ON SATURDAY 27 December 1980 I was invited to be the studio guest in BBC Radio 2’s Sport on 2 programme. During the afternoon the presenter, Mike Ingham, suggested that I might like to try out his job, and cue over to the commentator at the various sporting events around the country. I did not do it very well, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself because I found that I knew them all personally.
After the programme it dawned on me that I not only knew, but had probably worked with, all the television and radio sports commentators who had broadcast from the time when I joined the BBC after the war. So I thought it would be fun – at least for me – to recall the characters and techniques of some of my colleagues, not forgetting the slight mishaps or gaffes which may have occurred.
I joined the BBC in January 1946, but of course there had been broadcasting for a quarter of a century before that. This was during my school and university days and, although not a regular listener, I did tune in to the wireless for sport and entertainment. I enjoyed comedians like Tommy Handley, Clapham and Dwyer, and Gillie Potter, and at night listened to the dance bands in their weekly spots from the great London hotels – names like Ambrose, Harry Roy, Carroll Gibbons, Roy Fox, Sidney Lipton and Lew Stone.
So far as sport was concerned I was always fascinated by the ‘live’ broadcasts of something which was actually happening at the time. The men who described the sports became my unseen heroes. They were the pioneers of commentary and each in his own style left a deep impression on me: R. C. Lyle on racing, Captain H. B. T. Wakelam on rugby and lawn tennis, George Allison on football and Howard Marshall on cricket.
There was then virtually no commentary as we know it today. There had been sporting broadcasts since January 1927, but they were more often than not just eye-witness accounts, reports or summaries at an interval, half-time or close of play. There were exceptions such as the occasional horse race, the Boat Race and snatches of rugby, tennis, soccer and cricket. What commentary there was, was done by experts in the particular sport, without any training as broadcasters.
The first person to broadcast on cricket was P. F. Warner – ‘Plum’ – later Sir Pelham. On 14 May 1927 he was at Leyton to ‘describe’ Essex v New Zealand. He had a very quiet and rather ineffectual, apologetic-sounding voice and was not a great success.
He was followed later in the same year by the Essex player Canon F. H. Gillingham (Gilly). Gilly was a fine preacher with a strong authoritative voice. But, alas, he did not do too well either. He was also at Leyton but unfortunately his first broadcast coincided with a twenty-minute interval. After he had given a ten-minute description of the play so far, he became desperate for something to say. There was no Bill Frindall to talk to about records in those days. So the poor Canon read out the advertisements round the ground. You can imagine the reaction of the BBC in those days. Advertising in any form was strictly forbidden. Even in the 1950s I remember we were doing a broadcast about the motor industry, and we had to say that we were speaking from a well-known car factory at Dagenham. Thank goodness things are far more relaxed today.
My first boss at the BBC was Seymour de Lotbinière, known to everybody as ‘Lobby’. He had become Head of Outside Broadcasts (‘OBs’ as they are called) in 1935 and soon realised that he had to train people to be broadcasters first and foremost. It was no good having an expert who could not communicate with the listener, nor describe what was happening on the field. Of course the mix had to be right. The broadcaster must have knowledge of the sport which he was describing, and should certainly have played it or participated in it. He could then have an international sportsman alongside him as a summariser who would give expert comment as opposed to commentary. Early examples of these were Arthur Gilligan at cricket, Harold Abrahams at athletics and Bernard Darwin at golf.
The first thing Lobby decided to do was to abandon the ‘square one’ technique which was in existence when he took over. This enabled the listener to follow a game of rugby or soccer by looking at a plan in the Radio Times in which the playing area was divided up into numbered squares. The commentator would have a second person in the box with him whose job was to follow the ball and call out the numbered square in which it was. John Snagge was often called on to do this, and as you can imagine his interruptions frequently interfered with the commentary, as there were two voices speaking at once.
Lobby decided that a good commentator must be able to place the ball by his description – ‘the ball is on the England 25 line on the far side of the field’, or ‘the ball has gone out five yards short of Arsenal’s right-corner flag’. For a commentator to be able to do this there had to be a definite commentary technique laid down, and so Lobby evolved his now universally accepted Pyramid Method. In this the commentator starts his broadcast at the narrow top of the pyramid by giving straight away the main essentials. Then gradually as the broadcast continues, the commentator broadens outwards by giving less important but still necessary information.
