When the bell rang for the end of the Qingming Festival holiday, a microblog by well-known soccer commentator Liu Jianhong, like a bolt of lightning across the room, awakened the sleeping memories of countless fans.
Liu Jianhong in microblogging emotion: "looking back 25 years ago at this moment, soccer night in a panic and busy opening. It was such a wonderful TV era, and it was also the starting point for the national soccer team to explore and innovate. Even though I have been whitened by the years, the media environment has gone through great changes, and the national soccer team is in deep trouble, I am still proud of the enthusiasm, dedication, responsibility and commitment I had back then! At the critical moment of breaking with the old and establishing the new, both TV and the national soccer team need the courage to face up to the difficulties and the determination to change!"
Soccer Night, this name, like an indelible star, has illuminated the hearts of countless Chinese fans. Unconsciously, it has accompanied us for 25 years.
Every Thursday night, the familiar music plays and the familiar tagline comes to your ears, "The weekly festival for fans - Football Night is officially on." This is an indispensable picture of life in every fan's mind.
On April 4, 1996, the first Football Night debuted on CCTV. At that time, each program was nearly four hours long, covering domestic and international soccer matches, and the live broadcast feature made many Chinese fans willing to give up entertainment and stay in front of the TV.
The turn of the century was a time of simplicity. At that time, online media had not yet emerged, paper media and television were the most intuitive way for fans to experience soccer.
As a result, Football Night reached its peak in the 1990s, and its ratings were among the highest among CCTV sports programs. In the hearts of fans, Football Night is the most popular, influential and authoritative program, with an advertising price second only to Focus Interview.
(first soccer night credits)
In the first few years of Soccer Night, there were only six or seven people on the program team, including Huang Jianxiang, Zhang Bin and Han Qiaosheng. Due to limited manpower, Liu Jianhong, who had just joined CCTV, could only run between A A and A B. The content of A B was almost undertaken by him alone, so he was affectionately known as "Liu A B".
Later, Zhang Bin gradually withdrew, Han Qiaosheng and Huang Jianxiang moved on to other jobs, and by around 2000, Liu Jianhong became the sole host of Football Night. With the launch of sister program World Soccer, Soccer Night was also heavily tagged with domestic soccer.
Soccer Night, as it was then known, covered the national soccer team's World Qualifying X match in 1997 and has been gaining a reputation ever since.
Soccer Night, then, fought against match-fixing and black whistles in 1998, and was even blocked by the National Football Association at one point.
At that time, Soccer Night covered the entire World Qualifying Round 10 in 2001, and witnessed the national revelry of the national soccer team's first World Cup run.
At that time, the soccer night, accompanied the national football team through the whole World Cup in Korea and Japan, in the days that followed, spent countless days and nights with the national football team ......
So whenever soccer night is mentioned, fans will always recall the familiar voice of Liu Jianhong, as well as those matches of the national football team and the controversial topics that are constantly triggered.
2007 Asian Cup, the national football team failed to get out of the group stage, the well-known publicist Li Chengpeng in the soccer night program bluntly said that the then chairman of the Football Association Xie Yalong is unqualified, "to become a pig factory director quite suitable", when Xie Yalong angrily called CCTV overnight to question.
On June 15, 2013, the national football team lost 1-5 to Thailand Youth Army at home, and Football Night launched a special program "After 1:5" to analyze the reasons for the defeat, and even bluntly questioned whether this "abnormal" game was related to gambling. The game is not a normal one, but it is a game of gambling.
This is the night of soccer, it faces the current problems, with the most realistic strokes to depict the ups and downs of the national football team, like a chronicle, step by step into the hearts of fans.
Now, as times change, Football Night has had to make adjustments, with its content focusing on domestic soccer coverage, taking into account international soccer hotspots.
With the ever-changing nature of online media, soccer night is no longer fixed to Thursdays, but is adjusted to match the time of the tournament.
Liu Jianhong, who accompanied a generation of fans in their youth, also left CCTV, leaving behind endless nostalgia.
Soccer is developing and times are changing. When the copyright competition is increasingly fierce, CCTV is also struggling, the world soccer, soccer night and other classic columns in the flood of time also continue to be impacted. But whether it is the peak or the trough, the sentiment or the expectation, they are always there, carrying our youth.
"China doesn't have the best soccer, but it has the best soccer program." It's a phrase that is often on the lips of Chinese fans. And after 25 years, will you still be in front of the TV to watch soccer night?
