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Posted: 31-10-2009 18:44 Post subject: James Alexander Gordon (Jag)

I was listening to the classified football results on radio this afternoon, read as usual by J.A.G. Such a familiar voice, and it seemed I'd been listening to it all my life. In fact, I seemed to remember my brother imitating his distinctive delivery when we were at school. But then I thought, surely not, so I had to go and google some info on him...

It turns out he has been reading the football results for 34 years, which is over half my lifetime (but my schooldays memory was clearly faulty!)

Born in 1935, Jag had to overcome childhood polio before he got a job as a BBC announcer. There's info here on his early life with his family
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2299769.stm

and more info here on him and Sports Report
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2299769.stm
(This includes info on the well-known signature tune
"De dum, de dum, de dum, de dum, de diddly dum de dum". Very Happy

)

Posted: 31-10-2009 21:43 Post subject:

.. and, he encountered a ghost at Broadcasting House, which has bedrooms for overnight and early-morning staff. He was staying in one of these rooms when he felt a cold spot, and IIRC saw a blurry shape. Can't remember a lot more than that, but it was in a compendium of celeb ghost-sightings I had when I was a child (called, imaginatively, "I've Seen A Ghost", and featured some rather disconcerting tales from, among others, Bob Monkhouse, Jon Pertwee and Kenny Everett, whose then missus was a noted medium in her day.)

Edit - wasn't Broadcasting House itself, but the Langham Hotel nearby. From this site :

Posted: 31-10-2009 22:27 Post subject:

Posted: 01-11-2009 08:17 Post subject:

That's distinctly rum! I merely cut and pasted, then excised the irrelevant bit - didn't go near the affected word.

Anyway, having delved a little deeper, it transpires Broadcasting House does have ghosts of its own, a limping butler, a lost musician and a man with a twirly moustache (and top hat? please let him have a top hat!)

And with all that in mind, I've shifted this to Gen Fort (as it has ghosts in it and odd cut and pasting thingies and memory-playing-tricks-on-you oddness.)

Posted: 25-07-2013 12:28 Post subject:

James Alexander Gordon: The tantalising allure of East Fife 4 Forfar 5
Magazine Monitor - A collection of cultural artefacts

In a sad day for football fans, James Alexander Gordon, voice of the classified football results, is to retire - without ever officially reading the scoreline with which he was indelibly associated, writes Jon Kelly.

Any football fan could close their eyes and imagine hearing that honeyed, resonant Scots brogue declare the final score.

"East Fife... (downward inflection) 4. Forfar... (upward lilt) 5."

For most of James Alexander Gordon's 40-year career delivering the BBC's classified check, it was the tally you enunciated if you wanted to impersonate his distinctive, much-loved delivery.
In fact, Gordon never announced this fabled scoreline. Now he has retired aged 77 from BBC Radio 5 live after surgery to remove his larynx. Sad

The two clubs, currently both in Scottish football's third tier, have never finished a game thus, although they have come close.
In January 1964 an encounter between them finished tantalisingly close, but the wrong way round - Forfar 5 East Fife 4.

And in October 2011 fans across the country raised their hopes during a clash which finished, disappointingly, East Fife 4 Forfar 3.

The man responsible for popularising the scoreline was legendary comedian Eric Morecambe, who would repeat it when mimicking Gordon.
Morecombe was a great admirer of the announcer and the two men became good friends. "Eric never called me James - whenever I saw him over a 20-year period he would say 'East Fife 4 Forfar 5'," Gordon said in 2012.

The fixture's musical resonance suited the delivery style of Gordon, a skilled clarinettist and pianist in his spare time.
He pioneered the much-mimicked technique of raising his tone for the winning side's score, and dropping it in sympathy for the loser's.
"It sounds so unbelievably obvious now but no-one had thought of it before," says former Scottish international turned BBC Radio 5 Live pundit Pat Nevin.

Audiences were always assured, too, that Gordon had the dexterity to deliver such a tongue-twister.
"His personality and his trustworthiness always came across, which is very hard to do when you're basically reading a list," says Nevin.
"However, I actually think there's a scoreline in Scottish football which is harder - Threave Rovers 3 Strathspey Thistle 3. Try reading it out three times, quickly. Even the great man himself would struggle." Cool

East Fife and Forfar next meet at Bayview Stadium, Methil, on 14 September. Henceforth, surely the encounter will become known as the "James Alexander Gordon" fixture.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-23447439