At any game, for instance, a commentator must immediately give the score and say how much time is left or, in the case of limited-over cricket, how many overs are left. At this stage too he should name the goal scorers, or which batsmen are out and how many runs they have each made.
Once this has been done he should set the scene – the weather, the crowd, the condition of the ground or pitch, and where he is sitting in relation to the play. He will then find time to say who won the toss, give the teams and describe briefly any outstanding play by any particular player.
Then can come what is called the ‘associative material’ – the position of the two sides in the League or Championship Tables, how important this match is for them, likely landmarks for any player, for example his thousand runs for the season or a significant number of goals. When time allows the commentator should always try to weave in a description of the ground, and once again place the position of his commentary box. He is after all the eyes of the listener, who can then imagine that the armchair in which he is sitting is on the balcony of the Lord’s pavilion or in some gallery high up in St Paul’s Cathedral.
Lobby also added some ‘Do’s’ and ‘Don’ts’ for commentators:
Do’s
1 Always try to build up ‘suspense interest’, anticipating possible interesting or exciting happenings to come. Enthusiasm for his subject is vital for a commentator but he should never over build up a match or event. He soon loses his credibility if he does, especially in radio, since the listener can now often check up on the television.
2 There is also a place for a certain amount of subtle instruction in sport, especially on television. But it must be done casually and not in too schoolmasterly a manner. There is so much that can be explained to the inexpert viewer or listener – the no-ball law, the intricacies of a tie-break at lawn tennis or the reasons for a foul at football.
Don’ts
1 However badly unsighted, try never to say, ‘I can’t see.’ It is natural to think of an excuse if someone gets in your line of vision, or a player runs into a corner of the ground which you cannot see from the commentary box. But it becomes boring for the listener who rightly believes that for his licence fee the BBC should site the box properly, though this is not always possible due to structural difficulties. Similarly some boxes are often cramped, too hot or too cold, and desperately uncomfortable. However, that is not the listeners’ fault and they soon become tired of constant moaning.
2 Never take sides. Be completely impartial – something far more easily said than done. The temptation to say ‘we’ is very strong but inexcusable, even when broadcasting from an overseas tour, when you get the feeling of representing your country. It’s so easy to say, ‘You’ll be glad to hear that Atherton has won the toss,’ when of course some listeners will not be glad. I know I must have been guilty many times of putting too much obvious delight into my shout of ‘He’s out!’ when ‘he’ happens to be Australia’s best batsman.
The early commentators were having to learn as they went along, with only Lobby to lean on for advice. They could not, as we could, get help from an older commentator – there just weren’t any. The conditions under which they worked were appalling by modern standards. They were crammed into a small wooden box either at the back of a grandstand or on top of a van. Sometimes at the Derby they had to broadcast sitting or standing among the crowds on a stand. There is even a photograph of some unfortunate commentator at an outside broadcast at Cambridge perched microphone in hand, up a tree. Mind you, some of our positions are fairly primitive today, but luxurious compared to forty years ago. Their style of dress cannot have helped much either, and in almost every photograph commentators are wearing ‘Anthony Eden’ Homburg hats – what they did with the headphones goodness only knows.
Then of course they did not have the motorways and Inter-City expresses. A journey which today takes us only three hours could have taken double or even more before the war. And if things went wrong – especially on overseas broadcasts – communications were no way near as good as they are today. Lobby himself found this out when over in Holland for the wedding of Princess Juliana in the late 1930s. The timings for the procession and the service went hopelessly wrong and it became obvious that everything was running at least half-an-hour late.
Today a commentator could dial the number of Broadcasting House in London, and ask them to delay the broadcast. But Lobby could not get through to warn them, so when they came over as advertised he had to waffle for at least half-an-hour before anything happened. Luckily he had practised what he preached and had plenty of associative material about Holland, their Royal Family and so on. But he admitted that in the end he got so desperate that he had to resort to reading out the bulb catalogues!
