I Should Have Been at Work

The winter programmes, when there was a full football fixture list, involved the presenter commentating on the results as they came in – originally on the teleprinter, later the videprinter. I thoroughly enjoyed this part of the show, exercising my knowledge of players and league positions and sequences of victories or defeats. I usually spent one day a week honing that knowledge: as a supporter of one of the smaller clubs myself, I knew how important these small facts and figures were to the fans around the country, from Aberdeen to Exeter.

Occasionally, with your mind racing, you would make the odd mistake, relying on the editor to correct you. Once I said, ‘Southampton won 2–0, the same result as last year when they won 4–1.’ During the videprinter sequence, we would go live to the grounds for reports from key matches. John Philips, the editor, would sometimes forget to tell me where we were going next and I would prompt him through the viewer. ‘Now where shall we go to next?’ I would say down the camera lens, and Philips would then tell me, ‘Highbury, you prat’, or he would simply tell me to keep talking till they had a reporter on the line. It was fast-moving stuff. Nowadays, Sky Television build a whole programme around scores and results information. It is skilfully presented by Jeff Stelling, in my view their best sports broadcaster by miles. I can see the buzz he gets out of the show. It used to be the same for me.

Martin Hopkins, who directed nearly every Grandstand show I did, was an avid racing man. The custom was that he and the presenter would have a head to head bet on each race we were televising. He invariably won but it kept his interest at a peak.

For some of the years I was doing the show, the whole production team had to prepare quickly a five-minute sports bulletin for the South-East region. There were no reports or live action in this. The presenter simply read the copy put in front of him and hoped that the captions and still pictures fitted. Quite often they did not, and this became just about the hairiest programme that the sports department produced. Mostly, I managed to get out of it, and the broadcast was left to one of the newer faces; but those five minutes were always considerably more difficult than the five hours that had gone before.

While I found Grandstand challenging, presenting it always felt like it was something that came naturally to me. Around this time, I was asked to try something that really, really didn’t come naturally. Not a lot of people know this, but for a time I tried my hand, or voice, at the art of football commentary with BBC Television. Now I was asked to do a test commentary. It was not an ambition of mine but Alec Weeks, the senior football director, and Mike Murphy, the Match of the Day editor, who eventually became my Grandstand boss, thought I would be a useful addition to the commentary team behind John Motson and Barry Davies.

My first attempt was a trial commentary at an international match at Wembley between England and Wales. I did my homework and found the job relatively simple. Football commentary is easy. It’s good football commentary that’s difficult. Weeks wrote to me afterwards. ‘Your voice is clear. You have a wide range, your identification is sharp but your timing is appalling. We might get somewhere if we persevered on a few matches next season.’ We must have persevered because I was booked to do my first match for real a few weeks later. The game was Bristol City against Wolves in the old First Division. Only about four minutes went out on Match of the Day, but the edit was awful – or rather it underlined my lack of technique as I was heard to repeat the same phrase over and over. The match editor had not really been very sympathetic to the new boy. I did a little better as I went along and began getting some big games. I remember being at Maine Road for Manchester City against Liverpool, and I also commentated on some other top matches. And I am still remembered by a few people in Wales for being the commentator when Swansea beat Preston North End at Deepdale to earn a place in the top division for the first time in their history. John Toshack was the manager. Nobby Stiles lost his job at Preston after that game.

By the time the European Championship finals came round in Italy in 1980, I was one of the commentators despatched to cover the event. Greece against Czechoslovakia stands out in my mind. I had seen neither team before the game. Some of the names were impossible, but I struggled my way through. On the way to the game, John Philips, my producer, who would eventually become the editor of Grandstand, had nearly killed us as he drove the wrong way up a motorway sliproad. He saw the oncoming traffic just in time. There was an advert at the time for an Italian car where one guy says ‘But the steering wheel is on the wrong side’. His mate replies, ‘The way he drives, it makes no difference.’ It became a much repeated slogan during our stay in Italy.

Back home, I continued to do the odd game for Match of the Day and was called on again in a commentary capacity for the World Cup Finals held in Spain in 1982. I was the sort of ‘Kim Philby’ of the team, the third man to Motson and Davies again.

