I didn't just want to go through each decade of the show, I wanted to bring stories and anecdotes from the 1950s and 60s to today's audience who weren't even born then, to get them aware of the sweep of the whole thing," Murphy said.

The tones of Hubert Bath’s jaunty march ‘Out of the Blue’ signalled the start of the very first edition. Any one listening to the programme from as recently as a decade ago will notice a change in tempo and tone,” Murphy writes. It is the one programme I always wanted to work on since I was growing up as a boy - and I still do now." This year marks the 75th anniversary of the foundation of what became the Sports Journalists’ Association.Since 2 April 1994 it has been heard on 5 Live, with current presenter Mark Chapman taking over in 2016. All the great events and personalities are chronicled,’ Murphy explains, ‘as well as sharp insights into what it's been like to be an insider on the programme either from the studio or in the field dealing with the various challenges of a fast-moving live radio sports programme when you never know what's coming up next.’ These days, there are plenty of other places for people to go to consume that news, but Murphy is confident the programme retains its relevance in a fast-changing media landscape.

Amongst the list of correspondents that first week of 1948 was John Arlott. In those days he also covered football and reported from Portsmouth’s victory over Huddersfield. He recruited an Irish boxing commentator who became synonymous with the earlier years, and later, as well known for surprising many, not just from the world of sport, by carrying a red book. His name was Eamonn Andrews.Jim Rosenthal is set to be your host once for the British Sports Journalism Awards again on March 6. The start of the 2022–23 English football season saw the axing of the Saturday afternoon classified football results without prior warning or fanfare. This was confirmed on 8 August 2022 when the BBC announced it has dropped the results from the programme because it has been shortened ahead of the 17:30 Premier League match. [7] [8] Presenters [ edit ] Butler, Bryon, ed. (1987). Sports Report: 40 Years of the Best. Queen Anne Press. p.12. ISBN 0-356-14863-7. That part of it has not changed - the principle of telling you what has just happened on a Saturday has stayed the same since it started. It is an easy formula, but the simplest ideas are often the best." 'The Weekly Miracle'

In February 1969 Mary Raine was sent to report on the Chelsea-Sunderland league game for Sports Report, becoming the first woman to report on sport for the BBC. [6] It's an incredible effort to have one presenter linking to live reports and interviews around the country and indeed around the world, telling stories and sometimes breaking them, as they happen, without ever knowing what will happen next. There could have been no more auspicious year for our organisation to take flight, for London was about to host the Olympics. BBC Radio 5 Live drops classified football results". 8 August 2022 . Retrieved 8 August 2022– via www.bbc.co.uk.Obviously things are different now because you can get your results and your opinions on your phones and tablets," he added. "But you don't necessarily get the best insight or interviews there. The use of the closing part of “Out of the Blue” to end the programme was unceremoniously dropped by the BBC in the mid-2000s. There is always a sense of urgency when you listen to events unfold on Sports Report, but that is nothing compared to the feeling of those involved in making the programme, which is broadcast live and unscripted. The living history of a huge part of all our lives - and there's n o one in the world better to tell it than Pat Murphy * Lee Child, bestselling author * That same sense of responsibility is shared by everyone involved in Sports Report - on air, or behind the scenes.

Obituary: James Alexander Gordon". The Daily Telegraph. London. 19 August 2014 . Retrieved 18 February 2018. Mike Ingham, an authoritative presenter in the early eighties before switching to commentary, received the Doug Gardner award in 2014 and who could forget a secret operation which would have done credit to MI6 in 2019. This theBBC Light programme,here is Raymond Glendenning to introduce a new Saturday feature for sportsmen, Sports Report,” the announcer said. First broadcast in 1948, Sports Report is the longest-running radio sporting programme in the world and one of the BBC's hardy perennials. Pat Murphy has been a reporter on the programme since 1981 and here he sifts comprehensively through the experiences of his contemporaries and those who made their mark on Sports Report in earlier decades. He hears from commentators, reporters, producers, presenters and the production teams who regularly achieved the broadcasting miracle of getting a live programme on air, without a script, adapting as the hour of news, reaction and comment unfolded.Bloomsbury Sport has scooped the "definitive" celebration bookof the BBC's "Sports Report" radio programme, written by its longest-serving contributorPat Murphy. There were as many hosts as programmes in the first month including ‘Mr George Allison’, a football commentator in the thirties who had only just given up on his day job as Arsenal manager. Never mind, Sports Report went from strength to strength, consider the names who have presented the programme, amongst the finest voices on sport this country has ever produced. Murphy said: “Of all the 40-odd sports books I've been involved in over the past 45 years, this has been the most demanding and yet the most fulfilling to write. The research involved mushroomed as stories tumbled out of countless memory banks. It became an account of how sport has been covered on BBC Radio since 1948 – the triumphs, the tragedies, the oddities and the challenges involved in bringing those moments to the listener. Having apparently told my parents at the age of seven that I would one day work on 'Sports Report', managing just that for the past 40years remains a career highlight. I hope I've done justice to all those legends who've added to the stature of 'Sports Report' down the decades.” a b "Sports Report at 70: Presenters' memories, royal recognition & THAT theme tune". BBC Sport. BBC. 5 January 2018 . Retrieved 5 January 2018. I had to say 'I'm really sorry, it's clearly not the music' and there was such a reaction to it, we played the right music later. It was like the ravens had left the Tower of London, it was like the worst thing you could have ever done.