SPECIAL INTERVIEW: Legendary Commentator Jim Rosenthal - Part Two

A special feature interview with Jim Rosenthal, the distinguished English sports presenter and commentator with a career spanning over 55 years, covering eight FIFA World Cups, three Rugby World Cups, two Olympics, 150 Formula One races, and many major boxing bouts.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:28

Everyone, welcome back to World Cup, etc. Bear in mind that we've now transitioned to World Cup football, etc. And then after the World Cup, we will be transitioning once again to World Football, etc., just as a reminder of the gradual changes that are going to be taking place in terms of the naming of the podcast. And also, it's our great pleasure to say that here today we have the second part of the interview with broadcasting legend, that is Jim Rosenthal. Jim, yeah, you you mentioned how a lot of these figures, completely understandably, from the footballing world and you got close over the years and your friendship with with Bobby Robson. Of course, you're on the other side of the fence as well as a broadcaster. Um I guess these days it's it's it's more scrutinized, but was that ever something which sort of cropped up in your head? Was it ever a difficult uh moment? I mean, obviously, as a sort of commentator and a introducer, you you sort of maintain an objective through line, but especially when things are uh not going so well, I mean that must uh uh that must uh verge in into being a different landscape, or must have must have moved into being a different difficult landscape for for you from time to time.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

It it it it was, John, and it could be, but I think I I I had a reputation, if you like, that um and I and I've said to people before interviews, I'm gonna have to ask you some really hard questions here. And and I I think they you accept you are the mouthpiece for the for the public, if you like. And and what are the and and if you don't do that, I don't think you're doing the doing your job really. And the interviewer has such power in those situations. If the guy walks out, he walks out. If he has a go back at you, you have to be prepared to you know to to fight your corner, if you like. Um, I had it again, it's not not a world, not a World Cup story, it's a Formula One story with Bernie Eccleson and the American Grand Prix, if you remember a few years ago, where only six cars raced out of the 20, and it was a it was a shambles, and they were trying to get some F1 going in America, which it is now, but it wasn't then. And then at the next Grand Prix, I said to Bernie, will you come on? And um, I said, I'm gonna have to ask you some hard questions. And I steamed into him about what does this say about Formula One? Do you feel personally responsible? What about shambles this was? What about the TV audience? I actually kept going and going and going, and then we finished the interview and I went linked into something. And he came over and he said to me, He said, Jim, you did say you were gonna be hard on me. You didn't say you're gonna repeatedly kick me in the balls for 10 minutes. So so there you go. And I said it had to be done. And yes, it didn't affect, I think it didn't affect my relationship at all. I reckon people respect you more, you know, when you ask that sort of thing, as opposed to how do you feel, or you make a statement that they're supposed to agree with, or you hit them with a stat. I think in the long run, people respect you more if you ask a question.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

Yeah, and I think um the the you mentioned before about the sort of the the cutting of your teeth in a in a sort of formative local media landscape, and it and it seems to me that it's you see that with a lot of media these days, that that's kind of missing because you do have, I mean, in part, there's sort of this anodine media landscape where you ask obvious questions, um, but you know, was this your most important win or your most important century or whatever it might be? What does this mean for this, that, and the other, which actually uh you know, not designed to actually extract anything interesting from the uh from the person who's being interviewed. And then the flip side of that is that you then also have this sort of gotcha media landscape where there's these uh trick questions that are almost designed to get a sort of soundbite and go viral. But certainly my memory of you and my memory of of uh of those broadcasting years is that actually that there was, you know, I don't I don't want to say that it's a it's an unprofessional landscape now, far from it, but that there was you could distance yourself, as you said before, you could distance yourself from from the job and the individual in a way that perhaps now, again, this sort of the the personalization of um of of of the of media individuals now makes that a little bit harder.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Yeah, I think John what what it is now is it's a much more regimented landscape now. There are a million PRs and and and oh don't ask him this and he won't talk about that and and he won't talk about this or or whatever. And and it's very hard, it's very hard now for people who doing what I did um in the 80s and the 90s to have any sort of any sort of connection. There's a stack of microphones there, and you've got to try and you know, you've got to try and ask the question that they'll respond to. And um, and there is a blandness and a bit of PR speak that creeps in that it is the journalist sort of role to cut through. And if and I had a rule, if anyone says they're not gonna talk about this, I'll go fine. And then you'd ask a load, and then at the end, you you you know, you say, Okay, what about that? And then and then what are they gonna say? And if they go, Well, I'm not gonna talk about it, well, why not? You know, uh, and I'd always I would never not do it, put it that way. I would never not do it. And I think there are journalistic ways around it that you two guys probably know more than more about than I do.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

