One Night Grandstand – report from Bow

The One Night Grandstand at the Ranwell Kick-about, East London was a huge success!

60 people played in 10 5-a-side teams, and Phil Parry tirelessly commentated them all, aided by some intrepid first-time young commentators – George, Jamie and Mikey.

The teams finally assembled themselves under the expert coordination of Frankie, who remained calm and collected throughout, even though it was her first time organising a football tournament.

As the teams posed for photos, Gio D’Angelo tirelessly rigged up the AV, while Wojciech put finishing touches on the live-action replays and sound effects. The themetunes to Match of the Day, Grandstand and other tv favorites began to work its magic on the crowd and bring people down from the blocks and surrounding houses to see what was going on.

Rain threatened, and tarpaulins were hurridly applied. The rain couldn’t not contain the building excitement, however, and kick-off was greeted with huge excitement and gathering crowds.

The play started with 10 minute games, and everyone was surprised at how much the commentary added to the atmosphere. The sound effects were really effective early on as well, with huge cheers every time a goal was scored, and ‘ooooohs’ whenever there was a near miss.

As the evening set in, the projections became much more visible and people began to notice the live action replays and graphics, especially the crowd who started behaving just like at a real football match, waving whenever the camera fell on them. The football also reached a fever pitch of excitement as one very young team (the back half with a combined age of 16!) played some much older lads, and put up a heroic stand, clawing back every goal conceeded, right up until the final minutes.

The final games of the evening were played, and as the Grandstand theme tune played us out, a final thanks was read over the tannoy to everyone who made it possible: so, a big thanks to all the teams and players, Phil Parry from BBC London, Sacha Edwards and Old Ford Housing, Fiona Fieber and Tanya Skillen at Space, all the stewards, the camera people Andy, Diler, Nisfa and Johnathan, Simon Myers and the rigging team from Gianova, Gio D’Angelo, and The People Speak team: Frankie, Mikey, Saul and Wojciech.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 1st, 2005 at 8:02 pm. It is filed under One Night Grandstand, Past Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.