LESSON ONE: THERE’S NO PUCK
Broadcaster Graham Leggat helped a hockey-loving nation understand soccer.
TSN host Graham Leggat helped soccer’s popularity grow in his adopted country “Pick that out!”
Delivered in a bog-thick Scottish brogue, Graham Leggat’s catchphrase was directed at goaltenders and the ball that got by them. “Pick that out!”
Soccer analyst and host of TSN’s flagship soccer show Soccer Saturday from 1986 to 2000, Leggat did as much as anyone in this country to bring the beautiful game to our living rooms and explain its intricacies.
He died on Aug. 29 at Scarborough Centenary Hospital at the age of 81.
“With his distinct voice and Scottish charm, Graham set the standard for soccer broadcasting in Canada, helping to raise a new generation of Canadian soccer fans,” the network said in a statement.
At TSN, he also hosted Soccer News and European Report, as well as World of Soccer, a weekly program featuring games and news from the top leagues around the globe. It was a far cry from today’s media landscape, where international games and high- lights are widely available.
He began his broadcasting career with the CBC in 1974 and would cover five World Cups and two Olympics over his career, raising the sport’s profile in Canada considerably.
But “he wasn’t a soccer snob,” said Vic Rauter, Leggat’s co-host at Soccer Saturday. “He could get the greatest enjoyment watching kids at 6 and 7 years old, with their shorts touching the ball, as watching the very best from Europe. He just loved the game.”
And he watched its popularity mushroom. In 1988, about 285,000 Canadian amateur, semi-pro and professional players were registered with the Canadian Soccer Association. Last year, the number was 824,000. Of those, 393,000 were boys and 277,000 were girls.
But Leggat knew that in this country, soccer could never compete with hockey. “He realized what we were up against,” Rauter acknowledged. “His argument was if (Canada) can get to the World Cup, that would sell people. But he knew it was a niche sport.”
Certainly, soccer gained traction in North America in 1986 when Canada’s men’s national team made its sole appearance in the World Cup’s final stage (though we lost all three games) and when the United States hosted the tourney in 1994.
Rauter and Leggat traversed the country 20 weeks a year for the six years the old Canadian Soccer League lasted, calling games from Victoria to Halifax. In Calgary once, a lamppost blocked the television cameras. So the broadcast team was placed on trucks belonging to the team’s sponsor, Palm Dairy, with a few rickety tables holding TV monitors before them. Rauter recalled that Leggat turned to him and sadly inquired: “This isn’t the Blue Jays, is it?” Still, “soccer was getting some exposure, and it wasn’t getting that anywhere else.”
A star striker for Aberdeen, the Scottish club of his 1934 birthplace, Leggat was “arguably one of the best players ever to grace Pittodrie,” Aberdeen Football Club said in its tribute, referring to the team’s stadium.
He joined the team at age 18 and scored his first goal 45 seconds into his career. Leggat led Aberdeen to the league title in 1955 and the Scottish League Cup the following year.
Leggat played for Scotland in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden.
He spent the rest of his 16-year career in England with several teams. At Fulham, he held the record for fastest hat trick in English top-flight football history when he scored three times in three minutes for a 10-1 win against Ipswich in 1963. The milestone stood until just a few months ago.
Leggat came to Canada in 1971 as the first player/coach of the Toronto Metros of the North American Soccer League. “He certainly made a big impression right away with the media,” recalled Stan Adamson, who served on the Metros’ board of directors at the time. “Soccer then was not a mainstream sport.”
Leggat was inducted into the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame in 2001 under the Builder category.