You you've said um famously, Jim, that the the event is always more important than the presenter during you know, not just your football, even though we we've said football is your main love and your your close proximity to the England team during the World Cups. How do you how had did you naturally manage to keep yourself in check when you're at the centre of the coverage from a commentary perspective so that you couldn't give away your emotions as things were going well or things were going going badly?

SPEAKER_01 6:03

It's strange now, it really is strange now, Dek. And I'm not sure you know what the right answer is on this. I mean, I did the Rugby World Cup final um in 2003, England, Australia in Sydney, 23 um million plus watching over here, and um and I didn't want to be the fan with a map with a mic. I really didn't didn't want to be that way, but of course, you know, England winning World Cups doesn't happen every day. And if I look back at it, I perhaps you know that they won it and there's all this euphoria. I probably should have been more jubilant, if you like. But I'm very I was always conscious there's a show to do, and uh, and you're getting out, you know, the mechanics of the celebrations and all that. So if I've got a little regret that I probably I could have been more triumphant on it. I meant the end of it, I just said, you know, England of the world champions, you beauty is which is about as far as I, you know, as as far as I went. And it was a bloody good broadcast, by the way. Every, you know, it won awards, etc., etc. But that that is always very hard. And and um, I wanted a boxing with a boxing commentary, um Evander Holyfield and and uh and and Lennox Lewis, and someone it's on radio actually, someone accused me of being a fan with a mic, a fellow journalist accused me of being a fan, and I and I ripped into him. I really did.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

Well, I'm sure that didn't go down very well.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

It didn't go down well. That hurt that and I but it's very hard. And you start talking about we and us and things, it still grates with me a little bit, actually, you know, the where but it's it is also uh it's the modern way teams get promoted or wherever and you see you hear the radio commentators going off you go and it's a style, some people like it, some people don't. And it you know, listen, I'm I'm tending now. Listen, I'm an Arsenal fan. I was I was there when Arsenal reached the Champions League final and and the Emirates went crazy at lot last week, and Arsenal were accused of over celebrating. There are people around me in tears. There are people, you know, and and and if you're gonna go don't celebrate the you know, the celebration police, you lose so much from sport. So, again, it's a topic for another podcast, really. Should you get involved, should you get excited? Is that what is expected of you, or should you just do the job and do the journalism?

SPEAKER_02 8:09

And I think I can call you out there because you said you made there was some awards were were uh given for the 2003 Rugby World Cup. I think you've actually been very humble there. You were also the you were the main anchor for ITV's BAFTA winning coverage, and that's a big deal.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Yeah, it it is a big deal, and and and at the time you know it you you don't realize, but you take these things as as they come along, and you think um you think two things really that one they'll never be able to take it away from me that I did present it when England I might not be the greatest rugby expert known to man, far from it, but I was at the front when England won that World Cup. And correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think they've won too many since. Um, and and the other thing about it that uh the team, and it's always a team behind you, is is the team's work is recognizing a BAFTA, which is and I always think those awards they're great if you get them and don't get too upset if you don't.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

Yeah, no, I hear you. My sister-in-law's got a BAFTA as a team award, so fair play to her.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

They do mean a they do mean a lot to them, they do.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

So um, let's just move on to to sort of cover your distinguished bread breadth of different sports, because obviously, you know, you presented 152 Formula One races for ITVs over a condensed period of eight years. Um, how do and and then you you were involved with many other sports as well. How do you rapidly build expertise in a sport that you haven't necessarily grown up with or don't have an affinity with?

