2022 deadpool

RIP Mrs McClusky

 

RIP

 

RIP Eddie

 

Wow, that is a shock. Only 65 as well. I'll miss his commentaries, RIP Eddie

 

Rip Mr Butler

 

The former England hooker Brian Moore paid tribute to his friend and BBC colleague on social media. “I am devastated by this news,” Moore tweeted. “Ed, I’m sorry I never told you how much I admired you as a broadcaster and as a man. Well, it wasn’t like that between us, was it. Condolences to Sue and your family. Sport has lost an iconic voice. I have lost a very dear friend. Goodbye Edward.”

 

So sad, RIP Eddie, international games won’t be the same without your dulcet tones.

 

That was a shock to hear that news RIP Eddie

 

From behind the Times firewall

One of the great TV commentators – colourful Eddie Butler lifted every game
Stephen Jones

Eddie Butler played for Pontypool when the Eastern Valley club in Wales were fielding the most fearsome pack in the history of club rugby, fronted by a legendary front row and with Butler at No 8.

Their coaches in that period did not stand on ceremony. The main training run was up the improbably steep incline opposite the main stand and they used nicknames that tended to be somewhat brutal — among them “Deafy”, “Shaft” and “Fat Arse”. Butler, fresh-faced from three Varsity matches while at Cambridge, became “Bamber” after Bamber Gascoigne, then host of University Challenge.

Yet Butler — who has died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 65 while in Peru fundraising for the charity Prostate Cymru — was himself a fierce and confrontational player. It was not as though he stood out from the marauding Pooler pack as a different beast.

He was not in the class of a Mervyn Davies or a Taulupe Faletau as a No 8 but he was an excellent player, won 16 caps and led his country six times. His worst memory of his career was probably the day in 1984 when Wales were thrashed by Romania in Bucharest, then the darkest day of their history.

He joined the journalism ranks for a long and loyal career. Journalists had not always found him easy to deal with as a player but he came in smoothly, and indeed, quite beautifully for BBC Wales, then The Observer, then BBC nationwide. He was accomplished as an opinionated Sunday newspaperman with the hair-raising deadlines, but also a good reporter on all mediums.

He was loath to toe any popular line, especially an official line. He had a rich and satisfying knack for taking a different angle on matches and issues, never bothered with the bizarre notion that readers are fascinated by a barrage of quotations from one of the coaches. He used his space for himself, thank goodness, and he filled it with talent and his own compelling style.

In his later years in newspapers, while he was always superb if challenging company, his temper rose more frequently. You got the impression that he was not delirious with joy when newspapers began to move to seven-day operations, meaning that the daily coalface was beckoning him. It may have beckoned, but in reply, he raised two fingers on his way out.

When he became the BBC’s main commentator on the retirement of the iconic Bill McLaren there was far from universal acclaim. A Pontypool forward following the great man? Nor was there rejoicing when Butler was paired up in a commentating duo with Brian Moore, the former England hooker.

They were not close friends — how could they be? They had waged sporting war on the field and could be irascible on or off the park. They were from different backgrounds — one was loquacious and the other was terse — but gradually they formed an excellent partnership.

Butler became one of the great TV rugby commentators, mellifluous, accurate, funny, harsh when needed. He did not attempt to be simply a play-caller. He brought colour and change of pace, authority for the rugby lover and interest for those who were neutral. He could help to lift the whole game for the viewer. He graduated to writing and speaking impressive voiceovers on state occasions.

He was a supporter of the campaign for Welsh independence. You sense that his trip to Peru — joined by 25 fundraisers, including his daughter Nell, on the Inca Trail trek to Machu Picchu — was well timed. It is hard to imagine him sitting for hours by the television taking in the ceremonials of the week.

One of most vivid incidents in which he was involved was in Pukekohe on the British & Irish Lions tour to New Zealand in 1983. After the game, three of the Lions’ unused replacements were jogging around the field with the crowd dispersed, except for one local drunken idiot.

Suddenly, the idiot came charging out of the crowd, ran a long way and struck one of the Lions with a pulverising shoulder charge, sending him into the fence surrounding the ground. It was an act of sheer lunacy, but Butler had seen it all. The miscreant quickly realised, shall we say, that he had picked on the wrong marine.

The news from Peru on Thursday was devastating, a larger-then-life figure no longer with us. He will be missed by wife Sue, his six children, as well as by his Welsh audience, and by a wider audience in the major internationals. He was a huge talent, fun, aggressive, literate. He will be missed on every count.

 

A devastating loss.
Eddie Butler was a true poet and his introductions to not only rugby and other sports but also other events, were uplifting and legendary.
RIP Eddie. You'll be missed.

 

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/room-mate-eddie-butler-posh-25033132

 

The only game I can't get on tv today is Scarlets v Ospreys

May try online.

 

23-23

 

Louise Fletcher, best-known for starring as the villainous Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, has died at the age of 88.



RIP

 

John McVicar - former Public Enemy No 1 has died aged 82

RIP

 

George ‘Larry’ Lamb former English Test referee has died aged 99.

When he was refereeing in the seventies, he was an Air Commodore commanding RAF Lyneham. His first international in the middle was the All Blacks v France in Bordeaux. He continued to referee as an Air Marshal.

RIP