When Radio Cymru started (1975??) I think that was the first time any live Welsh language was broadcast on 5/6 Nations. Alun Williams was on the old Radio 4 Welsh service, Sport on 2 and then Radio Wales until his death. He also covered football, but I can't recall whether the Llanelli v All Blacks was broadcast live on TV or Radio as it was a midweek afernoon game, I've never heard any clips, and when they were talking about the anniversary of it last year on Radio Wales there were no clips broadcast at all, yet they have plenty in the achive as when Mervyn Davies died last year there were clips of many different moments, with Alun Williams at the mic
Noticed watching the credits at close of the BBC Six Nations coverage and was a tad disappointed that no mention was made in the commentators list to Huw Llywellyn Davies.
Considering he got the BBC out of a hole at the Italy v Wales match, a credit would have been appropriate.
Anyway here's to the 2014 Six Nations
llongyfarchiadau cymru
Noticed watching the credits at close of the BBC Six Nations coverage and was a tad disappointed that no mention was made in the commentators list to Huw Llywellyn Davies.
Considering he got the BBC out of a hole at the Italy v Wales match, a credit would have been appropriate.
Anyway here's to the 2014 Six Nations
llongyfarchiadau cymru
Well at least a major sporting event acknowledged those who worked on the coverage over the last 6 weeks. Which is more than can be said for Channel 4 and the Cheltenham Festival...
Quite true, but is the reason that the current C4 Racing doesnt show credits is that there may have been a legal case pending with the previous rights holders
After the Henry's heroes trails above, would anyone have the trails or links to them before the infamous Wales footy match v Romania in 17 November 1993.
When "Can't take my eyes off you" music by Andy Williams was used.
Once the HTV/S4C deal ended, there wasn't any more club rugby shown on HTV/ITV Wales.
Prior to 2001, the BBC would show either highlights of Welsh clubs in European action on Scrum V or opt out of network during Saturday afternoons to show a live match. Below is a clip from the start of Scrum V where they opted out of the network for the now infamous Brive v Pontypridd match. This match was shown on BBC Wales on 14/09/1997. Alan Wilkins was the presenter with Eddie Butler and Jonathan Davies, whilst the commentary was by Huw Llywellyn Davies and JJ Williams.
The return match at Pontypridd, on 27/09/1997 was shown on Sky with Neil Durden Smith presenting, whilst the third match, back at Brive on 01/11/1997, was shown on BBC Wales, with Alan Wilkins presenting and commentary from Gareth Charles and JJ Williams.
I don't know when exactly the European deal ended but as can be seen from this clip, Eddie Butler and Jonathan Davies are now the Scrum V presenters and this is a Friday night European match from 20/10/2000
I've been reading through this topic again after almost a year away.
I recall a Heineken Cup match involving a Welsh team was played around the mid-late 1990s, on a Saturday afternoon. It was shown live on Sky but BBC Wales opted out of Grandstand to show it on an 'as live' basis with something like a 30 minute delay (that figure might not be strictly accurate, but it was a delay of some sort).
Alan Wilkins presented it from the Cardiff studio, with Jonathan Davies as an analyst. They never referred to it as a 'live' match but they didn't say it wasn't live either. They were quite clever about that.
I think this was a one-off, if not, there weren't that many other instances of it happening.
It was fascinating looking back at this thread. The one change that'll come next season, depending on the current European Cup squabbles, is that Sky will have many first pick Pro 12 games.
Thanks realwales for bringing this thread back, it certainly does make interesting reading along with viewing all the old clips. It will be interesting to see how SKY promote the Pro 12 and will they give it the usual SKY Sports treatment of 'jazzing' it up!!! ;-) Not that I'm criticising either BBC Wales or S4C, but maybe Pro 12 coverage needs a bit of SKY injection as sometimes I think the both of them can be a bit complacent at times with their coverage.
Ah 'The Front Row', remember going to the launch party of that programme at The Scrum Bar in Cardiff:D. It was a joint deal between HTV/S4C and the WRU.
Had a bit of a clear out recently whereupon I came across my diary from 1997. I can tell you that the HTV/S4C rugby coverage launch conference/party was at 11:30am Thursday 31 July at the Scrum Bar (below the Park Hotel IIRC), Cardiff. Also came across my name badge, which I was given at the time. The badge consisted of the Front Row and Clwb Rygbi logo wich was basically a collage of the colours of the then Premiership Teams colours. Can't find the accompanying press pack, yet, but if I do, I'll upload it to the thread. Seems odd why I'd still have the badge but not the pack!!!!
