birchenall (a key member of the modestly successful 70s side).
The show was originally broadcast on the former Century 106 for an hour (starting at 19:00) each weekday evening and was singly presented by Larry Lloyd (another member of Nottingham Forest's European Cup-winning side). Commentator Darren Fletcher then joined him as Century's football offering gained momentum. These two formed the Century 106 football commentary team (this being in effect a reunion of the highly successful GEM AM partnership which had won numerous radio awards). Century 106 managed to gain full commentary of every Nottingham Forest game for the forthcoming seasons. If Forest were not in action one weekend then full commentary of either a Derby County or Leicester City match would be broadcast, as they were supposedly providing coverage of the major East Midlands teams. Although it was Forest who got the main coverage on Saturdays except when a local derby was taking place between Derby County and Leicester City.
Larry Lloyd later left the station to move abroad and was duly replaced with his former Forest team-mate, Garry Birtles and this formula proved to be equally successful.
However, the full-match commentary was not to last and was brought to an end by the new Century 106 management. The phone-in was allowed to continue but Darren Fletcher decided to depart for pastures new as he was, in essence, a commentator and wished to continue in this role elsewhere.
In order to make the programme more East Midlands centred, Derby County pundit Roger Davies and his Leicester City counterpart Alan Birchenall were drafted in along with Kenny Burns and the programme was christened The Legends Football Phone-In. When the station was rebranded as Heart 106, the show was renamed the Heart Football Phone-In. This continued (with three of the four pundits each evening) until the show's finale in July 2006.
Read more about this topic: Legends Football Phone-In
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“The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation.”
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