Obituary: David Francey, football commentator

The death of David Maxwell Francey at the age of 87 will give headline writers no problem. “And it’s all over…” was his famous catchphrase, and no doubt variations of it will abound in today’s newspapers.

It says much about the fondness in which the commentator was held that more than 34 years after he retired from his “part-time BBC job”, as he called it, many people will read of his passing and say “Oh dear, oh dear.” That was supposedly another of his catchphrases, though, in fact, as often happens with a much-imitated celebrity, Francey rarely if ever used those exact words and it was his many impersonators who grafted the phrase onto him.

That he was so often imitated is a clue to the considerable popularity of Francey, whose distinctive tones, which might be described as “educated Glasgow”, made him the voice of football for many Scots over three decades.

In an era when “live” matches on television were still relatively rare, and radio commentary was the only way people could tune into “live” action, Francey reigned supreme as the master commentator in Scotland from the 1960s to the 1980s.

He had a genuine gift for a telling phrase and a swift description of action, along with an undoubted talent for conveying passion and making games more exciting for the radio listener than they actually were for the spectator in the stadium.

His gift of the gab may have been inherited from his engineer father Tom, who came from Ballymena in Northern Ireland to work in the Clyde shipyards, but who was also an excellent lay preacher in the Plymouth Brethren.

Francey junior was born in Partick, the youngest of four boys in a family of eight children. His mother Agnes cared for the brood which she and Tom soon moved to Knightswood, the pleasant suburb on the west side of Glasgow.

After his education at the local primary and Hyndland Secondary School, Francey began working for an insurance company.

As a schoolboy, he had been a more than useful footballer, but his career ended at 17 with an accident on the pitch when he caught his foot in a rut and damaged his knee so badly that he was warned never to play again. His injury delayed his wartime call-up to the RAF and he was training to be a pilot before it became clear that the Second World War was coming to an end. Consequently, he saw service in the ground staff.

During the war Francey, who had grown to a strapping six feet three inches, performed as a singer in Services’ concert parties. He took advice from professionals and paid to have elocution and his baritone voice properly trained – as he later said, it was “money well spent”.

It was also during the war that he met his wife Sheila. They would enjoy a happy 67-year-long marriage. On being demobbed Francey joined the civil service and at various times served in the Inland Revenue, Gas Board and Electricity Board. This was always his main career, though he hankered after involvement with football and broadcasting, while extra income would prove useful after his son Michael arrived.

In 1952, he wrote to the BBC, whose head of sport in Scotland, Peter Thompson, gave him a try-out as a match reporter.

Those were the days when reporters went to a match and rushed back to the studio to broadcast. As technology improved, Francey decided that radio, rather than television, was his medium, and that would be the making of him. In 1964, he became a match commentator and was an instant success.

By the time Scottish football reached a peak in the late 1960s, Francey was the station’s top commentator and he went on to cover such high moments as Celtic’s European Cup victory in 1967, the famous Scottish victory over England at Wembley that year, the European Cup-Winners Cup triumphs of both Rangers in 1972 and Aberdeen in 1983.

His patriotism was only just held under the surface whenever he commentated on Scotland matches. He covered the World Cup campaigns in West Germany in 1974 and Argentina in 1978, but was rejected for later cups because the corporation decided his Scottish tones would not suit its altered coverage led by London.

His last match commentary was Scotland’s 2-0 defeat by Brazil at Hampden in 1987. His final comments were indeed “… it’s all over.”

After retirement from football, Francey continued to feature on radio and acted in television dramas such as Take the High Road and Taggart, in which he memorably played the victim of a murderess.

Francey was such a star in his own firmament that myths and legends attached themselves to him. There is a supposedly apocryphal story that he was once beaten in a “David Francey soundalike” competition. The story, however, is perfectly true. It happened at an event at the BBC Club in the early 1980s when judges had to listen “blind” to impersonations of the mellifluous Francey tones, not knowing that the organisers had slipped in a tape of the real Francey. The judges placed Francey fourth.

It is not true, however, that Francey swore on air – he never used bad language – and nor did he turn to a co-commentator and ask how to pronounce a Romania player’s name: “blowed if I know” supposedly became “big blond striker Blodifino” in Francey’s commentary, but the story was never verified and the match tapes are long gone.

Francey did enjoy some memorable moments behind the microphone. He really was struck full in the face, his mouth gashed open, by a ball kicked from the midst of a Hamilton Accies v Clydebank match. Occasionally given to chuckling, he caused plenty of giggles himself when he and sportswriter and co-commentator John Blair both fell off their rickety chair in Hungary during a European match beween Ujpest Dosza and Celtic.

Francey had latterly been living in Newton Mearns. His health had not been good in recent years, though he fought back from a stroke and a heart problem in his 70s. He is survived by his wife Sheila, son Michael and his grandchildren.

MARTIN HANNAN