[QUOTE=WesternMale
S4C, throughout the 80's, showed highlights of club rugby on Y Maes Chwarae (The Playing Field) and in the 90's, Tocyn Tymor (Season Ticket). Both were BBC Wales productions which went out on a Saturday night. As well as rugby, they covered other sports. Below is a clip of Y Maes Chwarae from 24 January 1987. The clip concentrates on the Schweppes Cup Third Round matches. The presenter, with the north Wales accent and in the beige suit is Keith Jones, but I can't recall who the presenter is in the grey suit with the west Walien accent is.The featured match of the round is Neath v Llanelli, with Jonathan Davies playing for Neath. Huw Llywellyn Davies is the commentator, for which he does a piece to camera at 7'47 before the match highlights are shown. At the end of the match Jonathan Davies does an interview at 26'15. The clip ends with Keith Jones saying that the draw for the 4th round can be seen live on Rugby Special Wales. The grey suited presenter then reads out more club rugby results before announcing the French team thats due to play Wales a fortnight later whilst a clip of France v New Zealand is played.
Prior to the featured match, there's a brief highlights package of Cardiff v Llanharan where the reporter is Andy Bell, then more results are read out, before there's a package on Maesteg v Swansea, reporter is Edward Bevan, then more results are read out before going to the featured match and Huw Llywellyn Davies' piece to camera.
in 1980 before england played scotland it would be the first time england had won the grand slam.since 1957 highlights of englands game with scotland from 1957 were shown god knows who the commentator in 57 was but he was welsh and he was awful no wonder he faded into obscrurity wish i knew his name tho
Bill McLaren and Nigel Starmer-Smith were two of the commentators used, with Cliff Morgan also a lead commentator until 1987.
Cliff Morgan stopped commentating in 1973 when he became head of BBC Radio Sport. Nigel Starmer-Smith replaced him as a commentator and presenter of Rugby Special (then always presented from the ground of the feature game-it became studio presented in the mid-80s, presented first by Chris Rea and later by John Inverdale).
McLaren always did the biggest game of the weekend, the one that was featured live on Grandstand in England.
I can't recall whether the Llanelli v All Blacks was broadcast live on TV or Radio as it was a midweek afernoon game, I've never heard any clips, and when they were talking about the anniversary of it last year on Radio Wales there were no clips broadcast at all, yet they have plenty in the achive as when Mervyn Davies died last year there were clips of many different moments
Yes, BBC Wales used to cover the midweek tour matches live albeit usually "second half only". (Strange how commonplace that was on rugby and football matches in years gone by but unheard of now). Don't forget all day TV wasn't around in those days so it didn't mean interfering with network programmes.
Bill McLaren started on radio but switched to TV somewhere around 1960, Peter West was a main commentator for a number of years and I think Wilf Wooler might have done the Welsh games in those days as well as the above mentioned Alun Williams.
BBC Wales did a documentary on the 40th anniversary of the Llanelli - NZ game and it is available on youtube with some match highlights.
in 1980 before england played scotland it would be the first time england had won the grand slam.since 1957 highlights of englands game with scotland from 1957 were shown god knows who the commentator in 57 was but he was welsh and he was awful no wonder he faded into obscrurity wish i knew his name tho
Probably Wilf Wooller who covered cricket on BBC Wales for many years and was still commentating until probably the late 70s/early 80s.
You may not rate him as a commentator, but as a sportsman he won 18 caps for Wales at rugby, captained Glamorgan for 14 years at cricket (it was only business commitments in those semi-professional days that stopped him getting into the England Test side) as well as playing football for Cardiff City!
Great to see this thread being revived a year after it was initially started. I enjoyed reading through it again and the subsequent contributions.
For posterity, I thought I'd repost a couple of messages from the Sports Commentators thread that I hope will be of interest on here, which followed a November edition of the BBC Two Wales rugby union magazine show Scrum V Sunday running a feature on Newport's famous win over New Zealand in 1963.
Lovely feature on Newport's 1963 win over the All Blacks featuring some great black and white footage. It is well worth a watch, they don't seem to have uploaded the report individually onto the Scrum V website but there is an extended version of it on the latest Scrum V Extra Time. Question for Shrewn, Realwales or possibly Robin Carmody - who was the BBC Wales commentator that we can hear on those fantastic old clips from 1963?
It is Peter West. From his autobiography Flannelled Fool and Muddied Oaf p180 "I was in the TV commentary box...when Wilson Whineray's fifth All Blacks side suffered their only defeat, at the hands of Newport, on a filthy afternoon at Rodney Parade".
The feature is still available from the link in the first quoted post above, it begins 16 minutes into the video.
Prior to this afternoon's match between England and Wales, viewers in Wales had a Scrum V Classics which showed the corresponding fixture from 1988. Martin Williams and Phil Bennett were the commentators. Whatever happened to Martin Williams? He was BBC Wales's golden boy for a few years and sounded good on this match, but then suddenly vanished.