SPEAKER_01 9:35

It's I mean, I've always if been a massive believer in homework, and if there's anything that people if you if people accuse me of over-preparing, I'd say, yeah, I'm guilty. I'm guilty of that. The Formula One came my way. I think I had four and a half weeks before getting the job in the first the first F1 race around Albert Park in Melbourne, and my house here. It sounded it sounded like like Silverstone and Monaco rolled into one for those weeks because I was watching everything that I could do. And then I sort of struck on the on the on the on the ploy, the sort of cunning ploy that I'm gonna go on. I'm gonna say, look, you're putting you know one or two, you might be wondering what I'm doing here. Well, let's learn the sport together because it's completely new to ITV, which was quite quite a decent plan, actually, in hindsight. Um, but it it is it is homework, there's humility as well. I think the other thing, people come in and go, I know everything about this sport. Well, no one knows everything about any sport really, but it but if you've got the humility to ask, just give me a hand with this and give it. And and if I don't understand something, the pick Formula One, fiendishly complicated, it can be. And again, I worked on the on if I didn't understand what someone was talking about, I'd pick them up on it. You know, just explain that. And um, and I think, listen, I did athletics for 12 years on ITV as well, not being the greatest athletics buff, but you sort of, you know, you pick you can pick sports up very quickly, and providing you're not, again, what I spoke about earlier on, being being a fraud, trying to pretend you know everything, people will give you the benefit of the doubt. Having said that, that athletic story, when we started doing athletics, we took it. I mean, 4 minute 1 we took away from the BBC, and everyone thought the world would end. And but I had an experience of that because we got athletics on the back of the BBC um in the mid-80s, on the back of the Cohen Ovet era, etc. And um, but we thought we were doing okay, and we did a I did a show up in Meadowbank in Edmund and came out, and this very nice middle-aged couple came up to me and said, I just want you and your whole team to know you are destroying our sport. It was I said, Well, what do you expect me to say to that? You know, and and of course, it actually turns out that those years were the golden years for athletics, peak time telly and everything, and now it's effectively disappeared. But it's a very, it's a very hard thing to come back on when you get and you get that's that that's that sort of hit. I'm digressing again, sorry.

SPEAKER_03 11:59

No, yeah, I think it's you know it's all uh it's all part of the the the picture of of course, and if we're anything at uh World Cup, etc., World Cup football, etc., it's this it's the fringe stuff, it's the which it it's always sort of seemed to us that is um it is curiously missing from um sports uh sort of context reporting. So hearing you talk about all this, Jim, is is um is really fascinating. Just with the um you know the preparation uh component, of course, as you say, there is no substitute for preparation. I always often think that, well, maybe not think, but certainly what I the process that I find myself going in is of course I prepare with information, and then I almost enter into sort of a rehearsal space where uh almost like I guess um people tell sports people to visualize, not in a sort of uh tweed naf way, but I imagine what people might ask of me or what areas people might want to cover. And I don't learn them verbatim, but I I sort of try and not have a thought for the first time by the time I go on live somewhere. So it's not like I can have an occasional new thought, but if I'm just stringing new thoughts together and thinking something through for them the first time, I think people can read that uh and it doesn't make for great broadcasting.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

I think you've got to be flexible. Uh, you you've got to definitely, I mean, that's the great thing about sport. You can do the running order, you can do whatever you like, and we'll do and then the whole thing, a bit like that US Grand Prix goes completely out of the window, and for and you fly by the by the seat of your pants. I've been quite blessed with a good memory as well, which means I I can look into a camera and make sense for what for for whatever 30 seconds a minute and without having all those words in front of me, and and you can tell people who are the slaves of the auto cue, which I again I would say if you can do it, do it, do it without without that. Um preparation. I mean, I 90% of it you come out of you come out of the show you haven't used, you shouldn't feel upset when you've done that. The the the fallacy about preparation is and you'll get the broadcasters and the commentators, I've done all this preparation, and you're gonna hear every single word of it, even though it's nothing to do with what's going on. That's the that's the drawback. And these days you get so many stats about every sport, and um and and stats, I've always said about stats, they are essentially boring because every iconic commentary line you've ever heard in your life, irrespective of the sport, does not contain a stat. And so every conversation should bear that in mind, really, that um you know that's the seventh goal he scored, you know, since he broke into the team as an 18-year-old in September 2022, doesn't cut it, you know, and an emotional reaction to something does.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Jim, football, rugby, f1, boxing, athletics, and now a little known fact about you, crofts.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Crofts been great for me, by the way. My career's gone to the dogs completely.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Who let the dogs out? Now, which one of those which one of those sports that um uh you know you've been commentating on over the years is the most challenging to present? And secretly between us three, what's the most fun?

