Broadcaster blessed with ‘precise and concise’ style

David Coleman

, a dominant voice of British television sport for almost four decades, has died at the age of 87, leaving a generation of football and athletics fans mourning the loss of a great communicator. Tributes to the commentator with the deep vocal register and trademark laconic delivery came in from footballers and fellow broadcasters.

Gary Lineker, the former England striker and current Match of the Day presenter, called him "a giant of sports broadcasting. Brilliant, gifted, precise and concise." He added that Coleman was much more than the famously dry "one-nil" with which he often marked the first goal of a match.

The director general of the BBC, Tony Hall, said: "David Coleman was one of this country's greatest and most respected broadcasters. Whether presenting, commentating or offering analysis, he set the standard for all today's sports broadcasters. Our thoughts are with his family and many friends."

Voice recognition
Barbara Slater, BBC director of sport, added: "David Coleman was a giant in the sports broadcasting world, a hugely respected figure. His was one of broadcasting's most authoritative and identifiable voices."

Coleman, who his family said had died peacefully after a short illness, worked for the BBC for almost 50 years, covering 11 summer Olympics, his final one in Sydney in 2000. He also covered six football World Cups as a commentator or presenter. For a decade he presented 60 Grandstand shows a year and hosted Match of the Day almost as often.

Perhaps the "Lord of the Larynx's" greatest skill, according to Frank Keating, the veteran Guardian sports writer, was his "race-reading of successive Olympic 100m finals – identifying eight men tearing straight at him in a 10-second blur".

But Coleman’s most important journalistic work came after the 1972 Munich Olympics murders, in what Keating called “his prolonged and sombre vigil, working off just one distant fixed camera”.

Sheepskin livery
Even those viewers who might have wanted to avoid the growing hold "the beautiful game" had on British culture during the 1980s came to recognise Coleman, an early adopter of the commentator's sheepskin coat, when he began chairing the BBC quiz A Question of Sport.

On this popular show, in which he marshalled team captains such as the jockey Willy Carson, footballer Emlyn Hughes and rugby player Bill Beaumont, Coleman became as well known for his line in patterned sweaters as he was on the pitch for his furry coat.

Many of his stylistic quirks went on to inspire imitators and satirists, including Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge, originally a spoof sports reporter. But perhaps the measure of Coleman's cultural impact was the fact that Private Eye created a column in his name, devoted to the celebration of the infidelities of sporting commentary. The magazine's Colemanballs column, now known as Commentatorballs, irritated Coleman "to the point of anger", according to Keating, but the presenter had mellowed by the time a Spitting Image puppet arrived chortling "Er, really quite remarkable".

Coleman had a reputation for being tough to work with and his eventual departure from the BBC was quiet.

Olympic honour
But after his final Games in Sydney the president of the IOC, Juan Antonio Samaranch, presented him with an Olympic Order medal at a solemn ceremony in Lausanne. He was the first broadcaster or journalist ever to be so honoured.

Assessing Coleman's career in 2000 Beaumont said Coleman had shaped sports commentary in Britain. "His enthusiasm and love of knowledge always came through. David could tell you how many games Cowdenbeath had won and all sorts of things. And over the 12 or 13 years on the programme the only thing that changed was that his parting got wider and his sweaters got worse."
Guardian Service