Paddy Feeny
Witty broadcaster who for 35 years presented the World Service’s Sportsworld to an army of fans
PADDY FEENY, the broadcaster, who has died aged 87, enjoyed a varied career on television and radio, but became known around the world as a BBC World Service sports presenter for 36 years. Feeny’s career in radio began at the age of 26 when he approached the BBC in Birmingham and was offered a job. In 1956, during a fleeting visit to Bush House in London, the studio manager asked him to do relief announcing and was so impressed he offered him a freelance job with the World Service.
During his time with the BBC, Feeny was a quizmaster on the school swotathon Top of the Form on both television and radio, presented the schools radio programme Springboard and, for a while in the 1960s, Junior Choice on Radio 1. In the 1970s he presented Young Scientists of the Year on television.
In 1959 he took the job of presenting Saturday Special (now Sportsworld), the World Service’s weekly flagship sports programme, continuing to present it until he bade his army of fans farewell for the last time in 1995. By the time he retired the programme had grown from one hour a week during the summer months to two hours plus throughout the year.
In the intervening 35 years, Feeny provided a lifeline to listeners from New Zealand to Namibia and from Israel to Newfoundland wanting to keep up with British and international sporting events as they happened. A keen and highly knowledgeable sports fan himself, Feeny dispensed commentary and insight in a fast-paced style, leavened with wit, humour and occasional sarcasm, that kept his audience riveted.
“It’s a combination of timing, coordination, understanding the subject and a pinch of telepathy,” he explained to an interviewer from the Straits Times in 1993. “Exclamations, such as ah ha, oops and OK, help to make some links, but you must also be armed with an array of jokes and morsels of teasers when references are made to teams. Like, for instance, when giving Northern Irish soccer results, if Coleraine is in the news, throw in bits like ‘do you know that Bertie Peacock played for Coleraine in 1934 and later went on to play for Northern Ireland?’ ”
When called upon to report tragedy, Feeny responded with a sensitivity that could leave listeners in tears. He was on hand as the 1989 Hillsborough disaster unfolded, providing listeners with a moving description of events, resisting any temptation to sensationalise. He himself recalled the darkest moment of his career as the massacre of 11 Israelis at the 1972 Munich Olympics. He had been interviewing the squad a few hours earlier and it took him a long time to get over their deaths.
On a lighter note, Feeny would recall receiving letters from tank commanders on opposite sides of the 1971 Bangladesh war of independence, concluding that “they were more interested in the football than killing each other”. He was also told by a highranking Sri Lankan diplomat that the country’s foreign ministry timed their cocktail parties around the English racing results.
“In over 40 years of broadcasting, I have kept to one maxim,” Feeny explained, “that I am involved in a relationship with one person, not millions. I want the listeners to relate to me as a friend.”
Paddy Feeny was born in Liverpool on April 25 1931 and began his career as an actor and scene-shifter and general factotum in theatre before moving into broadcasting. His duties on Saturday Special took Feeny around the world and he took an interest in people in all walks of life. In 1964 he published The Fight Against Leprosy, and on television he presented two documentaries in 1968 on the lives of immigrants in Britain.
When he retired from Sportsworld he recorded a valedictory dispatch for From Our Own Correspondent, in which he recalled an interview with the boxer Joe Frazier. Who, asked Feeny, did he consider his most dangerous opponent? “I consider anybody who weighs more than 180lb and is more than 6ft 2in in height to be a dangerous opponent,” came the reply.
“But,” spluttered Feeny, “I am more than 6ft 2in tall and I weigh more than 180lb.” “I know,” replied Frazier, “and I’m keeping my eye on you.” “Which,” Feeny said, “to an overweight middle-aged man like me was a charming thing to say.”
Feeny was a supporter of Liverpool FC, but cricket was his real passion and for some years he chaired the Mid-sussex Sunday League side Cuckfield Wheatsheaf. He enlisted overseas contacts to found supporters’ branches in places as far afield as Lapland, Mombasa, Mumbai, Stockholm, Chicago and even Australia’s Coffs Harbour. In 2001 the club’s “global” following was reported to have helped it secure a (shortlived) sponsorship deal with the electrical giant Ariston – which did not realise that Wheatsheaf were just a lowly pub side.
“The team is for older blokes who still want to play,” Feeny said. “Age is no barrier. Last season we fielded a back four that had a combined age of 189.”
In 1956 Feeny married Patricia Brewer, who died in 1994. He is survived by his second wife Dee, and by two daughters from his first marriage.
Paddy Feeny, born April 25 1931, died June 10 2018