The Longside Reference

         Born on Christmas day it could be said he was God’s gift to broadcasting and football reporting. He joined the BBC in 1959 and from a brief conversation I have had with him I do know he remembers with some fondness the great Claret team of the Championship season. He reeled off the names of Miller, Adamson, McIlroy and Pilkington with admiration and approval. He also remembers Mrs. Bob Lord’s chamberpot hat with its floral decorations. He says he used to poke merciless fun at this creation. He did not say whether Bob Lord fixed him with a steely glare. As well we know, he is still broadcasting on Sports Report. From ‘65 to ‘90 he presented BBC’s North West Tonight and from ‘90 to ‘94 Travellers Check.

          If you love football then you will love his book Heaven and Hall: A Prodigal Life. (BBC Publications). It contains transcripts of many of his finest reports.
          In his travels he points to being ostracised at Old Trafford. Cauterised by City. Lampooned by Liverpool. Bastinadoed at Blackpool, Spurned by Spurs. Shunned at Sheffield and Bludgeoned at Burnley.
         At a Huddersfield Town soiree, a voice asked, “Do you remember describing a certain Steve Kindon as a lumbering runaway wardrobe?”
          “Yes,” Hall perked.
          “Well he’s ‘ere lookin’ for yer,’ the voice replied ominously.
          Don Revie once rang him to tell him his players didn’t like his descriptions of them: Mick Jones – a heaving, sweating Lincolnshire dray horse. Billy Bremner – fed on iron filings and raw meat. Jack Charlton – a giraffe on heat. And John Giles, the arch assassin with the Mona Lisa smile. And Don Revie he simply addressed as Don Corleone.
          Stuart Hall’s hero is Bob Paisley, the great Liverpool manager who presided over them at their peak. ‘The build of a farm labourer in Greys ‘Elegy’. Visage like a pickled walnut. The gait of a broken-kneed cab horse. Kind, witty, avuncular, lover of the simple and the honest, hater of pretension and pseud.’
          Shankly too was a friend of his.
          ‘Shanks was a great buddy, straight, honest, teak-tough. He demanded discipline and trust. He would regale me with stories, strictly not for airing publicly. Once at Melwood, I sat, as usual, with a mug of tea, listening avidly. Suddenly I saw a tiny tot footballer doing incredible things. “Who is that black-haired, short arsed player Shanks?”
          “Just signed him for 39,000. Name’s Keegan; no brains, but fast and bloody brave.”
          Yes. Twas Kevin, king of the aspirate.’
          He remembers in his book that it was Joe Mercer who coined the line; ‘We started badly and fell away.’
          It was he who christened Bryan Robson ‘Captain Marvel.’
          In 1991 he forecast that Alex Ferguson would become Sir Alex.
          Manchester City he calls The Theatre of Base Comedy and Maine Road where comedy was invented.
          Of Bradford City – ‘it is easier to find Wagga Wagga.’
          Of a Yorkshire miner he once met at a Barnsley game he wrote: ‘The miner had regaled himself with 10 pints of foaming best Yorkshire bitter, and then returned home for a bit of a diddly doo wi’ t’ wife. His member would not rise to the occasion. Sadly he told Stuart Hall: “twere like thumbin’ a Pontefract cake into a slot machine.”
          At Blackburn he reported that the motto is ‘Arte et Labore – not so much arte as sweated labour.’
          Paulo Wanchope; ‘A cross between a Harlem Globetrotter and an Anaconda.’
          From his report of Liverpool 1 Burnley 0:
          ‘Adrian Heath the Burnley manager used this match as research and development. His team raised the biggest cheer and laughs. His tiny trainer with duck’s disease ran on to the pitch so fast that his little Ernie Wise legs almost caught fire. Roadrunner of Burnley – you are famous.’
           My favourite perhaps -  “Say nowt, give nowt, kick it if it moves.”
No, not Gary Megson’s West Brom. Yes, you’ve guessed who it is – the lovely David Batty.
          In one short paragraph Hall describes Bob Lord.

          ‘It began with Bob Lord, the Burnley butcher. Turf Moor was his personal temple. Gruff, uncultured, maybe uncouth. His manner was a cross of Rottweiler with Margaret Thatcher. A total despot. A ruthless manipulator, yet a benefactor. He typified the local dignitary who ruled the town. Built like a pampas bull, deaf as a post – unless you uttered something derogatory. Then you were banned. Yet he, and his like, built football teams par excellence. His Burnley of Pilkington, Adamson, McIlroy, Miller, Pointer… won championships and cups. Industry thrived in the Rossendale valley. Wakes week took place. The workforce traipsed to Blackpool. Roistered along the promenade. Complete, if naïve, in happiness.’

          Heaven and Hall is not an autobiography. It is simply a collection of his eccentric radio reports, filled with the richness of the English language, and short punchy essays about events in his unique and varied life. Two of the transcripts feature Burnley. Another one he dug out of the basement of his filing cabinet and sent it to me. All three are included in No Nay Never Vol One. I’d give a king’s ransom to track down his report on Burnley 2 Plymouth 1. The BBC and Mr Hall are still looking.

             I asked Stuart Hall some time ago did he have any more visits to The Turf planned. “Not if I can help it,” he chuckled. “I like to be entertained,” he added in his rich, mellifluous voice.

                On Saturday November 1st, 2008, at last he was entertained by the cavalier approach of Owen Coyle’s team. He reported on the game on Sports Report and it was a joy to listen to him describing Burnley, Blake and Eagles, as we drove home. We had beaten Norwich 2 – 0 with a brand of football that he described as nimble, nifty and pacey. I wish I could remember the rest. He had clearly enjoyed his day, even if it was from the Press Box at the top of the James Hargreaves Stand. But this was a day when the Siberian icy blasts, he had previously felt had been fittingly replaced by warm Autumn sun on a gloriously bright, winning day.