COLEMANBALLS

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Coleman's knowledgeable presentation was infused with a genuine enthusiasm as he worked long hours through the week to learn all the facts and figures needed for the forthcoming weekend. It was perhaps because of this that Coleman was never frog-marched off to the minority sports - badminton or bowls, fencing or volleyball - where his sense of drama would have been misplaced. His legal wrangle with the BBC in the mid-1970s, which kept him off the screen for a year, centred on his complaint that he was used too parsimoniously and did not have enough editorial involvement. When the fledgling BBC television service resumed after the second world war, it was still very much the corporation's junior service, available only in parts of the south-east, with its performers recruited occasionally from radio, though more usually, it seemed, from the officers' mess or the old boy network. Certainly, up in Cheshire, young Coleman had never seen television as a boy. His route was to be journalism's traditional one.

Jonathan Edwards, Olympic gold medal triple jumper: "David was one of that rare breed who had the ability to say just a word and you knew who he was, like Sean Connery in acting and Bill McLaren in rugby." On demobilisation, he joined Kemsley newspapers in Manchester before becoming a youthful editor of the weekly Cheshire County Press. He was a gifted amateur runner and in 1949 won the annual Manchester Mile, at the time, he would insist, the only non-international ever to have done so. After injuries prevented him from entering trials for the 1952 British Olympic team, he wrote to the BBC. From Fern Britton asking if a guest’s great grandfather had any children, to Anthea Turner urging people to use cars as fridges, to Geoffrey Boycott saying Indian police have “atomic weapons”, 2010 has been a vintage year.

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Nowhere was his dedication and knowledge better illustrated than at the teleprinter as the football results came in. Fantoni, Barry; Larry (1984). Private Eye's Colemanballs: No. 2. André Deutsch. ISBN 978-0-233-97700-3. Bayern will have the added advantage of playing in their own stadium – that’s like a home game for them.

I imagine he was a pretty uncomfortable guy to work with," wrote Moore. "His standards were high and his temper was pretty short." Moving on Fantoni, Barry; Larry (1988). Private Eye's Colemanballs: No. 4. André Deutsch. ISBN 978-0-233-98337-0. That dispute revealed a hard-headed side to the man whose affability is one of the ingredients which make the Coleman-chaired A Question of Sport, with its Pringle pullovers and pub repartee, a cosy long-running success. Fantoni, Barry; Larry (2004). Private Eye's Colemanballs: No. 12. Private Eye Productions. ISBN 978-1-901784-36-7. Coleman was famously prone to gaffes, including: "That's the fastest time ever run - but it's not as fast as the world record."There was never a shortfall in drama when Coleman was at the microphone. Spitting Image caricatured him as a commentator who literally explodes at the merest hint of athletic action. In one sketch he reaches fever pitch as Seb Coe breaks for the line with 600 metres still to go. "And I've gone far far too early!" he screams with about a minute of commentating time to fill. "I'll never be able to keep up this level of excitement!!" Fantoni, Barry; Larry (1990). Private Eye's Colemanballs: No. 5. Private Eye Productions. ISBN 978-0-552-13751-5.