History of
Spiel Ohne Grenzen
Just as
Great Britain and
France had their own
Domestic Series (
It's A Knockout and Intervilles, respectively),
West Germany had their own series called Spiel Ohne Grenzen which was made by
Westdeutscher Rundfunk (more commonly referred to as
WDR) and broadcast on their
ARD channel (in common with
Jeux Sans Frontières). Like its
British and
French counterparts, Spiel Ohne Grenzen was more than just a joust between towns, as the winning teams would qualify for Jeux Sans Frontières.
The series would undoubtedly look familiar to viewers of It's A Knockout and Jeux Sans Frontières, as its format was similar and games often involved outsized and humorous costumes. The first Domestic Spiel Ohne Grenzen was transmitted on Saturday
29th April 1967, leading in to the third year of their participation in Jeux Sans Frontières.
West German teams met with considerable successful in the early
JSF competitions, and this can no doubt be attributed to the opportunities for competitive practice that their Domestic Series afforded.
Bizarrely, there is now more interest for Spiel Ohne Grenzen outside of
Germany, from places as far afield as
Argentina and
Latin America,
India, the
Middle East,
Nigeria and
Sri Lanka, where the programmes have been repackaged by
Transtel Cologne under the title Telematch and are still occasionally repeated.
Apparently, the showings in India still rate well in audience terms. These overseas showings were all the result of Transtel's canny decision to dub the shows into
Arabic, English, French, Hindi and
Spanish.
Telematch GameThe format of the show changed for the last three years that Spiel Ohne Grenzen was in production.
Previously a weekly competition where teams from two West German towns would compete against each other for the honour of representing their country in Jeux Sans Frontières, from 1978-1980, there were only two events staged annually, with each featuring five teams. The top three teams in each of these competitions would go through to the JSF events, along with the highest scoring fourth-placed team in the two heats.
Jeux Sans Frontières (
English translation: "
Games Without Frontiers") was born out of
Guy Lux/
Mistral TV's Intervilles series, which had grown into a major success since its
French television debut on July 17th 1962.
Intervilles SingleAfter three series of inter-town shenanigans, it was realised that Intervilles could blossom into something even bigger. Guy Lux and
ORTF approached other
European broadcasters and the idea of staging an inter-country sister series to Intervilles was born. Jeux Sans Frontières launched on May 26th
1965. In its first series, JSF was a competition between four
European countries: France,
Belgium,
Italy and Germany
.
Legend has it that the inspiration for moving the series beyond its original town versus town format and out into
Europe lay with the then-President of the
French Republic,
General Charles de Gaulle.
De Gaulle reputedly advocated competitions to bring the youth of France and Germany together in a common pursuit. "The day when two cities, one
German and the other French, meet in competition, we do not doubt that it will result in a better understanding of each of our two countries," he is reported to have said.
Whether or not this statement was actually a direct influence on Guy Lux and those behind Intervilles is open to interpretation, but regardless, come 1965, the first pan-European competitions were played out.
JSF
Heat 1 from May 1965Initially, Jeux Sans Frontières - at this
point subtitled Internations - followed the format of Intervilles, with only two teams contesting each week's competition.
One week the French would play the
Germans, the next the
Italians would face the
Belgians, and so on for six weeks, with the highest scoring team from each nation qualifying for the semi-final stage. The two semi-final winners - in 1965, these were Saint-Amand-les-Eaux of France and Ciney of Italy - qualified for the grand final (the result of which was an 11-11 draw). This format was retained for 1966.
- published: 27 Mar 2014
- views: 2300