Genuine guy and what a fabulous commentator

IAM from a generation of sports fans who grew up idolising commentators such as Dan Maskell, David Coleman, Richie Benaud and Cliff Morgan. Their words breathed vivid colours into the action that unfolded in front of us on our screens. The sound of their voices was enough to spike the heart rate, the sign that something special was about to unfold. Murray Walker was the last of them.

I spent four seasons working in Formula One in the mid-1990s and even though I did not socialise with Murray that often, I got to know him well enough to realise he was one of the most genuine, amiable, open and welcoming of men. Sometimes broadcasters have a public persona that hides their real self. Murray was not like that.

Murray was the same in real life as he was behind the microphone. He was vivacious and enthusiastic and passionate and knowledgeable. He loved motor sport with every fibre of his being. And most of all, he had not an ounce of malice in him.

I got a message on Twitter yesterday from an old friend. ‘Was lucky enough to go the British GP once with pit lane passes,’ he wrote. ‘Watched the start stood next to Murray Walker as he commentated. He was a gent to two loons who couldn’t believe where we were.’

That was Murray all over. My fondest memory? Maybe at Suzuka in 1996 when Damon Hill won the Japanese Grand Prix and with it the F1 world title. Murray had been around in the sport long enough to know Damon’s father Graham, who had been killed in a plane crash.

He knew what this meant to Damon and he knew what it would have meant to his dad.

Damon was popular, too, and the day after that race some of us travelled to Tokyo with him on the Bullet Train and talked about how, when Damon took the chequered flag the day before, Murray had been overcome with emotion.

There are superb commentators in sport today but the passing of Murray Walker marks the end of an era. Hear his voice and it makes you think of Mansell and Piquet, Prost and Senna.

He was part of the soundtrack of our lives.