Newspaper greats with quite the story to tell...
THE halcyon days of newspaper sports journalism bring back memories of some great characters. Local newspapers, whether in print or online, still provide an important platform but life and reading habits have changed as has the drinking culture with sportswriters.
So, too, has the way we work.
If you are a journalist, the access to footballers and managers is now limited.
Above all the social side of work has changed as well.
Two of the great characters when I arrived in the West Midlands 50 years ago were Ian Willars of The Birmingham Post and Mail, and Alan Williams of the Daily Express.
Long gone but never forgotten by me.
Pipe-smoking Willars, known as ‘The Duke’ because of his posh voice, always greeted you with a big smile.
At the paper’s old building in Birmingham city centre, he would bring two jackets to the office.
At 10.30am, he would put one across his chair so that everyone thought he was IN!
Then he would walk across to The Queen’s Head for the first pint of the day. He joined the 10.31am club, mostly with solicitors and the odd other journalist!
Ian would describe how to get to a football ground in the pre-sat nav days by locating the pubs near that ground.
Ian Johnson, still very much with us, was the editor of the famous pink Saturday evening sports paper, the Sports Argus, which used to sell 200,000 copies. He recalls fondly when he travelled to away matches with Willars.
They would leave two hours earlier than required so they could stop off to visit a couple of pubs!
Willars, for the record, was a good journalist as so many were in those days with plenty of characters.
Williams would sink pink gins for fun.
The late Jeff Farmer was on the Daily Mail before joining me at
Central TV. He told me a great story about how they were covering a Wolves match in Europe and all the press met in the hotel bar for a drink before going off to Wolves training to obtain prematch quotes from the manager Bill Mcgarry. An American oil man introduced himself as W.D Allderman junior and wore a big Texan hat. He asked Williams what he was drinking.
When told it was pink gins he asked if he fancied a drinking contest.
The press could not believe the Texan was taking him on. Williams accepted, knowing his colleagues would cover for him.
When the press pack returned, they passed W.D. Allderman junior
crawling down the corridor towards his room in nothing but his underpants and his Texan hat muttering “That Alan Williams is something else!”
The said Williams was still at the bar with pen and paper poised asking the pack for Mcgarry’s quotes.
The Sports Argus was a great product in its day covering all sports, but the big attraction was the fact it had to be printed by, at the latest, three minutes past five because the football scores and reports were the main attraction.
This was before TV football rolling news, online and instant videos.
Older readers, I am sure, will recall queuing at the local newsagents for their copy as the vans rushed round the area.
The history of the Sports Argus is 1897 to May 2006, when the TV and radio coverage finally killed it off.
Leon Hickman, thankfully still with us, was the head of sport of the Birmingham Evening Mail from 1982 to 2003.
When he joined the paper in 1975, it was selling around 437,000 copies a night.
He recalls a story about a fine writer called Neil Harman, who went on to be the tennis reporter for The Times.
Hickman came across a story about two local league teams in Staffordshire who were both so angry with the referee that they walked off.
The match had to be abandoned. Hickman asked his team to find out the name of the referee – only to discover it was Neil
Harman!
The late Ray Matts was a popular and very funny man.
He was a Mail writer for years before joining the Daily Mail as their motor racing reporter.
Senior sports reporter Dennis
Shaw was highly respected and doubled up to be the football preview on-screen Friday pundit on ATV Today until my arrival. Hickman remembers when Matts and Shaw were both sent to Spain with Birmingham City, who had the wonderful, fun-loving manager in Jim Smith.
Matts was sharing a hotel room with Shaw who one night opted out of a drinking session to go to bed.
Later Matts and Smith went to the room. Matts very gently held up Shaw’s nose while the Bald Eagle shaved off half of Shaw’s moustache!
The Blues players were in fits of laughter the next morning when Shaw came down for breakfast in that state!
Life is so different now…..
Next week, why I formed the Midland Soccer Writers and tales from their televised dinners.
Ian would describe how to get to a football ground in the pre-sat nav days by locating the pubs near that ground.