So, here we are, on the cusp of the millennial age, with the prospect of infinitely more channels pushed by more buttons promising ever more sport on television.

Maybe in five years' time, 1998 will be looked upon as the last days of quaintness, when the broadcast companies decided what sports and teams you tuned into, when Dickie Davis could still be plucked from the cobwebs with the flick of a button, when the sight of US sports aired on our screens was a curiosity, a rarity.

Sure, some things might well remain the same: RTE will dispatch its Gaelic games teams to dreamy outposts to listen to Munster or Ulster footballers explain why Sunday will be tough; Steve Rider will don a crombie and stand by the Thames and talk of the boat race and tradition with a public-school quiver in that wonderful voice of his; we'll still get to see the Borg-McEnroe classics on wet days at Wimbledon.

But we stand on the threshold of revolution, with digital television about to be foisted upon us even as parts of the country are still adapting to the influx of foreign channels like UTV and the Beeb.

And who could have guessed the faces set to lead us towards this bright, shiny new age, the former athletes and twinkling new stars who beam at us from the familiar studio landscapes, ceaselessly good humoured and dressed in impossibly lurid creations. Subtly, it's out with the old and in with the bright, inoffensive homogenised mugs of forward-looking, chirpy new front folk talking up whatever sport they are plugging. Hi, Sharon. Lookin' good, Gary. Smile, Ryle. Glad I met ya, Jim.

It is surely only a matter of short time before the BBC fix a bronzed lifesize portrait of Des Lynman outside HQ and dispatch him off to write his memoirs or wish him well with his new daytime nostalgia show on Sky 3 or where-ever.

Perhaps in five years' time, we will remember this time as the last stand for the traditional shows like Grandstand. Even Match of the Day may be just a memory.

But what of the year that was? As usual, soccer dictated the air time. With a season and a half's worth of hype spun around the Premiership, Sky fed the faithful their regular dollops of Sunday, Monday and weekend games, as well as the Saturday analysis marathon featuring washed up pundits from the sixties who did little to disguise their boredom at the sheer length of the proceedings.

The BBC, as usual, stood bravely with Football Focus and Match of the Day while Network 2 muscled in with The Premiership, the highlights show with the quality front pairing of Giles and Dunphy.

"They said it could never happen," cooed Bill O'Herlihy at the beginning of the first transmission and halfway through the series, RTE producers were perhaps beginning to wish it never did, given the derisory viewing figures.

And somewhere along the line, someone must have told soccer players that the TV life was the only after-life. Suddenly, vaguely familiar faces began infiltrating our living room. Barry Venison reappeared to host a Saturday show of such unapologetic awfulness that it became required viewing. Ian Wright presented television's first ever talk show based on one syllable conversations, during which all the guests adopted Wrighty's penchant for quasi rap-speak.

But while the preview shows and punditry was for the most part predictable and not infrequently dire, soccer also gave us some of the best sports documentaries of the year. Escobar's Own Goal, despite its crass title, was broadcast in April and chillingly examined the life and death of Andreas Escobar, the Columbian footballer shot dead after his own goal eliminated the national team from the World Cup.

Last summer's World Cup provided the TV quote of the year from David Platt, who found himself despairing at the lack of ability of one of the competitors. "He's literally got no left foot," he gasped, before adding, "well, not literally . . ."

Inside Story offered a poignant profile of Justin Fashanu, England's first ever million pound black footballer, whose struggles with race and homosexuality led to his committing suicide last year.

And there were other memorable moments. When Harry met Ali (possibly the title of the year) gave a fascinating insight into the 20-year camaraderie between the boxer and Harry Carpenter.

And John Giles delivered an astute if short summary on the unseen links between sport and politics with his thoughts on the mindset of the Iranian national side prior to the World Cup clash with the USA.

"I think Iran will be up for this, Bill," he predicted. Bill didn't disagree.

And there were many other choice moments - the glitzy crash which led to Eddie Jordan's first Grand Prix victory made cool viewing. Great chunks of the hurling and some of the football championship offered brilliant sporting entertainment.

In the end, though, people's memories of TV sports events are probably melted and bent by team allegiances and places and occasions and the company they might have kept. The rest just fuses into one big forgotten bubble of running, jumping, diving, hitting, shooting, missing, and talking, all neatly packaged, shown and shelved.

But despair not: the same will be coming at you again next year; bright moments of sporting brilliance sparkling from great meteorites of consumable trivia. They reckon if you worked at it, you could almost spend your life watching sport on TV now. So don't forget to switch off occasionally.