The Sun celebrates 50 years at the top of the league for trailblazing sports coverage
AT 9am on November 16, 1969, I walked into The Sun sport department to find a fella on his own moving desks and chairs around.
I was starting as the Boxing and Athletics Correspondent on day one of the spanking-new tabloid the “experts” said would not last six months.
When I offered the removal man a hand, he replied in an unmistakable Aussie accent: “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind.”
How could I have known it was Rupert Murdoch?
Nor did I have any idea I was embarking on a mind-blowing, 50-year rollercoaster ride to sports-writing paradise — a willing participant in The Sun’s philosophy to cover every major event worldwide.
In a mission statement to readers, our trailblazing Sports Editor — former fighter pilot Frank Nicklin — promised “sport with four rows of teeth”.
In the late Eighties, David Balmforth was in the chair and increased that pledge to “eight rows of teeth”.
So as technology and society changed, our unrivalled sports team evolved and adapted to remain top of the league.
When we launched, increasing TV airtime for sport was rapidly making it more mainstream.
Before, papers had reported on events to tell people what they had missed. But now we needed to tell the stories behind what they had already watched.
STAR COLUMNISTS
In the early days of The Sun, the presses could not wait for night football matches. So Nicklin filled his pages with columnists, letters and features.
Former Editor Bernard Shrimsley said: “Frank was a master of the nostalgia feature. Not only was it not about last night, it was often not about last week, or even last year!”
Newspaper distribution was erratic and it was never certain which regions would get each edition.
So rather than tailoring match reports for certain areas, Monday’s Sun covered every big game comprehensively.
Nicklin explained: “Readers loved it and the Mirror started to copy it, believing we were doing it on purpose.
“In fact we were highly envious of their ability to regionalise.”
There was a time when executives on every Fleet Street paper dismissed sport as the Toy Department. But SunSport changed that by gathering talented specialists and star columnists.
Brian Clough, while manager of Derby County, volunteered his writing services and we took him up on the offer — Nicklin was a Derby fan, after all.
Later we signed Jimmy Greaves and Alex “Hurricane” Higgins. The man I felt sorry for was football writer Frank Clough, assigned the near-impossible task of ghost-writing George Best’s Monday column.
Each weekend, Frank never knew which girl’s duvet George was hiding under. Tracking him down would have tested a Scotland Yard detective.
Manchester United hero George, known as “El Beatle”, was Britain’s first celebrity footballer. His mesmerising talent ensured he was not only idolised at Old Trafford but across the country.
Those who saw him at the height of his powers say he was every bit as good as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
But it was what he got up to off the field that made the handsome Ulsterman front-page as well as back-page news.
Bestie, with that inimitable twinkle in his eye, used to laugh at himself, saying: “In 1969, I gave up women and alcohol. It was the worst 20 minutes of my life.”
Then: “I used to go missing a lot. Miss Canada, Miss UK, Miss World . . .”
The star, a chronic alcoholic, was finished as a top-class player at the ridiculously early age of 27. Booze killed him at 59.
UNIQUE INSIGHT
Expert writers such as Neil Ashton, Peter Batt, Peter Fitton, Steven Howard, Dave Kidd, John Sadler, Martin Samuel and Brian Woolnough have penned unique football insight for SunSport, reporting on the game’s greatest names.
And our Goals pullout, launched in 1991, remains the footballing bible for fans AND players. Football Editor Charlie Wyett says: “We were the first paper to cover every game in all four divisions.
“We still do, as the Football League is as important, if not more so, as the Premier League to many fans.
“We were also first to mark players out of ten. Even now, it is the first thing players look at.
“While at Wimbledon, Vinnie Jones sent our reporter Vikki Orvice away from the training ground because she gave him six out of ten the previous game. He felt he was worth a seven.”
The players grabbing the headlines when The Sun was born were England’s 1966 World Cup winners Bobby Moore, Bobby Charlton, Geoff Hurst & Co.
The Seventies saw Best outshine them all, and other megastars followed such as Paul Gascoigne and David Beckham.
An influx of sublime foreign players including Eric Cantona and Thierry Henry brought grace to our national game, even if Cantona did kung-fu kick a Crystal Palace fan in 1995 after being sent off. Henry later became a columnist for both The Sun and The Sun on Sunday.
Vikki was the first female sports journalist on The Sun, or any tabloid.
Shortly before her death in February this year, Vikki said: “I am proud to have had my career at The Sun. It’s the cutting edge of football journalism.
“A lot of footballers read it. Even Usain Bolt reads it online in Jamaica to get his football news.”
And Olympic legend Bolt is not the only superstar Sun reader.
Charlie Wyett says: “When Andy Murray broke on to the tennis scene in 2005, he told Sue Barker, in a live TV interview at Wimbledon, The Sun was the only paper he ever read. Needless to say, we started sponsoring him.”
The Sun followed cricket closely from day one. Launch Editor Larry Lamb came from the same village as Geoff Boycott, Fitzwilliam in West Yorks, and the England batsman often contributed to the paper. Later, Ian Botham and Graeme Swann were columnists.
Sun veteran John Etheridge, cricket correspondent since 1993, is one of the most respected voices in the sport.
Boxing has always been big in The Sun. And I was fortunate that my career coincided with Muhammad Ali and the Golden Age of heavyweights.
SENSATIONAL EXCLUSIVE
Being on the road for ten years with The Greatest from 1971 to 1981, I got close to the most tantalising and charismatic sports personality of the 20th Century, an experience no billionaire could buy.
I laughed through most of the thousands of miles I travelled with him. But my most poignant interview with Ali was the one I least expected.
In 1984, I was outside the Hilton gift shop in Vegas when Ali appeared, alone and wanting to chat.