This became a slightly longer broadcast than the one he did from an aeroplane on the Boat Race. The plane had to cross and recross the winding River Thames and Lobby soon became violently air-sick. When John Snagge cued over to him, he just managed to splutter out, ‘Cambridge in the lead by three lengths – back to the launch.’ A somewhat expensive eleven words.
R. C. Lyle, the racing correspondent of The Times, was the BBC’s choice as their first racing commentator. Believe it or not he was said to be colour-blind, so how he picked out the horses I just don’t know. Maybe he was so involved in racing and going to every meeting that he knew all the horses – in addition of course to the jockeys – by sight. But anyhow he was a brilliant race-reader and a superb judge of a race. As a result he often decided fairly far out from the winning post which horse was going to win, and used to call it home, hardly mentioning the other horses who were struggling for a place. But of course that is what the listener really wants to know – how his horse is doing, however badly.
He was naturally somewhat nervous before his first big broadcast, which was when Felstead, ridden by Harry Wragg, won the Derby in 1928. On his way to the commentary position he happened to run into Edgar Wallace who, besides being a prolific writer of novels and plays, was a keen racehorse owner. He noticed that R. C. Lyle was looking a bit pale around the gills. So not very helpfully he suggested to Lyle that there was only one thing worse than having to give a commentary on such a difficult race as the Derby – and that was to be hung. He made amends, however, by insisting that Lyle drank a bottle of champagne. As a result his broadcast was a great success, though I do not think that such ‘medicine’ would be included in Lobby’s list of what a commentator needs. But from personal experience I can confirm that at least it does not do any harm!
R. C. Lyle (note that some commentators, like E. W. [Jim] Swanton in later years, preferred their initials to be used rather than their Christian names) once shocked many listeners and horrified the Director-General, Sir John Reith. In the Derby when Cameronian beat Orpen he got so excited at the distance (240 yards from the winning post) that he shouted, ‘It’s the hell of a race!’ Broadcasting House was inundated with telephone calls of protest. If any of those people who rang up then were alive today, I reckon they would have a pretty hefty phone bill!
In 1938, towards the end of the Northumberland Plate, Lyle suffered a commentator’s nightmare. His voice completely dried up and he was unable to broadcast the finish of the race. He was undoubtedly a great expert on racing and knew every horse, trainer, owner and jockey. But were you able to hear him today you would notice the absence of pre-race description, information about the horses, and the subtle build-up of suspense and excitement which you would get from a commentator like Peter Bromley. In fact Lyle really only took over the microphone when the horses were at the start, and another broadcaster – sometimes George Allison – would handle all the preliminaries.
There was one other occasion when Lyle fell foul of Sir John Reith, who was a teetotaller. During the early stages of the Derby Lyle said, ‘The horses are now passing the advertisement hoarding for Booth’s Dry Gin,’ – this being a conspicuous landmark just after the start. Not only had he broken the BBC rules by advertising, but it was also for drink. Sir John was also not too pleased when a representative of Gordon’s Gin rang up not only to protest but also to ask how they too could get in on the act!
George Allison was a rotund, cheerful figure. He was too busy with his job as manager of Arsenal FC to give sufficient time to the technique of commentary. But he knew his football and all the players, and in the 1930s he was the voice of soccer. He certainly had the gift of the gab. On one occasion at Loch Lomond when describing an attempt on the speedboat record, he kept going for forty minutes while he waited for Kaye Don to appear in Miss England III. In 1936, when Arsenal were in the Cup Final against Sheffield United and he thought it his duty to be with them, he withdrew from the commentary. For the first time two commentators – Ivan Sharpe and F. N. S. Creek – did the job which George had previously done on his own.
It is interesting to note that he got little support from his fellow football administrators, who regarded the broadcasting of matches with suspicion and, often, hostility, fearing the effect it would have on their gates. The matches on which George Allison commentated were all connected with the Football Association. The Football League steadfastly refused the BBC permission to broadcast any League matches before the war. At one time the clubs voted not only to bar commentary of the FA Cup Final but also against the players being numbered. What a nightmare that would be for a football commentator! It only emphasises the difficulties of doing commentary in those days. So George Allison was restricted to Cup Ties and international matches and was never a regular commentator every Saturday.
