Just as Great Britain had It's A Knockout and France had Intervilles, West Germany had their own series called Telematch which was made by Transtel Cologne and broadcast by Westdeutscher Rundfunk (more commonly referred to as WDR). Like its British and French counterparts, Telematch 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 much the same and games often involved outsized and humourous costumes. We suspect that Telematch, or another programme with a similar format and purpose, was being made in the mid-1960s, not least because German teams were so successful in JSF events in those early days - they had to have had practice! However, the current evidence we can track down dates Telematch back no further than 1973.

Bizarrely, there is now more interest for Telematch outside of Germany, from places as far afield as Argentina and Latin America, India, the Middle East, Nigeria and Sri Lanka, where Telematch programmes are still occasionally repeated. The showings in India still rate well in audience terms, apparently. These overseas showings were all the result of Transtel's canny decision to dub the shows into Arabic, English, French, Hindi and Spanish.

The format of the show changed for the last three years that Telematch 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.

As an example, here are the results of the two 1980 qualifiers: