archive obituary: Peter Jones (Times 3rd April 1990)
Robin Carmody
Peter Jones
Peter Jones, BBC Radio senior sports commentator, died yesterday in hospital
in London. He was born on February 7, 1930.
Peter Jones was one of the most familiar voices on Radio 2. His words,
delivered with perfect articulation but carrying impetus and excitement when
the occasion demanded it, introduced any number of sporting events over the
years.
Usually he covered the most important, but he did not disdain the occasional
routine football match on Saturday afternoons. Last Saturday he was
reporting on the Boat Race with the BBC commentary team from the launch
Arethusa when he was taken ill. He was rushed to hospital but did not
recover.
As the BBC's senior sports commentator Jones described all the major events,
reporting on the highlights of five (actually six - RC) World Cups and five
Olympic Games, and leading radio's Wimbledon coverage.
He had the perfect voice for radio, mingling an easy authority with great
enthusiasm, and he was pressed into service for some of the great state
occasions, covering Earl Mountbatten's funeral and royal weddings. The
Royal Festival of Remembrance and the state opening of parliament were two
other regular assignments for him.
Yet above all he will be remembered as a football commentator, his voice
becoming almost synonymous with Radio 2's coverage of all the major football
events of the year. From 1966 he was behind the microphone at every major
tournament and soon at every major match.
His enjoyment was evident as he described the brilliance of Brazil in 1970,
and the European Cup triumphs of Manchester United and Liverpool. And then
there was a different Peter Jones at the tragedy of Heysel in 1985 which he
transmitted with sombre authority.
At 60, he had reached retirement age. But the BBC, conscious that they had
no replacement of such stature, invited him to continue on contract. His
acceptance was a formality, for his love of the game shone through his
coverage.
Having won a soccer Blue at Cambridge, he was teaching at Bradfield School
(I believe it is actually Bradfield College - RC the pedant) when he was
recruited by Angus Mackay, the father of radio sport, as an assistant on
Sports Report in 1965.
A year later England staged the World Cup, and Jones was given his first
major opportunity, covering the North Eastern group in the first round. As
the competition reached its later stages he was recalled to the studio, and
he remarked how frustrating he found it to be in the studio while all the
drama and excitement was unfolding just up the road at Wembley on Final day.
The frustration was not to last for long. He had already been marked out as
a natural commentator. Two years later he covered his first FA Cup Final,
beginning a sequence which was to run unbroken until the present, and by the
time the next World Cup arrived in 1970, he had joined Maurice Edelston to
form the main commentary team, Brian Moore having left radio to join ITV.
It was the beginning of one of radio sport's most distinguished careers. He
himself described his job as giving him "the best seat in the house", the
title of a reminiscence he wrote for the 40th anniversary of the BBC's
Sports Report. And he brought to that seat his own style.
He had a mellifluous voice, in the best sense of the word, but perhaps more
important was his sense of theatre, and his love of words which enabled him
to capture the dramatic moment and convey it to the listener with natural
eloquence. It is no surprise to discover that he had a taste for the great
essayists, with Hazlitt, Dickens and Pepys regular companions on his
constant travels.
At times his enthusiasm ran away with him, resulting in him giving Private
Eye's Colemanballs column one or two unforgettable entries, but to most
people these occasional lapses were more than compensated for by his
descriptive genius and his rare enthusiasm.
He had a reporter's eye, but like Geoffrey Green, the distinguished former
Times Football Correspondent, he generally found something to enthuse about
in even the dullest matches, and his feeling for the game and its people
made him both a sensitive interviewer, adept at drawing out the telling
quote or anecdote, and a perceptive raconteur.
He is survived by his wife and twin sons, Ian and Stuart, the latter The
Times Football Correspondent.
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Robin Carmody
http://www.elidor.freeserve.co.uk