BBC Wales had their own commentators well into the 1990s. Until that point, when it was the 5 Nations, the usual policy was for the BBC network to show one game live and in full. The second game, which often kicked off slightly later, would be shown live and in full to the nations to which it was relevant. The rest of the network would then have fairly brief highlights before joining up live for the final part of the game, if there was time.
Bill McLaren and Nigel Starmer-Smith were two of the commentators used, with Cliff Morgan also a lead commentator until 1987.
Even if Wales was the network game, BBC Wales would have their own commentary. This extended well into the 1990s when Alan Wilkins presented coverage on 'Grandstand Wales'.
The co-commentators in the 1990s (when I was still a young child, so I may not remember everything), were Bill Beaumont and JJ Williams. Micky Skinner was a regular studio guest with Steve Rider.
i remember i would get both games in full on fox sports here in the usa and i remember that Bill McLaren and Nigel Starmer-Smith would do the pbp
i remember i would get both games in full on fox sports here in the usa and i remember that Bill McLaren and Nigel Starmer-Smith would do the pbp
If it was me I'd not assign Ian Robertson to Scotland matches, Jonathan Davies to Wales matches, etc. Maybe have one Homer Homeboy for each team in the studio, but keep the people in the booth neutral. According to Davies every single call against Wales of the past 15 years has been wrong.
If it was me I'd not assign Ian Robertson to Scotland matches, Jonathan Davies to Wales matches, etc. Maybe have one Homer Homeboy for each team in the studio, but keep the people in the booth neutral. According to Davies every single call against Wales of the past 15 years has been wrong.
i have to agree but i think they should use a mixed crew
IIRC, sorry the ol' grey matter ain't as good as it used to be;), but I think BBC Wales started using their own commentators around the mid 80's. Initially it was when the Welsh match wasn't the match being covered by the network. By around this time Martyn Williams was the BBC Wales commentator, therefore Wales would've had commentary by Williams, but when the rest of the country saw the highlights they would've heard commentary by Starmer-Smith for example. Not sure when exactly, probably the late 80's, but definitely by the early 90's, BBC Wales decided to provide their own commentators for all matches, whether Wales were the main game or not, therefore for a main chunk of the 90's, Welsh viewers who were watching BBC Wales' coverage didn't get to hear Bill McLaren, for example, even if McLaren was commentating on the same match for the rest of the network. Lyn Davies was the main BBC Wales commentator during this period. In the mid 90's, Lyn went to work for the WRU, and Huw Llywelyn Davies was moved from S4C's covearge to commentate for BBC Wales. Again not sure how long this lasted, but I think it was for about two seasons at most, before BBC Wales started taking network commentary again by the late 90's/start of the millennium
During the mid to late 80's/early 90's, ex-international Phil Bennett was often the co-commentator, whilst during the 90's, ex-internationals Brynmor Williams and JJ Williams were used.
Below is an edition of Rugby Special Wales from Sunday 7 February 1993, the day after the Wales v England match. The commentary of the game begins around the 3"55 mark, with Lyn and Brynmor commentating. Although this is the highlights programme, this is the commentary that Welsh viewers would've got for the match. Not sure who did the network's coverage, I presume it would've been either McLaren or Starmer-Smith
I also seem to recall David Parry Jones commentating on some Welsh matches in the 70's early 80's, but I don't know if this was coverage that would've been used by the network, or whether if it was exclusively for Wales.
i remember sometimes here in america we got the BBC Wales feed for Heineken Cup matches and sometimes RTE and sometimes BBC network feed
BBC NI have opted out of national commentatary the odd time, mainly for England v Ireland matches the most recent being the match at Croke Park in 2007 which had the usual build up with Inverdale but he stated for NI the commentators are Jim Neilly & Tyrone Howe while in the rest of the UK it is Eddie Butler & Brian Moore.
The only time they did studio presentation is if an Autumn International was not shown on the national BBC channels and usually they were presented by Jackie Fullerton (latterly Stephen Watson) with former Ireland players such as Gary Longwell, David Humphries and Mick Galway.
i think instead of a opt out they could have used Jim Neilly and Brian Moore
Comments
Considering he got the BBC out of a hole at the Italy v Wales match, a credit would have been appropriate.
Anyway here's to the 2014 Six Nations
llongyfarchiadau cymru
Well at least a major sporting event acknowledged those who worked on the coverage over the last 6 weeks. Which is more than can be said for Channel 4 and the Cheltenham Festival...
When "Can't take my eyes off you" music by Andy Williams was used.
I've been reading through this topic again after almost a year away.