A problem match for me there was Italy against Cameroon, who were then playing in their first ever finals. There was no television in Cameroon at the time, and so no chance of seeing a tape of their players. I was familiar with the goalkeeper and one outfield player, Roger Milla. The Italians, on the other hand, were nearly all big names. They were the easy part. But Cameroon had most of the play, held the Italians to a draw, and should have won. The Italian press destroyed the team and manager after the game, so much so that the Italian squad imposed a boycott on them. Italy of course went on to win the World Cup that year. Many red faces in the Italian press corps, but that was the end of my brief life as a football commentator.

Soon afterwards I was also approached by Aubrey Singer, who at the time was Managing Director of BBC Radio. Aubrey had a proposition for me. At the time, my television career was just about getting under way. I had done a few Grandstands and was beginning to get the hang of it, but I still went back to radio for boxing and tennis commentaries. It was while I was covering the Wimbledon Championships for radio that Aubrey grabbed me. ‘As you know,’ he said, ‘Bob Burrows has left us for ITV and I wonder if you would consider the possibility of becoming the boss of radio sport.’ I was shocked and flattered. If the invitation had come a year or two before, when I felt terribly insecure on television, I think I would have jumped at it. I knew the radio set-up pretty well and had loved my time there; I also knew what a great department Burrows and Cliff Morgan had built. The trouble was that I was now thinking that I might carve out a bit of a future for myself on TV.

Did I really want to be on the administrative side of broadcasting? I thought about it very carefully and decided that I would gamble on making it on the box, though for a while afterwards, when things weren’t going too well, I wondered if I had made the right decision. As it turned out, my good friend Patricia Ewing eventually took over the department and made a huge success of it. I know she thinks I made the right decision – not just for me, but for BBC Radio Sport.

I was destined for other things.

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ALL TANKED UP (#ulink_8426852b-daeb-5470-8ef1-c0b710f503d0)

The 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Canada, were the Games at which the world discovered the fabulous talent of Sugar Ray Leonard. In fact it was the last Olympics in which the Americans dominated the boxing events. In addition to Leonard, they had a brilliant lightweight in Howard Davis, who was selected as best boxer of the entire Games, outshining even Leonard. Then there were the Spinks brothers at middle and light-heavyweight and the flyweight Leo Randolph. Five gold medals. They couldn’t win the heavyweight gold though. That went to Cuba’s Teofilio Stevenson, who had won in Munich and would collect his third gold in Moscow in 1980. In Britain’s team were Pat Cowdell and Colin Jones, both of whom became outstanding professionals and contested world titles. Alongside them was Charlie Magri, a flyweight, who did win a world championship.

For these Games, BBC Radio had selected a certain Terry Wogan to be the presenter for the evening Olympic shows. Terry was based in London and turned out to be an inspired choice. An avid sports fan, though certainly no specialist, he brought just the right kind of irreverence and questioning approach to the broadcasts, plus of course his usual wit. ‘Smallbore rifle shooting’ was one sport out of which he got great mileage. I had many ‘two-ways’ down the line with him, both of us roaring with laughter.

One day I got an urgent call from BBC Television. Could I go into their studio and ‘dub’ some commentary on a few boxing contests – that is, record the commentary after the event – as Harry Carpenter had gone down with a throat infection. I was all set to do the job when Harry made a pretty swift recovery. Broadcasters do not easily give ground to anyone waiting in the wings.

My old mate Jonesy had a nasty experience in Montreal. Handsome devil that he was, he had no trouble attracting the ladies. One night he and a colleague, not me on this occasion, had gone back to the apartment of a very attractive girl and her friend for drinks. They were just enjoying their first one when there was a crash through the door and they were confronted by a rather large gentleman who turned out to be the husband of their hostess. The situation was manageable at that point, until he pulled out his hand-gun. This was when Jonesy, ever the erudite Cambridge man, proferred the wholly inadequate response, ‘Now we don’t want any unpleasantness.’ They got out in double-quick time, and literally ran for their lives.

Off air, I was spending a little leisure time with Dr Liz Ferris, a diving medallist at the Rome Olympics, who was part of our commentary team. Liz introduced me to acupuncture, which certainly helped with some back pain I was having, and she also tried to teach me to do a ‘tumble turn’ in the swimming pool, with less success. I think that was what was giving me the back pain in the first place, but I still have fond memories of Lizzie’s beaming smile and her head-back laughter as I nearly drowned on numerous occasions.

I got on with my radio work until it was time for the Games to come to an end. They had been pretty miserable in terms of British success. On the track, Brendan Foster’s bronze medal at 10,000 metres was the only one won. But David Wilkie had won a swimming gold in the breaststroke, and we had done very well in the modern pentathlon, winning gold there too.

