The first-round FA Cup clash between Oldham Athletic and Leeds United was streamed live for free on the FA's website on Saturday evening.
As a Leeds fan, I logged on at 17:15 with a feeling of trepidation. Was I going to spend the next 90 minutes staring at a 17-inch laptop screen wondering if that round blurry shape was the ball or a player's head?
My only previous experience of online football was in a bar in Greece last year, trying to watch England's World Cup qualifier against Croatia. As everyone in England enjoyed Theo Walcott's hat-trick, we endured jolty, pixelated screens with large spells of downtime.
But I have no complaints about the FA's online coverage tonight. When you've got Sky HD on a 37-inch TV, coverage on anything less is always going to be inferior but as the web goes, this was pretty impressive. It also managed to surpass ITV's woeful TV coverage of the Histon v Leeds FA Cup tie last season (not difficult).
Only on the 29th minute did it threaten to misbehave. The screen flickered to black nothingness... yet within two seconds it was back. Panic over.
The sound quality was fantastic, with the microphone seemingly nestled among the Leeds fans on some occasions (not so good for those with sensitive ears).
But a major highlight of the online broadcast for me (other than the 2-0 Leeds victory courtesy of Jonny Howson and Mike Grella) was the half-time entertainment. No ex-footballers sitting in a studio dissecting whether the grass was too long - just a quick replay of the first-half highlights, a few FA adverts and then 10 minutes of quality crowd action.
Far more entertaining than Messrs Redknapp and Gray were shots of fans eating pies, fireworks in the sky and Leeds fans with large bellies waving their shirts above their heads. That's proper football!
If future Leeds FA Cup games are broadcast online, I'll be looking forward to it... as long as we win, of course!
Discover all FA Cup matches live on the web this weekend.
Comments
Latest comments
November 07 20:35
Manon Abike
Hear Hear, thoroughly enjoyed the whole broadcast without interuptions from would be experts. Even the commentator was informative without drowning me in useless statistics. Good result helps of course!!