David Coleman OBE was, for more than five decades, one of the foremost figures in BBC sports broadcasting – a man whose voice became as much a fixture of the British sporting calendar as the events he described.
Born in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, Coleman was a genuine athlete before he was a broadcaster. A keen middle-distance runner in his youth, he won the Manchester Mile in 1949 as a member of Stockport Harriers – the only non-international competitor ever to do so.
He represented Manchester Athletic Club in the English National Cross-Country Championships in both 1952 (finishing 116th, third team) and 1953 (118th), and ran the quarter-mile for Staffordshire.
Recurring injury eventually ended his competitive career, and he later took on the role of president of Wolverhampton and Bilston Athletics Club.
His path to journalism began at the Stockport Express, and during national service in the Royal Corps of Signals he contributed to the British Army Newspaper Unit, spending part of his service in Kenya.
After demobilisation he joined Kemsley Newspapers and, at just 22, became editor of the Cheshire County Express.
Hamstring trouble kept him from the 1952 Olympic trials, but it was this setback that pointed him towards broadcasting.
He approached the BBC to offer his assistance with athletics coverage and, without any formal audition, was assigned to cover Roger Bannister at Bradford City Police Sports.
The following year he took on freelance radio work in Manchester. In 1954 he relocated to Birmingham to join the BBC as a news assistant and sports editor, making his television debut on Sportsview on the very day Bannister broke the four-minute mile.
By November 1955 he had been appointed sports editor of the BBC’s Midlands Region.
In October 1958, Peter Dimmock – then the BBC’s Head of Sport – invited Coleman to take over from him as the regular presenter of the newly launched Saturday afternoon programme Grandstand.
He anchored the show until 1968 and continued to appear for marquee occasions such as the Grand National until around 1984.
His presenting work across BBC Sport also included:
- Summer Grandstand (BBC Television/BBC One, 1959, 1964 – 1966 and 1968);
- Co-presented BBC TV’s Sports Review of the Year nineteen times (BBC Television/BBC One, 1959 – 1971 and 1979 – 1984);
- Presented the mid-week programme Sportsnight with Coleman (BBC One, 1968 – 1972);
Coleman contributed to BBC children’s programming too:
- Sport on the Spot (1961);
- Junior Sportsview (7th April 1961);
- Holiday Knockout (1964).
His versatility as a broadcaster stretched well beyond sport. He reported on the 1959 General Election for the BBC from the Press Association’s headquarters, and covered the return of The Beatles from the United States in 1964 within Grandstand on BBC One.
He was also the commentator for Miss World (1961 – 1962) and presented Talkback – billed as “Television’s own correspondence column” – on BBC One from 1967 to 1968.
A landmark moment in broadcast technology came in July 1966, when Coleman introduced the first use of slow-motion videotape at the AAA Championships during Grandstand, as Paul Nash beat Wiesław Maniak to take the 100 yards gold.
His commentary career was equally distinguished. He presented and/or commentated on eleven Olympic Games, from Rome in 1960 through to Sydney in 2000, as well as eight Commonwealth Games, and covered seven World Cups in both commentary and presenting capacities.
When Kenneth Wolstenholme stepped down in 1971, Coleman assumed the mantle of the BBC’s senior football commentator.
He went on to cover the World Cup finals of 1974 and 1978, the European Cup finals of 1973 and 1975, and every FA Cup final from 1972 to 1976.
A legal dispute with the BBC cost him the 1977 final – a gap that gave John Motson his FA Cup final debut. Coleman returned for the 1978 final before Motson took permanent custody of the occasion.
His final live football commentary came on 26th May 1979, as he described England’s 3 – 1 victory over Scotland at Wembley in the 1978 – 79 British Home Championships, though he continued as a secondary commentator at matches until October 1981 – his last assignment being a League Cup tie between Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United.
Not all his on-air moments were universally admired. His exclamation of “One–nil!” at the moment a goal was scored could either delight or irritate viewers depending on their disposition.
At the 1968 Mexico Olympics, commentating at a recorded pace of 200 words per minute on David Hemery’s victory in the 400 metres hurdles, he was able to identify only the first two finishers and memorably declared: “Who cares who’s third?”
The bronze medallist, as it transpired, was fellow Briton John Sherwood – and out of respect for him, most subsequent broadcasts of the race have had that line removed.
Satirists of the 1980s and 1990s made much of Coleman’s apparent capacity for astonishment at the unremarkable, and Clive James neatly defined the phenomenon by writing that a commentator says something you may wish to remember, while a ‘colemantator’ says something you try to forget.
By contrast, his broadcast conduct during the 1972 Munich Olympics siege – when he stayed on air for several hours covering both the unfolding tragedy and the subsequent memorial service – drew widespread admiration and underlined his calibre as a journalist.
From 1984, Coleman’s focus shifted primarily to athletics, encompassing the London Marathon from its inaugural staging in 1981 through to 2000.
His other long-running television commitment was A Question of Sport on BBC One, which he hosted for eighteen years from 1979 to 1997, building strong on-screen chemistry with captains Emlyn Hughes, Ian Botham, Willie Carson and Bill Beaumont.
Occasional absences saw former host David Vine step in during 1989 when Coleman was unwell; in 1996, Bill Beaumont hosted two editions while Will Carling temporarily took over as team captain, with Sue Barker presenting two further editions later that year.
Among his honours, Coleman was appointed OBE for services to broadcasting in the 1993 New Year Honours List.
He received the Judges’ Award for Sport at the 1996 Royal Television Society Awards.
On his retirement following the Sydney 2000 Olympics, IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch personally presented him with the Olympic Order, recognising his extraordinary contribution to the Olympic movement – making him the first broadcaster ever to receive it.
Characteristically, Coleman asked for no ceremony or acknowledgement from the BBC on his departure, despite more than four decades of service to the corporation.
The BBC nonetheless paid tribute with a documentary, The Quite Remarkable David Coleman, broadcast shortly after his 85th birthday in May 2011.
Personal information
Clips of David on The TV Room
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Online presence
Acknowledgements
PICTURED: David Coleman. COPYRIGHT: BBC.
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