The pentathlon team was led by Jim Fox, a big handsome blond athlete who had all the girls swooning. The modern pentathlon comprises shooting, fencing, riding, swimming and running, and was originally introduced into the Games to replicate the tests that a military messenger might have to encounter during a battle. In the fencing section, Fox discovered that his Soviet opponent, Boris Onishenko, seemed to be recording hits electronically when Fox knew that no contact had been made. The British competitor reluctantly reported his misgivings to the authorities – reluctantly, because Onishenko had been a fellow competitor at many championships and Jim had counted him a friend. It was subsequently found that Onishenko had cunningly rewired his weapon in such a way as to allow himself to record hits when none had in fact occurred. He was thrown out of the Games in disgrace.

After the Games, Phil King and I decided to take a break in New York, taking a train, the ‘Adirondack’, down through southern Canada, through Vermont and New England. The journey was most comfortable and slow, but it was all the better for that, allowing us to enjoy the splendid scenery.

We had arranged to stay in the apartment of a New York-based BBC man who was going off on holiday elsewhere. It happened to be in the same apartment block, and on the same floor, as the film actress Angie Dickinson. She said ‘Good morning’ to me one day. I could hardly get over it. Kingy and I resolved to ask her out for a spot of dinner if we bumped into her again. Pipe dream. Phil and I enjoyed the bars of Second Avenue and one or two parties at the British Airways ‘Speed-bird’ Club. I was offered a joint one night, but as a non-smoker couldn’t handle the inhaling and my career as a drug-taker lasted all of two minutes. I was content enjoying a few beers.

Back home, I returned to the routine of presenting the radio sports programmes and endeavouring to see my son as often as possible. He was growing up fast.

I had given up trying to commute from Brighton to London each day and, while keeping my own flat on the coast, was sharing an apartment in London with a lovely lady called Patty Smith. I met her through her daughter, Jenny, who had told me her mother, who was divorced, was looking for a p.g., as she put it – a paying guest. Things got a little tricky for a time, because Patty was as glamorous as her daughter.

Later I shared a house with a great friend, Mike Greenlees, who went on to become a huge player in the world of advertising. We were two Jack the Lads for a time: nice house in Putney, which he owned, two sports cars parked outside, ready for action. We were rather like the Jack Lemmon–Walter Matthau pairing in The Odd Couple, advertising man and sports journalist, one tidy and organised (Mike), the other messy and disorganised (me).

As well as the sport, I was now asked to present a radio quiz programme called Treble Chance Quiz. The programme took two team captains around the country and they competed against each other with members of the public from the town we were visiting against an ‘away’ team. The team captains were usually Patrick Moore, the astronomer, and the late Ted Moult. The producer was a long-term BBC man, Michael Tuke-Hastings. Michael was fun but an absolute snob. Once, recording at Warwick Castle, he described our host, who seemed to me to be a perfectly charming and well-educated man, as ‘strictly minor public school’. Another time, we were staying in a small hotel when the receptionist announced there was a telephone call for ‘the Duke of Hastings’ instead of Tuke-Hastings. Michael certainly acted like he should have had a title.

The next year he involved me in the overseas version of the show called Forces Chance, which as well as going out on Radio 4 was broadcast on the Forces network. This took me to Gibraltar, Malta, West Germany and the then divided city of Berlin. The show’s next producer was Patricia Ewing, who went on to become the Head of Sport and Outside Broadcasts, and afterwards ran Radio 5. Pat was an ex-WRNS officer who introduced me to the delights of the old naval drink – a ‘horse’s neck’: brandy with dry ginger. Ted Moult was involved in this show too, in which the celebrities took on teams from the armed services in general knowledge. Neil Durden-Smith, the husband of Judith Chalmers, plus the BBC’s first female television newsreader, Nan Winton, were the other team members, although Sue Lawley soon took over from Nan. Some years later Ted, who seemed the happiest of men, took a gun and shot himself. No one understood why, least of all his large and loving family.

While in Germany we made a poignant visit to the museum at Belsen, where they say ‘no bird ever sings’. We were treated royally by the Forces: the army breakfasts in the officers’ mess, and getting our shoes cleaned by someone else, almost made joining up seem attractive. In West Germany we spent some time with a tank regiment and both Sue and I were given instruction on how to drive a tank. Later, when we went to Berlin, another tank regiment made us the same offer. I asked the corporal appointed to give me instruction if the tank in question was the same model as I had driven a few days before. It was. I told him to say nothing to the officer standing by, got into the driving position, started it up, shot around the compound a few times, over a few hills and humps, and delivered it back to the feet of the officer. He was white. ‘Nippy aren’t they?’ I said. The corporal loved it.