During the war Alan Hardacre, the League Secretary, relented and League matches were broadcast for the Forces. After the war Lobby managed with difficulty to obtain permission to broadcast League matches on a regular basis every Saturday. But there was one stipulation. Until they cued over to the commentator on the ground, the BBC was not allowed to announce where the match was being held. In fact to start with it was made a complete mystery and the studio would cue over to Raymond Glendenning with something along the lines of, ‘And now it’s time for our soccer commentary on one of today’s League matches. Our commentator is Raymond Glendenning so over to him now to find out where he is.’ It was not until some years later that the studio was allowed to say which match it was in their cue over to Raymond.
Allison came from Stockton-on-Tees and was a friendly, jolly and popular man. He was a very hard worker and although he could be tough, he always cared for his players at Arsenal. It is probably not generally known that he once scooped an interview with Lord Kitchener for the American newspaper magnate Randolph Hearst, and as a result became his press representative in the United Kingdom.
Even in those days before television his voice and face were easily recognised. Once at a railway station a porter approached him and said, ‘Excuse me asking you sir, but are you the gentleman what radiates?’
Once when he had remarked that he found it difficult to see over the heads of the crowd, a listener wrote to him suggesting that he gave his commentary from a balloon! There was also the lady who kept a parrot which was normally a very quiet and well-behaved bird. But there was something about George’s voice which stirred it to strong language. Whenever George shouted, ‘It’s a goal, it’s a goal,’ the parrot would pipe up, ‘Damn you – shut up, you old bugger!’
Commander Tommy Woodroffe was the only commentator ever to have a West End show named after him – George Black’s The Fleet’s Lit Up at the Hippodrome (later The Talk of the Town). In fact, in spite of the many good things he did, his name will always be connected with that famous broadcast from the Royal Naval Review at Spithead in 1935. It was very bad luck on him because he had to spend all day of the broadcast aboard his old ship, HMS Nelson, and among his old shipmates. They were over-hospitable to their old friend, and to make matters worse, they treated the BBC official who was there to look after the Commander in the same way. The result was that by the time dusk fell and it was time for the Fleet to switch on their lights, neither were in a fit state for the broadcast.
I suppose that many people today have never either heard the broadcast, nor the recording. It is certainly one of the classics of broadcasting. Here is an extract from it, and it was delivered, as you can imagine, in a slurred voice, slowly and deliberately:
. . . The Fleet’s lit up. When I say ‘lit up’ I mean lit up by fairy lights. It’s lit up by fairy lights . . . it isn’t a Fleet at all . . . the whole Fleet is a Fairyland. If you follow me through . . . if you don’t mind . . . when I say ‘the Fleet’s lit up’ I mean the whole ships . . . (extra long pause) . . . I was telling someone to shut up. The whole Fleet’s lit up . . . the ships are lit up . . . even the destroyers are lit up. We are going to fire a rocket . . . we are going to fire all sorts of things . . . you may hear my reaction when I see them . . . A huge Fleet here . . . a colossal Fleet all lit up with fairy lights . . . The whole thing is Fairyland . . . it isn’t true . . . It’s gone, it’s gone . . . it’s disappeared . . . No magician ever waved his wand with more acumen.
The Fleet’s gone . . . it’s disappeared . . . I’m trying to give you Ladies and Gentlemen a description . . . the Fleet’s gone . . . it’s disappeared . . . the whole thing’s gone . . . They’ve disappeared . . . We had two hundred warships all round us . . . Now they’ve all gone . . . There’s nothing between us and heaven . . . there’s nothing at all . . .
The broadcast was then faded out with the announcer saying: ‘And that is the end of our relay from Spithead, so now over to the Carlton Hotel for dance music.’
The next morning a tired and rather worse-for-wear Woodroffe reported to Lobby, who had not, unusually for him, heard the broadcast. But Broadcasting House was humming with excitement, and Lobby wisely told Woodroffe to go home and have a good sleep.