It had just been announced that he was suffering from Parkinson’s.
As I commiserated with him, he told me without a trace of bitterness: “I am not afraid to die. God gave me Parkinson’s to show me I am just a man like everyone else. To show I have frailties like everyone else.
“Because that is all I am — a man. If I die I have no regrets. I have tried to live a good life and do the right thing. But I am not scared to die because I have made my peace.”
Those words made for a sensational exclusive in The Sun the next day. But being around the likes of Ali, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Ken Norton, Riddick Bowe, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, Joe Frazier, Frank Bruno and Mike Tyson did not mean every encounter made it into print.
That included the time heavyweight champ Foreman launched into a furious tirade after noticing I was smoking as I arrived for an interview.
Back then, George was a bad-tempered giant and he snarled: “Hey you — put that out.” Being an East End boy, my hackles rose and I yelled: “Say please!” That did not exactly endear me to him.
Then he took exception to the first question I asked and the palm of his right hand, the size of a shovel, was coming in my direction to give me a slap. Thankfully his publicist dived between us and saved me from a hospital visit. Later, George and I became good friends.
He gave me a copy of his autobiography and signed it: “To Colin Hart. Put that cigarette out. Smile. Best Wishes, George Foreman. The champ.”
It is among my most precious pieces of memorabilia. Another left-field coming-together was when Mike Tyson sat with me in a Vegas coffee shop in 1987, soon after he became world champion, when he was madly in love with TV star Robin Givens.
Without any prompting, Mike unburdened himself about their volatile relationship. He moaned that they never stopped arguing because she was pushing him to get married.
He said: “I’m 21, I don’t want to settle down.” He told me their rows often turned violent and she used to hurt him. I said: “Come off it, Mike — she’s a flyweight. How can you expect anyone to believe she can hurt you?”
He sheepishly replied: “She kicks me in the nuts.”
Tyson did marry Robin in 1988 but they divorced on Valentine’s Day 1989. He later admitted punching her.
ICONIC HEADLINES
Tragedy struck when I was covering the 1972 Olympics in Munich, as 13 members of the Israeli team were murdered by Palestinian terrorists. To be caught up in such horror has left its scars.
But I have happier memories of athletics from covering eight Olympics, seven World Championships, seven European Championships and eight Commonwealth Games.
Watching Seb Coe and Steve Ovett battling it out for middle-distance supremacy in Moscow in 1980 provided some of the most thrilling moments in Olympic history.
And who could fail to be uplifted by the track and field exploits of Carl Lewis, Linford Christie, Daley Thompson, Michael Johnson, Brendan Foster, Dave Bedford, Sally Gunnell, Kelly Holmes, Sergey Bubka and Colin Jackson, to name just a few I warmed to?
The Sun’s superb sub-editors never miss a chance to captivate readers with the most iconic headlines.
My favourite was after England lost 2–1 to Sweden in the 1992 European Championship. Our headline boomed SWEDES 2, TURNIPS 1.
And for pure genius, with apologies to Mary Poppins, when Inverness Caledonian Thistle beat Celtic 3–1 in the Scottish Cup, the headline was SUPER CALEY GO BALLISTIC, CELTIC ARE ATROCIOUS.
Former Editor Stuart Higgins says: “The Sun’s always been on its game with headlines — the humour and edginess.
“When West Ham defender Julian Dicks was ruled out of the team, Sports Editor Paul Ridley wrote SWOLLEN DICKS OUT. It was rude and risqué but it captured the spirit of The Sun. Football fans loved that kind of headline. You might not get away with it now!”
On big sports nights, Chief Sub Alan Feltham often went home feeling like he’d done a few rounds with Frank Bruno.
And once, he really had. Alan, who retired in February 2019 after 36 years at The Sun, remembers: “I used to do some boxing writing and Paul Ridley decided it would make a great feature if I spent time following Bruno in the build-up to the fight against Joe Bugner in 1987.
“Rids also wanted me to get HIT by Bruno so I ‘could tell the readers what it felt like’. My answer was along the lines of ‘No way!’
“I did, however, hold the heavy punch bag while Bruno hammered away at it — and even then he moved me backwards.”
The Sun launched racing pullout They’re Off in 1996, with jump jockey Tony McCoy as a columnist and racing titan Claude Duval, a Sun man since day one, bringing racing news.
In 2002 the pullout was renamed The Favourite and is still going strong, with 12 pages every Saturday.
Racing Editor David Cook says: “It is vital reading for punters who rely on the world’s most famous tipster, Templegate, to give them big-race winners.”
Templegate made the front-page splash in March 2007 when he tipped all seven winners at a televised Sandown meeting, hitting bookies for £5million.
The tipster — who was then Phil Logan from Belfast — won fortunes for Sun readers who backed his selections, which had combined odds of 14,322–1. Punter Archie Evans, from Newport, South Wales, scooped nearly £700,000.
MOST READ IN SPORT
There is not enough room to list all the sporting cheers — and tears — of the past five decades. Sports fans will all have opinions, and who am I to argue?
Legendary Liverpool boss Bill Shankly famously said: “Some think football is a matter of life and death. I can assure them it is much more important than that.”
The same could be said about sport in general. I am just grateful to have been centre-stage at some of the most remarkable events of all time and can come to only one conclusion: I’d do it all again tomorrow.
- Colin Hart was The Sun’s boxing correspondent from its launch in 1969 until he retired aged 65 in 2000. He now writes a fortnightly boxing column for the paper and is bylined The Voice Of Boxing.
- GOT a story? RING The Sun on 0207 782 4104 or WHATSAPP on 07423720250 or EMAIL [email protected]