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GUN TROUBLE IN TEXAS (#ulink_5a8a0ed4-fb95-55f2-8bab-12ef5cfa152d)

My ongoing love affair with boxing continued apace, and it was around this time that I covered Jim Watt’s period as the World lightweight champion. Jim had been a useful boxer in a domestic sense until joining the Terry Lawless stable. Lawless helped him hone his skills to international level and had the connections to steer him to the world title.

Jim was a hugely attractive proposition for those of us in the media. He was very articulate and gave great interviews and of course has gone on to become an outstanding broadcaster on the sport. One of his title defences took place in the open air at Rangers’ Ibrox stadium in Glasgow. His opponent was Howard Davis, the man who had been voted the outstanding boxer of the 1976 Olympic Games. Watt was too good for him though.

In 1981 I went to Houston, Texas to commentate on Pat Cowdell’s challenge for the World featherweight title held by the Mexican Salvador Sanchez. It was a tough call for Cowdell. Sanchez was considered by many experts to be the best ‘pound for pound’ fighter in the world at the time. A few days before the fight, I took a taxi from the airport to my hotel and noticed that the glass was missing in one of the side windows in the back of the car. It had been replaced by a piece of cardboard.

‘What happened to your window? I asked the driver.

‘Oh, some crazy guy is taking pot shots at cars in the city,’ the driver replied, seemingly unconcerned.

‘Have they arrested him? I enquired.

‘Nope, haven’t found him yet.’ I slunk down in the seat.

Later that evening it wasn’t the sniper’s gun I was worried about.

Suffering from jet lag, I had trouble getting to sleep but eventually nodded off with the light on. At around 3 a.m. I was awoken when the door to my room sprung open, held only by the security chain I had remembered to attach. Then, to my horror, a gun was poked through the gap and a voice said: ‘Please come to the door and open it.’ I thought, ‘This is it. I’m in a violent city and am about to be robbed at best, and maybe shot as well.’

I managed to get a few words out. ‘What the hell is going on?’

The voice replied. ‘This is hotel security. According to our records this room should be unoccupied.’ An accreditation badge was eased through the gap. The check-in receptionist had recorded that I was in another room. Her mistake could easily have resulted in a Lynam heart attack.

In the fight, Cowdell put up a valiant challenge before losing on points over fifteen rounds. Not long after, Sanchez was killed in a car accident.

I first came across Finbar Patrick (‘Barry’) McGuigan at the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton Canada in 1978. He was just seventeen years of age and boxing for Northern Ireland. This was an anomaly because Barry was actually from the Irish Republic and two years later he would compete in Moscow for the Irish Olympic team.

He was a sensation in Edmonton and made it all the way to the bantamweight final, in which he had to box a tough customs officer from Papua New Guinea called Tumat Sogolik. It was boy against mature man, but I called the fight narrowly for McGuigan. This was in the days before computer scoring came into amateur boxing. On television, Harry Carpenter felt that he hadn’t quite done enough. As it turned out, McGuigan got the decision and his old club coach in Northern Ireland rang him to tell him that I had called it his way. It was just my honest opinion at the time, but Barry became a fan of mine, as of course I did of him.

The Edmonton Commonwealth Games had been my second trip to Canada. I enjoyed some marvellous hospitality, especially from a petite and vivacious girl who was working at the Games. I seemed to fall on my feet at these major tournaments.

Once again Wogan was orchestrating the broadcasts from his studio in London and persuaded me to sing the ‘Londonderry Air’ (aka ‘Danny Boy’) live on the programme after McGuigan’s win. You would not have wanted to hear it.

On the flight home from Edmonton, a fellow commentator found himself seated between Mary Peters, the athletics gold medallist from the 1972 Olympics, and Anita Lonsborough, who had been Olympic champion in the swimming pool at the Rome Games in 1960. Both were travelling back in their pristine cream blazers provided by the BBC for the Games. Unfortunately my colleague had enjoyed a considerable amount of hospitality in the departure lounge, liberally topped up after boarding the aircraft, and proceeded to throw up. Two blazers and two gold medallists were despoiled in one ghastly moment. Embarrassed though he still is about it, he recently described it as ‘a record that will never be broken’.