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On the Domestic front in the lead-in to the International competitions, the
second series of It’s A Knockout dispensed with the
Lancashire-Yorkshire format of the 1966 series and went national, with each
weekly winner progressing to the international Jeux Sans Frontières
competitions in Europe. This Domestic series also featured the first
appearance of future main presenter, David Vine, who was introduced to It’s
A Knockout audiences as Master of Ceremonies. Meanwhile, West Germany
transmitted its first Domestic series of Spiel Ohne Grenzen, which saw
two teams go head-to-head each week with the winner progressing through to the
International series.
Interneige continued into 1967, entering its third year
of competition. The Winter International Series was again contested by teams
from Switzerland and France and was transmitted live on five consecutive
Sunday afternoons commencing 29th January, building up to the Winter Final on
26th February 1967.
The 1967 series of Jeux Sans Frontières can be seen as
a watershed in the history of the programme. Whereas previously only four
nations had contested the competitions and the events had been two-headers
with only two nations competing against each other at once, this was all
changed for the new series. Two new nations joined the fray, namely
Switzerland, who had previously competed in the winter Interneige
programmes since 1965 and had formed neutral juries for the summer
competitions, and Great Britain, who had commenced their Domestic It’s A
Knockout competitions in 1966. In addition, the aspect of the Jeux Sans
Frontières competitions that had involved the participation of
‘intellectuals’ was dropped, presumably due to the number of nations competing
- the ‘Game of Questions’ was slow-paced with two nations competing, so with
six it would likely have been soporiphic!
This year saw the introduction of the ‘Jeu Handicap’ (The
Handicap Game) to the International series, which was always played as the
final game. The team that was standing at the foot of the rankings before the
game would start a distance ahead of the 5th placed team, who would start
ahead of the 4th placed team and so on. The idea was to give a head start to
the lower placed teams. The game was repackaged and used again during the 1996
series. There was also a sporadic appearance of the ‘Jeu Divisée’ (The Divided
Game) which was interspersed between two or three games before the result of
the game was announced. This was a forerunner to the ‘Jeu Intermédiaire’ (The
Intermediary Game) which in turn became the ‘Fil Rouge’.
Viewers of Jeux Sans Frontières would notice that after
a two-year period of a mainly male-dominated competition, females participated
in the games in their own right for the first time, and to this end the games
became unisex-friendly.
Jokers were also introduced this year. They could be played on
any game and would ‘double’ the score the team achieved on that game. Over the
years, the Joker element of Jeux Sans Frontières would become
synonymous with the series, and even today it is one of the first things
people recall about it.
Unusually, due to two abandoned games in the International
Heats, programme executives had to resort to a rarely used rule and alter the
qualifying criteria for the 1967 International Final. As a result, teams’
eligibility for the final - if national rivals were tied on finishing
positions - was determined based upon their average points score (points
scored divided by number of games played), rather than the default criteria of
highest number of points amassed.
There is no doubt at all that British teams under-performed in
the debut series of Jeux Sans Frontières. This was noted in a letter
written by E. Wakefield of Durham City published in the BBC listings magazine
Radio Times on October 19th 1967. Wakefield complained that, “Britain
was the only team which didn’t train, and this is why almost every British
team was disgraced. I look forward to the next series, which I hope will
contain more competitive British teams.”
While it is true that none of the competitions ended in British
victories, three British teams - Lytham St. Annes, Worthing and Cheltenham Spa
- acquitted themselves respectably and recorded 3rd place finishes. Cheltenham
Spa repeated this feat in the International Final, tying for 3rd place with
Italian team Montecatini Terme, and thus secured the Bronze Trophy. The other
three British entrants recorded a 5th place (Llandudno) and two last place
finishes (Bridlington and Hawick). Hawick’s performance was particularly poor
and their score of 15pts remains the worst ever score in Jeux Sans
Frontières by a British team. In all, a mixed set of results - and British
fans would have to wait until 1969 to witness the first International victory
by a British team.
Meanwhile, it was a different story for West Germany, having
ended the year with none of their teams finishing outside the top three
places. In fact, the country had only been placed in two different positions
throughout the series. If they did not win the competition (which they did on
four out of seven occasions), then they ultimately finished in third place!
They also set the record of most games won in a series with a tally of 25
games won out of a possible 69 played!
West Germany would also become the first country to win the
Jeux Sans Frontières Golden Trophy in successive years, an achievement
they would repeat in 1968, 1969 and 1977. In fact, it would not be emulated by
another country until 1989 (when Portugal won for a second successive year)
and 1995 by the Czech Republic. |
