That may sound like a bit of a strange admission nowadays but not if you recall that any football on the small screen was pretty rare in those days and mostly late at night, well beyond my normal bedtime.
There were the occasional live games at more reasonable hours of the day. The FA Cup Final every May was something to really look forward to and on the match day there was always a full schedule of events to keep you entertained including "It's a Knockout" between supporters of the finalists.
The few international games that were broadcast were the Home Nations Tournament. That was until crowd trouble and hooliganism put paid to that very competitive round of games.
One very noticeable feature of a televised match was the level of noise that came, as well as from the packed terraces, from the players themselves on the pitch. It was noisy indeed as though an actual and real time commentary on the progress of play.
In the school playground in the week following a big game we would have a kick around with a tennis ball and imitate the skills we had seen as well as the language of "Man On", "On my head" and"Shoot". There were also the congratulatory cries of "nice one Cyril", "good shot" and " great goal".
Football to me was a sport appealing to all of the senses.
It appears that the modern game is lacking in some respects. What is now a very fast and athletic game with tremendous skill and tactical awareness has lost out where just plain communication between players is concerned. This is both on and off the pitch. That might just be a factor arising from a multi-national squad of players and managers and their well paid and privileged status but concerns have been expressed by those within the game that something is missing.
The sight of elite footballers getting off team buses with headphones on does not impress Southampton manager Ronald Koeman, who insists the near-obsession with smartphones and social media has led to a communication breakdown on the pitch.
The Dutchman, whose team are seventh in the Premier League, revealed how he was sending his players to weekly communication sessions to get them talking to each other again.
'The whole lifestyle has changed,' Koeman told the Return To Play football medical conference in London.
Southampton manager Ronald Koeman has criticised modern players' obsession with smartphones.
'One of the problems you see now in football is there is not enough communication on the pitch. That's all about social media. Everybody goes on it straight away on their phones.'
The 53-year-old former Dutch international and member of that great Johan Cruyff 'Dream Team' at Barcelona, spoke of how things were different before the advent of smartphones, when team-mates on long coach journeys interacted more with each other.
'When I was playing, on the coach when we went to matches, we talked and we had communication,' he added.
'Now everyone just puts on his headphones and is in his own world. For young players it is all about themselves and less about communication with the rest of the players.
'That is maybe one of the reasons they don't talk any more on the pitch. Communication on the pitch is so important even if it is just to help your team mates and say 'time' or 'turn'!
'That's so difficult now. To deal with this we do sessions in training, different exercises every week which are all about focus, communication and concentration.'
Old stagers in the professional ranks remember how team spirit flourished in their time in the game.
The 1966 England World Cup Winning squad went to the cinema together the night before the final. It appears that watching a good Western brought the team together to achieve what is still the pinnacle of English football.
Don Revie and his Leeds United team who dominated the domestic game in the 1970's regularly partook in carpet bowls and bingo.
I remember seeing the coverage of Cup Final Teams on their team coaches on the way to Wembley huddled around playing cards.
A few England players being interviewed for BBC and ITV during, I think, Italia 1990 dropped as many selected words as they could into the conversation including titles of Beatles Songs.
Has the modern game lost out for all of the supposed sophistication of the new millionaires who dominate the top echelons of the professional leagues?
Unfortunately, I think so.
I am not unreasonably cynical is speculating that in the current professional leagues only probable conversations to be overheard of "pass.......pass to me" are likely to be followed by "the new Bentley Brochure".
(Koeman interview sourced from Daily Mail and BBC News)
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