Meanwhile Sir John Reith arrived, with his beetling, black eyebrows boding no good for Woodroffe. It was bad luck for the Commander that not only was Sir John strongly against drink on any occasion, let alone at a broadcast, but also that his number two was Admiral Carpendale, a strict disciplinarian in the true naval tradition. So the anti-drink/Royal Navy combination was a formidable force. Sir John’s first words to his personal assistant were, ‘Has de Lotbinière suspended Woodroffe yet?’ Lobby rightly had not done so, since he himself had no first-hand knowledge of what had happened, and refused to take any action until he had investigated.
However, matters were taken out of his hands, and a tribunal was set up to ‘try’ Woodroffe. Sir John evidently thought that the BBC owed it to the listeners to take strong action. Thanks, largely, I feel sure, to the intervention of Lobby, Woodroffe was only suspended from duty for six months. And so he retired temporarily from the microphone – the best-known broadcaster of all time.
He was in fact extremely versatile and when he returned took part in a variety of OBs, including ceremonials, the 1936 Olympic Games, the 1939 Derby and the 1939 FA Cup Final. He was once hauled over the coals for submitting a large expense sheet for hospitality without naming the lucky recipients. So after the Derby he put in his expenses once again showing a large sum for entertaining. But this time he put: ‘– to the Clerk of the Course, the Judge, the starter and a gentleman with glasses wearing a pin-stripe suit whose name I didn’t quite catch.’ And the BBC were happy!
There were a number of characters among the pre-war commentators. In lawn tennis there was Colonel Brand, a well-known Wimbledon linesman, who for some reason wore his Homburg hat sideways. After one of his broadcasts in 1929 the Yorkshire Observer wrote: ‘Tennis-ear-ache! What interest does tennis hold for us? I suppose shortly we shall hear a running commentary on a ping-pong match.’ Things have certainly changed fifty years later.
Like R. C. Lyle, Colonel Brand once lost his voice in the middle of a commentary. Nothing came, and he had to be faded out, as he couldn’t even manage to say, ‘back to the studio.’ He once got very excited during a long rally: ‘Smash, recovery, smash, recovery, smash, recovery, gosh – it’s gone hurtling into the Royal Box at Toque height.’ Whether Queen Mary had time to duck is not related.
A Canadian, Bob Bowman, used to do the ice hockey commentaries before Stewart Macpherson. During one particularly vicious and dirty game in Prague, he changed to a boxing commentary in an attempt to describe the fisticuffs out on the rink.
Michael Standing was a member of the BBC staff and before the war did cricket commentary, often in partnership with Howard Marshall. He had a rather slow languid drawl, well suited to the quieter periods of cricket. He was very tall and a useful fast medium bowler, and knew his cricket. Because of his name, John Watt, the then Head of Variety, devised a street-interview spot for him which he called ‘Standing on the Corner’.
Michael did commentary other than cricket, including once the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London. He had just said, ‘And now silence descends on Tower Hill,’ when a roar of half a dozen motorbikes rent the night air. During the war he took over the OB Department from Lobby and afterwards became Head of Light Entertainment.
A highly efficient Jack-of-all-trades was Captain H. B. T. Wakelam, who soon abandoned his initials and was known as ‘Teddy’. In giving the first-ever live running commentary, at Twickenham on 15 January 1927, he gained an important place in broadcasting history. At half-time he was heard to say on the air: ‘What about a beer?’ He deserved it!
After the match the Spectator reported: ‘That type of broadcasting has come to stay.’ How right they were. To prove his versatility Wakelam achieved another ‘first’ the following Saturday – the first soccer commentary on Arsenal v Sheffield United at Highbury. In 1935 he also gave ten-minute comments on the Tests against South Africa during the intervals and close of play. In 1938 he achieved yet another first – in the televising of the Lord’s Test between England and Australia, his was the first-ever television commentary on cricket ever given anywhere in the world. He also commentated for television later that year at the Oval and again in 1939 for the West Indies Tests at Lord’s and the Oval, assisted by Aidan Crawley and Tommy Woodroffe.
For some reason, however, Wakelam was never enthusiastic about cricket, and thought the game quite unsuitable for lengthy descriptions of play over the air. ‘It was too dull,’ he said. What sacrilege! But he was not the only one to hold that opinion. After the initial experiment in 1927 of reporting from cricket matches the Daily Telegraph wrote: ‘It is obviously impossible to broadcast anything but short periods of description of a three-day cricket match.’ I wonder what the writer would have thought today about our five-day ball-by-ball commentaries on Test match Special.
