In the pantheon of sport’s definitive voices, Murray goes straight into Heaven’s dream team!
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SHAUN MURPHY insists that having fans back at the Crucible this year would be a huge boost for the players. The iconic venue is set to welcome a limited crowd at next month’s Betfred World Championship after the government gave it the nod as a pilot event. Snooker’s blue-riband tournament starts on April 17, and the 17 days of competition are poised to see an audience of up to 300 per session in the 980-capacity arena. Former world champion Murphy (above) said: “If it ends up being true it is the best news I’ve had in 12 months. It’s been tough playing empty rooms.”
UNLESS he is very much mistaken, Murray Walker’s ascent to the great commentary box upstairs completes the full set.
In the pantheon of sport’s definitive voices, Walker goes straight into the celestial dream team.
Richie Benaud told us not to bother looking for Ian Botham’s towering six at Headingley, let alone chasing it – because it had gone straight into the confectionery stall and out again.
Sir Peter O’Sullevan could identify silks miles away on the Epsom Downs, at Aintree or the Gloucestershire hinterlands at Cheltenham. David Coleman famously took Italy and Chile to task for their Battle of Santiago at the 1962 World Cup, branding their anarchy “the most stupid, appalling, disgusting and disgraceful exhibition of football, possibly in the history of the game”.
‘Whispering’ Ted Lowe’s hushed soundtrack at the Crucible, Geordie bard Sid Waddell’s inspired dottiness at the darts, the glorious baritone of Peter Alliss on the golf course and Dan Maskell’s priceless plums in his mouth at Wimbledon were all part of our sporting landscape.
So was Eddie Waring’s sympathy with Don Fox after his shanked conversion, right under the posts, cost Wakefield Trinity rugby league’s Challenge Cup final: “He’s missed it! The poor lad...”
When Harry Carpenter wasn’t ringside, commentating on world title fights, he was on first-name terms with the pugilists. Know what I mean, ‘Arry?
And Bill McLaren’s mellifluous tones turned brawling prop forwards into “a little argy-bargy” or elusive half-backs into fugitives who were “as quick as a trout up a burn.”
With Murray Walker, who has died at 97, the curtain has fallen on a golden age for sport.
We only miss the finest voices when they are gone, and with the great Muzza’s passing there is a sense the last light has gone out on the outside broadcast producer’s dashboard. Even those of us who regard Formula One as a round-the-world pollutant and a glorified trade show readily acknowledge Walker was synonymous with his specialist subject. He was pure gold, one in a bullion.
And those of us who fear F1 is now a spectacle where drivers are too often mere supporting acts to the machines were allowed to marvel at his foot-in-mouth moments – because he had the good grace to laugh at himself.
“As you look at the first four, the significant thing is that Alberto is fifth”, and “Do my eyes deceive me, or is Senna’s Lotus sounding rough?” as well as, “With half the race gone, there is still half the race to go.”
Comedy scriptwriters can only dream of one-liners like some of the great man’s gaffes. The highest compliment we can pay Walker is that, for many of us, he was the main reason to watch motor racing on the box.
And like his compadres in that commentary box dream team up in the stars, his voice will be forever synonymous with the chequered flag he took three years short of his century.
Unless we are very much mistaken, it’s the end of an era. God’s speed, Murray – the privilege was all ours.