A name I associate with the high point of the week in my youth. The 5 o'clock reading of the results, when all the football was played at 3 o'clock on saturday, and you didn't know any of the scores until then. You might know some of the half-times,if you had been at a match but that was it. What a legend of a man. RIP James Alexander.
One of the all-time great broadcasters. He made reading the results an art form. RIP Earth 0 Heaven 1
"The King's English", please. Always. The reference is to the English of the King James' Bible, not to whoever happens to be occupying the throne. Normally you could tell what the result would be by the intonation of his voice. As he read the name of the winning and losing teams his voice would inflect slightly up or down respectively, or remain deadpan level for a drawn match. Not long after hearing the results I would be despatched to the nearest newsagent's a mile away to await the arrival of the "classifieds" (Star, News or Standard), often secretly hoping that James Alexander Gordon had somehow got the Charlton result wrong and the paper would reveal we had actually won. One of the high-spots of the week, trotting back home in the gathering gloom and mist and cooking odors seeping out of the terraced houses mingling with the smell of the drains. I would say "no curry odors in those days" but I don't want to set Vol off. Then one dog would start barking followed by every mutt for miles around. I was the only Charlton supporter in a house of Chelsea fans and remained a great disappointment to my father and elder brother for the rest of their lives. Lord Reith must turn his grave listening to the inarticulate and illiterate oafs reading from their prompt screens on the BBC these days. It all started with George Best and the Beatles making regional accents fashionable. They were fine, but it opened the floodgates to "anything goes".
Apparently I am not the only person to have noticed that. It is mentioned in almost every obituary! Sorry about that. I don't get out much! As for my musings about listening to the results as a nipper, they predate James Alexander Gordon by 25 years. I was thinking of the time when Sports Report was presented by Raymond Glendenning. Who read the results then? I think it might have been where Eamonn Andrews got his start in the UK.
