At 6.20pm on Monday, January 5th 1970, David Vine launched television's longest-running sports quiz show.

In the first programme captains Henry Cooper and Cliff Morgan were joined by sporting personalities George Best, Ray Illingworth, Lillian Board and Tom Finney. It's unlikely that George Best would have guessed then that he'd return thirty years later, as a guest, in a Sporting Greats edition.

More than 1,000 sporting personalities have appeared on the programme in its 30 year history lead by 11 resident captains. There has also been several guest team leaders including, in the early years, such football legends as Bobby Charlton and the late Bobby Moore.

Surprisingly, only three main presenters have been putting the questions and keeping order.

David Vine hosted the show for five years when the programme was recorded in a converted church at the BBC North studios a few miles south of Manchester's city centre. He remained as question master for a further three years after the recordings were moved to Manchester's Oxford Road studios before making way for David Coleman in 1979.

Until that year the programme was a straightforward quiz show and David's brief was to 'loosen' it up. As one of the main voices of BBC Sport with experience in hosting Sportsnight and Grandstand, David was the ideal man for the job.

During his reign the programme was consistently in the BBC Top Ten. The audience averaged 8 million. However on the famous occasion when Her Royal Highness the Princess Royal joined the guests for the 200th edition the viewing figures hit 18 million. Alongside Emlyn Hughes she revealed a sense of fun, threatening him with her handbag and pointing out to the massive audience that he couldn't spell 'yachting'.

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