John Inverdale has his own opinion on how the sport should be reformed. Photo: Telegraph/Christopher Pledger. Wimbledon for the last time as BBC commentator. His last assignment was the men's doubles final, which was won by Neil Skupsky and Wesley Koolhoff, and Inverdale finished with the smoothness that made him the once golden boy of BBC Sport: and his gang.
Later, something began to bother him. “It's a pretty good line, but when I got home I thought, 'God almighty, let's talk about conceding an open goal.' This was supposed to be a “holiday” for Cool and his gang. If I spent a nanosecond more, it would come. Anyway, I was so angry all Sunday evening. Draw 1:1, although it should have been 2:0.
For now, it's the end of the broadcaster's career that took him from local radio to On Side, BBC One's prime-time sports chat show at the turn of the millennium, with rigorous celebrity interviews and the longest walking platform ever seen on television. or since. There were several Olympics, years when he was a mainstay of 5Live and covered six nations and the Rugby World Cup for ITV.
But his 39-year stint at Wimbledon ended without much fanfare. BBC pushed or did he jump? “Whenever a football manager leaves, they leave by mutual consent and you say, 'Yes, that's right.' This was the first time this happened by mutual consent. We both felt that it was probably time.”
We drink in an afternoon pub near Arundel in West Sussex. There is a cricket field next to its car park, and outside it offers stunning views of the South Downs. The Goodwood Stand is visible on the horizon. “This sports nirvana,” Inverdale says in the text when arranging.
Inverdale will still be active in sports, just not necessarily behind a microphone. Photo: Christopher Pledger for Telegraph/Christopher Pledger for Telegraph
Away from the mic, some broadcasters are clearly the alpha grade who dominate the room with star power. Others draw you in with their sense of language or delivery. Inverdale is just unspeakably pleasant company, which probably accounts for his longevity. He's the kind of rugby club man who instinctively carries empty beer glasses back to the bar.
A full pension is unattractive. His weeks are free from broadcast but filled with a seat on the RFU board, a position on the board at Cheltenham Racecourse and his long association with Esher Rugby Club. He is also the chairman of the National League, ranked third and fourth in home rugby, and upon joining was shocked that fans were unable to see the weekend's best attempts. The league released a weekly 15-minute compilation of the best moments, but few people bothered to watch them.
“You talked to the players about it and they said, 'It's been too long.' Too long? It's 15 minutes, and by the way, you were there too. Against this background, it is very difficult to understand how the old way of doing things fits. But you have to embrace it.”
Is the BBC up to these challenges? – I really do not know. There is nothing to sharpen here. Inverdale may have represented Sports Report for seven years, but in the age of smartphones, he doesn't mourn classified football scores. “You didn't need four and a half minutes of virtually dead air. I thought the scandal around it was based entirely on nostalgic longing for what is gone.”
It is clear that the former Inverdale industry is in the process of being reorganized and in an endless search for a younger audience. “It's a bit like classical music. People say, “Oh, we need to attract a younger audience.” Why? Since 40 year olds will be 60 in 20 years, you have your audience, so don't worry about it. I think you can go on a sort of crazy chase after something that doesn't really exist when it actually comes to you.”
Undoubtedly, this will mean the end of more beloved institutions. “Will there be a Match of the Day in 10 years? I really do not know. Part of me thinks, why would that be? Not because it's useless, but what kind of void does it fill?”
His kind, a sports presenter who never played professionally, is almost extinct. “I think the value of the language has been greatly diminished in recent years.” Is there anyone he highly appreciates from the new generation of hosts? He pauses and purses his lips. “The trouble is, if I say no, it will make me rude and antediluvian.” In the end, he stops at Isa Guha. “She was there, doing it, playing. I think she is good and will be really good.”
John Inverdale o…
Radio was his first love, starting as a child, when he was the son of a Royal Navy dental surgeon who spent long periods abroad and suffered from chest problems and asthma, which resolved in his teens. The result was days and weeks spent with radio as his primary companion. “For my career, it meant that I learned a lot, which I would not have done if I had not been sick.”
He needed the fortitude to navigate the turbulent waters of the last 10 years. There was his roar when Marion Bartoli won Wimbledon in 2013, and Inverdale suggested she would “never be a beauty”. This was almost immediately corrected by a personal apology that Bartoli accepted at the Ball of Champions. A year later, their relationship became cordial enough to be interviewed by Radio Times together. But this story will probably come up in every interview he does for the rest of his life. “Roger Federer is still being asked about two match points with Djokovic in 2019. You just have to admit that sometimes you will obviously be wrong, but then you apologize, and that's all you can do.”
For a while after that, he became a lightning rod who was beaten up for slips of the tongue that happen when he spends tens of thousands of hours speaking without a script. “When you are in the middle of a storm, there is nothing you can do about it, so you just have to accept it. I think it's better for you to accept this and not answer, because otherwise it will only inflame him.
Like many departing TV presenters in recent years, Clive Tyldesley, Sue Barker and, of course, Martin Tyler, I believe that the longer he is gone, the more he will be overrated and missed. He is not interested in such talk, and he exercises much more in the exercises, praising the benefits of sports and recreation for human happiness.
The joy of watching sports has not diminished, but he has some problems. “The imitation of an injury in football or a waste of time is so obvious. But the game is afraid to do something about it, because the power is in the hands of the players, and no one dares.”
He put a time limit on kicks in rugby or golf. “Once you’re on the lawn, sorry, it doesn’t mean that you just took to the field that morning and have never played there before. Get up, you have 25 seconds to hit that punch.”
He speaks, I guess, like a man who had to fill in a lot of gaps. “I have. You say, 'Come to me, he's going to hit.' A minute later, he's still looking at her from a different angle. How does the sport allow this? It's crazy.”
So there's more to come a lot of work and a lot of things that he would like to change.Now, in the twilight of his career and on the side of the administrators, perhaps he can.
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