Full-time for a TV institution

How will Gary Lineker cope with the final moments of a Saturday night television institution, when

How will he sum up a dynasty that began with Kenneth Wolstenholme in August 1964 and carried on right through Barry Davies's "Leeds will go mad" cry in 1971 and Motty's jammilytimed debut when he was on the mike as Ronnie Radford broke the net against Newcastle in the FA Cup in 1972?

Then there was Jimmy Hill and his "staunchions" and Des 'smooth operator' Lynam's time in the hot seat before the Lineker era.

All that football, all that bickering, all those Pringle jumpers - will there be tears? Will Lineker go for a Bond villain approach of locking himself in the studio and taking over the airwaves until his demands for round-the-clock MOTD are met? Both are unlikely, but perfectly justifiable.

Oh sure, there will be plenty of football on telly next season - you won't be able to move for seven-day coverage of every shot, throw-in and offside decision from the LDV Trophy to the Champions League.

Having won the rights to show the highlights of the Premiership from the Beeb, ITV are planning two shows on a Saturday night - one pre-pub and one post. Nice idea. But the bottom line is that football coverage on ITV conjures up nothing but terrible images for most.

A common nightmare is turning out at your own wedding in one of Barry Venison's suits with Ron Atkinson doing the best man's speech ("he's got his spotter's badge for that one" etc).

Many others have uncontrollable fits of anger when confronted by show jumping or figure skating, after Midweek Sports Special regularly shoved both of them slap-bang in the middle of football highlights during the Eighties in a Clockwork Orange-style attempt to force us to appreciate other sports.

Things at ITV have moved on, of course, and the "end of football as we know it" was predicted before when Des defected to a relatively football-free channel.