McCoy to hang up mic after 50 years

JOHN McCoy will attend Saturday’s Tattersall’s Race Club meeting at Doomben, just as he has hundreds of times before, but this time knowing his retirement from the airwaves is imminent.

For 50 years, the voice of McCoy (below) has been a fixture on Brisbane and Queensland radio stations.

For the past 16, he has headed Radio TAB’s Breakfast Sports show, most recently with cohosts Peter Psaltis and Paul Sawtell.

That is set to change early in the New Year when he says goodbye to broadcasting.

“I wouldn’t change anything. I’ve had a great life workwise and done what I wanted to do,” McCoy said.

“I know quite a few sporting people who say they just knew when the time was right. I turned 70 this year and in the last couple of months I’ve had a couple of my really close mates from school pass away.

“Now might be the time, while I’m still capable, to enjoy life – enjoy our nine grandkids.”

McCoy hardly ever misses a Tattersalls Racing Club meeting.

He has been a member of the club since 1985 and was on the board for nine years – the last three of which were as president, before stepping down in 2012. He has since been named a life member of the club.

“I first really started going to Tatt’s when I was at 4BC and doing the racing,” he recalls.

“My boss was Vince Curry. Tatt’s was his home away from home. Every day he wasn’t at the races, he would be in there and we went to lunch together at Tatt’s many times.”

One of McCoy’s lasting legacies at the club was changing the name of the Winter Stakes to the Tatt’s Tiara, soon after the race attained its Group 1 status.