Sky Sports has been our companion for 25 years (and 700000 hours) of sporting drama – Daily Mail

On April 20, 1991 at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados, Curtly Ambrose trapped batsman Mark Taylor lbw for 26, and British sport was never the same again.

Day four of the fourth test between West Indies versus Australia was the first live event on Sky Sports exactly 25 years ago. When viewers that Saturday afternoon saw Taylor walk back to the pavilion a few minutes into transmission, little did they realise it would be the first of 700,000 hours of sporting action and drama to be witnessed from their armchair or pub stool for the next quarter-of-a-century.

The statistics are mind-blowing. Sky Sports now have seven channels on which they show 5,000 hours of sport a month while technological advances that have made terms like ‘playercam’ become part of the sporting lexicon.

Sky Sports began broadcasting in 1991, its first event a cricket match between West Indies and Australia 

Now, the channel show 5,000 hours of sport each month, using incredible technology to delve deeper. Here, Ed Chamberlin, Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville talk tactics on the must-see Monday Night Football 

But more than anything it’s the way Sky have tapped into the spirit of sport that has been revolutionary.

From Andy Gray belting out ‘take a bow, son’ to acknowledge a great goal to Martin Tyler’s ‘Aguerooo!’ before the camera panned to an ashen-faced Sir Alex Ferguson at Sunderland, Sky captured the excitement and unpredictability better than anyone else before or since.

Life, television and sport were of course very different in 1991. There was no Premier League, no Champions League, no Twenty20 cricket, and no internet at all, let alone Facebook and Twitter. There was little culture of regularly gathering in bars and clubs to watch live events.

Just 26 live games were broadcast live per season on television. Gazza was a young man with the world at his feet while a three-year-old Lionel Messi kicked his first ball in Argentina. Ian Woosnam had just won the Masters when Sky Sports went to air as Rory McIlroy looked forward to his second birthday.

There are many memorable moments, one of which being Martin Tyler’s ‘Aguerooo’ commentary in 2012

Sky heavily cover other sports such as golf; here, Rory McIlroy celebrates Europe’s unforgettable comeback in the Miracle at Medinah in 2012. He was famously late to the course on the final day, so held up a big clock 

It was the foundation of the Premier League in the 1992/93 season which gave Sky Sports its big take-off. More camera angles, more analysis, louder goal celebrations, louder everything. But they in turn helped English football bounce back from Heysel and Hillsborough and become a world leader.

There were teething problems. With little other live sport, pre-match build-up would begin hours before kick-off. ‘We used to show the grass growing,’ joked the first main football presenter Richard Keys.

The schedules tightened up almost right away. On the final day of the 1994/95 season, Sky Sports showed Liverpool-Blackburn and West Ham-Manchester United simultaneously as the title looked to swing one way or another.

The beaming smile of Rovers manager Kenny Dalglish as his team were crowned champions would have been matched inside Sky’s Isleworth HQ by their Head of Sport, Vic Wakeling, who transferred his Fleet Street nose for what makes a story to the big screen.

In the 90s, Sky revolutionised the way the public watch sport. Pundit Andy Gray was one of the stalwarts

Kevin Keegan’s on-air meltdown proved Sky Sports were big enough to create the news as well as report it

His deputy Andy Melvyn also had a newspaper background, covering Aberdeen during the Fergie glory years. His instruction to former player Andy Gray as a co-commentator: ‘Don’t tell me what I can see, tell me what I can’t see’.

The following season, Sky Sports screened live the epic Liverpool vs Newcastle game, the 4-3 still considered the best ever in the Premier League. Kevin Keegan’s meltdown on camera – ‘I’d love it if we beat them’ – showed Sky was now big enough to create the news as well as report it.

Sky got a return for the billions they invested in sport, becoming one of the leading commercial enterprises in the world and breeding offspring in different territories.

They grew from very small audiences to more than six million subscribers by 2009 and passing the eight million mark three years later. Sky Sports News, a 24-hour channel which does what it says on a tin, is kept on in the reception area of nearly every sporting club in the country, big and small.

Richard Keys (right) was Sky’s first football commentator; he is pictured at a game at Anfield in 1994 alongside George Best (left) and Phil Thompson, formerly of Manchester United and Liverpool respectively

Nowadays, some of the biggest names in football are Sky Sports pundits, including Thierry Henry (centre), Jamie Redknapp (left) and Carragher, seen here working during at game between Barcelona and Man City

Over time, it’s not just football but other sports which have had the Sky treatment. Boxing, cricket and golf all are staple elements in the stable. Rugby League even changed their calendar so they could be shown live on Sky. That most traditional of northern working-class pastimes is now a summer sport.

The innovations have been numerous. Viewers can hear the participants talk to each other on the field of play. Governing bodies have caught up with the multi-cameras that Sky Sports used. The Premier League now uses video technology to decide whether the ball has crossed the line.

As happens so often, Sky Sports has spawned many imitators. BT Sport has become a serious rival by taking the rights for Champions League and Europa League.

But there is only one original. They deserve sporting thanks on their silver anniversary.