Gerry Harrison football commentator legend dies

 Gerry Harrison football commentator dies

In the days when football on the TV was confined to  only to a small, select and limited audience, the name of Gerry Harrison may not have been instantly recognisable and the chances are that he may have been sadly forgotten now but he did feature prominently on London Weekend's flagship football magazine programme The Big Match was introduced, of course by the legendary and much respected Brian Moore. 

Way back then, football was almost incidental to the rest of TV's vast landscape of period dramas, comedy shows, sitcoms, soap operas, hard hitting documentaries, news and current affairs programmes and celebrity driven interviews. Harrison, for his part, began his broadcasting career in black and white, those days when football was still learning how to cope with a slowly expanding fixture list in the old First Division. There were the scheduling problems and players whose egos were so disproportionately larger than that of the working class man and woman that none of us could really identify with the household names on the pitch. But the players had colourful personalities so we didn't really care. 

And yet we loved those dulcet, hugely enthusiastic TV voices from yesteryear. Harrison, although not as widely known as his contemporaries at the time such as Kenneth Wolstenholme, Brian Moore, Barry Davies and John Motson, had to be listened to and watched.  Gerry Harrison was the smooth, measured and restrained voice of Anglia TV, a regional commercial network who covered the whole spectrum of Suffolk and Norfolk with commentaries from both Ipswich Town and Norwich City. 

Harrison died last month at the age of 89,  a sturdy, upstanding yeoman of the footballing guard, a giant among the fens and farmlands of both the Tractor Boys and the Canaries. Not many of us really acknowledged that fluent and polished delivery because he just became part of the furniture of TV's  welcoming dining room. Harrison was the man who got extremely excited during those glorious seasons when Sir Bobby Robson's spirited and plucky Ipswich Town rubbed shoulders with the great and good at the top of the old First Division and almost won the old League championship. 

There was nothing out of the ordinary about Harrison because he was just one of the lads, excitable at times but in a good way and then lifting the tone of his voice when goals were scored. Harrison covered epic FA Cup encounters, League Cup corkers and spectacular European nights for Ipswich. He was confident, authoritative, knowledgeable about the non League game and supremely assured at the microphone. Then there was Norwich, who under John Bond, were one of the most entertaining sides in the old First Division but never really fulfilled their burgeoning potential at the highest level. Harrison had the utmost respect for Norwich City.

In more recent years, Harrison stepped away from the limelight, becoming more more analytical and reflective, returning to his journalistic roots. Recently, Harrison had become a regular contributor to the excellent retro magazine Back Pass. A keen amateur footballer himself, Harrison made the easy transition from life as a player to the commentary box. He always enjoyed the bouquets of praise and plaudits from fellow commentators and contemporaries but never sought hysterical adulation. 

To the outsider, football commentators have always appeared those lovely wordsmiths who sit high above on a TV gallery while the noisy and vocal supporters almost render the commentator helpless and inaudible. Their job is to convey the essence of the game in a way that is relatable, easy to understand and never patronising. They sit there patiently explaining the pictures they can see in front of their eyes- the breathless goal-line clearances, the mad, frantic penalty area scramble and the divine goals that somehow beggar description but only commentators can communicate with such accuracy and honesty. 

Nowadays, football reaches out to a responsive audience who can't get enough of either Sky Sports Football, TNT football, ITV, BBC, Channel 4 from time to time and Channel 5. It may have achieved saturation coverage and the statistics would probably prove as such. Maybe there is too much football on TV but when the likes of Martin Tyler, Sam Matterface, Guy Mowbray, Jonathan Pearce, Steve Wilson and Clive Tyldesley get to work in dissecting fact from fiction, you believe implicitly in what you may be hearing and watching. 

And yet football has lost another of its impartial observers and students. Gerry Harrison accompanied you through your adolescence and for that, you feel eternally grateful. After lunch, you would settle down in your loving parents kitchen and watch the Big Match. There were no fanfares, cheerleaders before the match or any kind of pre-match entertainment. There was the wonderful professionalism of Brian Moore, the always exuberant Hugh Johns and the infectious love of the game from Gerald Sinstadt who oozed excellence and a natural feeling for football's more eccentric moments. Keith Macklin of course once provided the alternative commentary for the 1966 World Cup. 

But there was always Gerry Harrison, friendly, articulate and just very straightforward. There were no airs or graces about Harrison because he never pulled any punches with his descriptions. If a goal was indeed a goal, then Harrison would tell you immediately. But if there was an element of doubt about a nasty, dodgy tackle, he would bring it your attention with emphatic emphasis. So Gerry Harrison, we'll miss you and Sunday afternoons as a teenager will always mean a lot to us. Thanks Gerry.