Wakelam also covered lawn tennis with Colonel Brand and there were complaints that with the Colonel, the Captain and the Commander (Woodroffe) the BBC was turning itself into a sort of Cheltenham military establishment. Once on a very hot day at Wimbledon Wakelam caused quite a sensation during his commentary on the Men’s Doubles. The commentary box was full of old papers, and while lighting a cigarette he accidentally dropped the match among them. They caught fire and burned his trousers, but he managed to stamp out the blaze without interrupting his commentary. He was one of the main pioneers of commentary and showed remarkable knowledge of all the sports which he covered. He was definitely in the top league of commentators during the last fifty years.
The pre-war commentator who made the deepest impression on me was Howard Marshall. I still remember with nostalgia hearing him describe the closing stages of Len Hutton’s innings of 364 at the Oval in 1938. I was having a picnic by a river in Yorkshire with some friends, and his slow, deep, burbling voice came through loud and clear. ‘. . . Bradman with his arms akimbo, the bees are buzzing, and the Oval sparrows are pecking away at the grass by the pavilion gate . . .’ It was evocative stuff and paced exactly right for cricket. I think it’s fair to say that of all the pre-war commentators he would be the only one totally acceptable today, so good was his technique and his knowledge of cricket. He was a rugby blue at Oxford, but only a good class club cricketer. Unlike most of the others he was a member of the BBC staff, and so had the advantage of accumulating experience as a broadcaster. Besides cricket and rugby he did boxing and ceremonials including the Coronation of 1937. He was thus able to build up time at the microphone which is the best possible way of learning to broadcast.
During the war he was a war correspondent for the BBC and landed in Normandy on D-Day with the invasion forces. I remember hearing his report on the first evening from Broadcasting House in London. He had landed in Normandy early in the morning, and had then been rushed back to Broadcasting House – still in his dirty battledress.
It was some time before he did actual live cricket commentary in the 1930s. Like the Football League, the cricket authorities were frightened of the effect it would have on their gates, so it was not until 1938 that he was allowed into the grounds to describe play as it was happening. Before this he used to sit in the press box and rush out of the ground at intervals and close of play to broadcast from some nearby building where the BBC engineers had set up their equipment.
In 1934 I heard his reports on the Lord’s Test match against Australia – Hedley Verity’s match when he took 15 wickets for 104 runs. The reports must have been good because I can still recall his description of Patsy Hendren’s tumbling catch at silly point, where he caught Tim Wall off Verity, and finished the match.
It was during this Test that Howard had to rush to the basement of a borrowed house in nearby Grove End Road to do his reports. For one of them he arrived breathless to find that the young daughter of the house was having a piano lesson upstairs. The first part of his report had a background of scales, until one of the engineers persuaded the young girl to stop. But her mother was not too pleased, and after a minute or so came down and rapped on the window of the basement, shouting, ‘How much longer? My little girl’s wasting her music lesson!’
Howard was normally quiet and unexcitable, but on one occasion a listener did write in to complain. She said that when McCabe was bowled by Fames, Howard let out a fearful shout of ‘He’s out!’ and sounded as if he had swallowed his tonsils. She went on, ‘The Prince of Broadcasters had raised his voice!’
As you may have gathered, in the days of Sir John Reith (as he was when Director-General) a commentator had to be very careful what he said on the air. Goodness knows what Sir John would have said about some of our goings-on in the Test match Special box today. As an example of what I mean, Howard was once describing the bowling of the Australian, Bill O’Reilly. The Tiger, as he was called, was bowling magnificently and skittling out the England side. So Howard plucked up courage and actually sang over the air:
If you’re the O’Reilly,
They speak of so highly,
Gor’ Blimey, O’Reilly,
You are bowling well.
It was the Gor’ Blimey which did it, and in addition to an internal reprimand, Howard received a lot of letters of rebuke from the listeners. One anonymous writer wrote:
My dear Slobber-Chops,
Now you’ve done it. ‘Gor’ Blimey’ indeed. We know you’re not the Archbishop of Canterbury but need you descend to blasphemy? I hope they excommunicate you!