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.
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