Cyril's Biogs: HARRY CARPENTER 1925-2010

If British Heavyweight boxing champion Frank Bruno ever ended a sentence with the words "know what I mean, 'Arry?", then the 'Arry in question was BBC commentator Harry Carpenter, who for more than 30 years was the Beeb's "voice of boxing", despite never having donned a pair of gloves himself. But, boxing wasn't his only speciality as he also anchored tennis from Wimbledon for over 25 years and, for ten years, was the presenter of the BBC's midweek sports show Sportsnight.

The fishmonger's son was born in South Norwood, London in 1925. He joined the BBC in 1949 after a short career as a newspaper sub-editor, although he continued as a columnist with the Sporting Record and then the Daily Mail until he became the corporation's full-time boxing commentator in 1962. Among his greatest moments behind the microphone were Henry Cooper's controversial 1971 defeat as British and European Heavyweight champion to Joe Bugner, but undoubtedly the most famous of all was the 1974 World Championship bout between champion George Foreman and challenger Muhammad Ali in Kinshasa, in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, popularly known as the "Rumble in the Jungle". 

He took over the chair of Sportsnight in 1975 from David Coleman, and was also the BBC's main golfing anchor from the mid-sixties until his retirement in the early 1990's. Known as one of the calmer commentators on TV, he did let his guard drop a little a couple of times by allowing himself to drop the otherwise customary impartiality of his professions: once with the points decision by which Bugner won his bout with Cooper and then again when Frank Bruno challenged Mike Tyson for the World Heavyweight crown in 1989. "Get in there, Frank," he barked just when Britain's then most popular boxer looked to have frightened "Iron Mike".

His friendship with Frank Bruno, though often lampooned by Spitting Image, was genuine and he famously stood by the boxer as his career waned.

Sky News obituary on YouTube.

Harry Carpenter, British broadcaster and sports journalist: born, London, 17th October 1925; died, London, 20th March 2010.