da gbg bet： Alan McGilvray, who has died aged 86, was the voice of Australian cricket from 1934 until his retirement from the Australian Broadcasting Commission in 1985
11-May-2007Alan McGilvray, who has died aged 86, was the voice of Australian cricket from 1934 until his retirement from the Australian Broadcasting Commission in 1985, a full half century of service.He was born in Sydney on December 6, 1909, the son of an immigrant from Glasgow who came from a long line of shoemakers. When covering the Ashes series of 1956 McGilvray identified the grave of an ancestor on the field of Culloden. He sold the familyshoe factory in Australia in 1961.The boy was educated at Sydney Grammar School, where he shoneas an all-round cricketer being a forcing batsman and a fast-medium bowler. He made the first XI while still in his secondyear and subsequently captained the side. His finest hour as aschoolboy was scoring 129 not out and taking seven wickets for32 against Melbourne Grammar School.McGilvray was soon playing for New South Wales. In his firstmatch, against Victoria, he failed to endear himself to BillO`Reilly by taking the single wicket that prevented the greatbowler from accounting for all 10 of the opposition in an innings.When the stars of the New South Wales team toured SouthAfrica with the Australian team in 1935-36, McGilvray was appointed captain. But he never deceived himself about his abilities. “I was not good enough to be team-mates with Bradman,Fingleton, Kippax, Brown and the rest,” he said.His first effort at cricket commentary was an impromptu sevenminute risumi of a Sheffield Shield match in 1934. Even allowing for the poor reproduction, McGilvray`s voice sounds rather tinny in pre-war recordings, not at all like the rich andresonant tones of later years.He and I were brought up in the school wherein the unforgivablesin was to be late on the strokeThough McGilvray broadcast more than 200 Test matches worldwide,he never became complacent. He abhorred the slapdash and theslipshod, and even after half a century still became nervous before going on the air. McGilvray was appointed MBE in 1974 andbecame a member of the Order of Australia in 1980. He publishedthree books, of which The Game Is Not the Same (1987) became abestseller. In his last days he declared he was looking forwardto crossing swords again with Bill O`Reilly, who died in 1992.E W Swanton writes: Alan McGilvray was the most professional ofcommentators in that he was essentially a meticulous communicatorof fact, sticking to the ground rules approved by ABC and BBCproducers without much in the way of personal gloss. His commentaries were nevertheless instantly distinctive because hisAustralian intonations were almost whispered into the microphone,too quietly sometimes to be heard by his colleagues in thebroadcasting box.He and I were brought up in the school wherein the unforgivablesin was to be late on the stroke. The prevailing wisdom wasthat the listener had to be given a mental vision of thebowler`s run up, delivery and the batsman`s stroke as theyhappened. This gave a regular pattern to which comment was added.It might be added that the pace of commentary used to reflectthe bowling of 20 overs an hour: the modern rate of 15 an hourmeans there is more time to be filled up.Alan never adapted to the looser, more relaxed and often jokey style of Test Match Special, and to that extent some foundhim a difficult colleague. There was, for instance, little rapport between him and John Arlott. As Trevor Bailey observed: “McGilvray was a very good commentator and a very goodcricketer, and it jolted.”David Rayvern Allen in his biography of Arlott quotes McGilvray:”He [Arlott] was a good commentator in his own way, but hedidn`t give the score or the card. You should give the scorethree times in a six-ball over. He had a different techniqueto mine, more intimate, but he didn`t care about the Aussiesnot listening – a lot of what he said was way above their heads.”Alan was a firm traditionalist: the attempted takeover of international cricket by Kerry Packer was anathema to him, and he deplored the deterioration in the game`s spirit that followedAlan was wholly reliable as regards fact, and he had the primevirtue of complete impartiality. He wanted to see and describegood cricket: but for his accent there was no telling which teamwas closer to his heart. Personally I found him easy to workwith, and I had the greatest respect for his judgment.Alan was a firm traditionalist: the attempted takeover of international cricket by Kerry Packer was anathema to him, and he deplored the deterioration in the game`s spirit that followed.A man with great pride in his calling, Alan neverthelessbrought upon himself a crowning disappointment to which it wasunwise afterwards to refer. At Brisbane in December 1960,thinking Australia was sure to win the First Test against WestIndies, he arranged the commentary periods so that he could catchan early aeroplane back to Sydney.When he got there he heard the news that the 500th Test matchhad ended in the first-ever tie – a commentator`s dream thatwould have suited McGilvray to perfection. The final stages ofthe match were obviously a highly taxing exercise – so much sothat the ABC commentary by the local man of the thrilling lastover is never repeated.In the 1930s, before McGilvray gave a genuine Test commentary, he was involved by a commercial company in a synthetic broadcast for listeners too far away from the cricket for the livetransmitters. The exercise involved a studio, a plan of theground, a continuous stream of cabled information and an effectsman to synchronise sound noises with the commentary thus realistically manufactured. The similitude was such that the unsophisticated audience of those days thought they were listeningto the real thing.Alan McGilvray came first to England with Don Bradman`sAustralian team of 1948 and thereafter followed all AustralianTest tours home and away until the visit here of 1985, when DavidGower`s team recovered the Ashes by three matches to one.Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)