I recall a Heineken Cup match involving a Welsh team was played around the mid-late 1990s, on a Saturday afternoon. It was shown live on Sky but BBC Wales opted out of Grandstand to show it on an 'as live' basis with something like a 30 minute delay (that figure might not be strictly accurate, but it was a delay of some sort).
Alan Wilkins presented it from the Cardiff studio, with Jonathan Davies as an analyst. They never referred to it as a 'live' match but they didn't say it wasn't live either. They were quite clever about that.
I think this was a one-off, if not, there weren't that many other instances of it happening.
It was fascinating looking back at this thread. The one change that'll come next season, depending on the current European Cup squabbles, is that Sky will have many first pick Pro 12 games.
Had a bit of a clear out recently whereupon I came across my diary from 1997. I can tell you that the HTV/S4C rugby coverage launch conference/party was at 11:30am Thursday 31 July at the Scrum Bar (below the Park Hotel IIRC), Cardiff. Also came across my name badge, which I was given at the time. The badge consisted of the Front Row and Clwb Rygbi logo wich was basically a collage of the colours of the then Premiership Teams colours. Can't find the accompanying press pack, yet, but if I do, I'll upload it to the thread. Seems odd why I'd still have the badge but not the pack!!!!
[QUOTE=WesternMale
S4C, throughout the 80's, showed highlights of club rugby on Y Maes Chwarae (The Playing Field) and in the 90's, Tocyn Tymor (Season Ticket). Both were BBC Wales productions which went out on a Saturday night. As well as rugby, they covered other sports. Below is a clip of Y Maes Chwarae from 24 January 1987. The clip concentrates on the Schweppes Cup Third Round matches. The presenter, with the north Wales accent and in the beige suit is Keith Jones, but I can't recall who the presenter is in the grey suit with the west Walien accent is.The featured match of the round is Neath v Llanelli, with Jonathan Davies playing for Neath. Huw Llywellyn Davies is the commentator, for which he does a piece to camera at 7'47 before the match highlights are shown. At the end of the match Jonathan Davies does an interview at 26'15. The clip ends with Keith Jones saying that the draw for the 4th round can be seen live on Rugby Special Wales. The grey suited presenter then reads out more club rugby results before announcing the French team thats due to play Wales a fortnight later whilst a clip of France v New Zealand is played.
Prior to the featured match, there's a brief highlights package of Cardiff v Llanharan where the reporter is Andy Bell, then more results are read out, before there's a package on Maesteg v Swansea, reporter is Edward Bevan, then more results are read out before going to the featured match and Huw Llywellyn Davies' piece to camera.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3YwFQVjco8[/QUOTE]
I remember who he is now. It's Emyr Davies who went on to become a reporter and producer for Sgorio
Cliff Morgan stopped commentating in 1973 when he became head of BBC Radio Sport. Nigel Starmer-Smith replaced him as a commentator and presenter of Rugby Special (then always presented from the ground of the feature game-it became studio presented in the mid-80s, presented first by Chris Rea and later by John Inverdale).
McLaren always did the biggest game of the weekend, the one that was featured live on Grandstand in England.
Yes, BBC Wales used to cover the midweek tour matches live albeit usually "second half only". (Strange how commonplace that was on rugby and football matches in years gone by but unheard of now). Don't forget all day TV wasn't around in those days so it didn't mean interfering with network programmes.
Bill McLaren started on radio but switched to TV somewhere around 1960, Peter West was a main commentator for a number of years and I think Wilf Wooler might have done the Welsh games in those days as well as the above mentioned Alun Williams.
BBC Wales did a documentary on the 40th anniversary of the Llanelli - NZ game and it is available on youtube with some match highlights.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0Kv9FXqs1k
Probably Wilf Wooller who covered cricket on BBC Wales for many years and was still commentating until probably the late 70s/early 80s.
You may not rate him as a commentator, but as a sportsman he won 18 caps for Wales at rugby, captained Glamorgan for 14 years at cricket (it was only business commitments in those semi-professional days that stopped him getting into the England Test side) as well as playing football for Cardiff City!
For posterity, I thought I'd repost a couple of messages from the Sports Commentators thread that I hope will be of interest on here, which followed a November edition of the BBC Two Wales rugby union magazine show Scrum V Sunday running a feature on Newport's famous win over New Zealand in 1963.
The feature is still available from the link in the first quoted post above, it begins 16 minutes into the video.
Yes there will be.
If it was me I'd not assign Ian Robertson to Scotland matches, Jonathan Davies to Wales matches, etc. Maybe have one Homer Homeboy for each team in the studio, but keep the people in the booth neutral. According to Davies every single call against Wales of the past 15 years has been wrong.