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Um, I think the most challenging was the F1 because it was massively high profile. It's the only time I can I can remember now. I'm a very good sleeper. I had a completely sleepless night uh in um in Melbourne, and I remember walking across Albert Park, um, thinking, my god, what have I got myself into here? And that was that was that was a massive challenge. So it actually turned out turned out very well for me, you know, indeed. Um, I think I'm really lucky, um, in that I have had fun no matter what I've done. I really and I think if you're going back to my old dad, you find something you do, find something you like, and you will you and it won't be work, you will enjoy it. And I've been really, and I continue, uh like Crufts last month or whatever, continue to have a huge, a huge amount of fun. Um this is fun, and and that's the problem with it all, isn't it? That none of us don't want to do it anymore, you know, and and and it's also it's also a trap because you think you stay on too long, and then you and I've known you would know as well, broadcasters whose you know the lips don't work anymore and the brain doesn't work and they're not as good, and all of a sudden their whole reputation gets shot to pieces for staying on too long. That's and and that's that's the trap. But bringing the World Cup right up to date, a little group of us are going to the World Cup in the USA. We're gonna go to Boston, uh to Philadelphia and New York, leaving at the end of June, coming back uh July the 12th. Not sure which matches we're going to see, but winding right back to 66 when I got those um those tickets for all 10 matches at Wembley. That's the first time since then that I'm gonna be going to the World Cup in the States as a fan.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

So will you be in Boston for the Ghana game?

SPEAKER_01 16:58

Uh I'm not going there specifically for England. No, I'm not. Okay. So we're so I I I wish I could tell you which games they are. I might tell you which games they're likely to be, depending on what happens in the groups, but they always go out of the window. But I'm looking forward to sampling the States again where I've not been for a while. We used to have a place in Florida, actually, in Sat in Sarasota, and I'm I'm looking forward to to it just seeing it through a through a fan's eyes. And I think the bottom line is if you're not a fan, you shouldn't be a broadcaster if you're not a sports fan as well. And I've always d at heart been been a sports fan with a love for a lot of sports. I'm very lucky that I've had the chance to to cover quite a few of them and get paid for it as well.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

I think I think America is a slightly different place to last time you were here pre-pandemic, Jim.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

I'll take your and if I'm in trouble, I'll know who to call.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Um no, in all seriousness, I'll I will be at all the England games however however deep they get however deep they go into the competition.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

So listen, I hope they do go deep. You know, I I I really do. I'm sort of um I'm running out of years for them to repeat what they did at Wembley on that day in in 1966, and uh uh and we'll we'll we'll we'll make a good impression whether we have it within us to go to go the whole way. But I think that's the thing about England, there's this massive sense of sporting optimism that people try to tend to forget what's happened in the past, and and uh and the country or Britain I should say is remarkable for that, uh for for forgiveness and optimism.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

Well, I've got two more questions, and the last question I was gonna ask you was gonna round up the whole of the podcast, Jim. So I'm gonna as you've just brought up the theme of 2026, let me ask you, in your humble opinion, who do you think is gonna win the 2026 World Cup?

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Well, I on the basis that uh um my my tipping is is is is very very erratic. Um, I I think I'm I'm I'm not gonna say anything too remarkable, and I think the French are gonna take a lot of beating. I I really do. I think they're I think they're an experienced squad, a good manager. I think they've um just you've you only could look at what's happening in Europe with with Paris Saint-Germain. I know they're not all French, but I think French international football is is is right up there for me, and I think they would they will take some beating, but obviously I do hope that uh I get another tip completely wrong and uh and that uh we we go all the way because um the football fan in me uh will not be extinguished until the day that I depart this earth. So um, but as I say, uh if you're gonna leave anything out of the podcast, leave that out because it won't happen.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Well, most of the people we've been speaking with on the podcast, you know, 90% of them seem to think that France will win. As we all, as we all know, it's a funny old game. It is a funny game. Everyone thinks they're gonna win, it doesn't mean they will.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

I know, no, I know that, and I've never had an original thought in my life, so that's probably why I've gone with France. I do think it's too big, by the way. I do think 48. And and by the way, I was with some people this morning. How how once again Italy with 48 countries, Italy are not one of those countries, just beggars belief.

SPEAKER_02 20:06

Unbelievable, unbelievable. John, what any last questions for Jim before I round everything up?

SPEAKER_03 20:11

Yeah, I mean, uh, Jim, you said a couple of times how much fun this is and how your career's been you know so enjoyable and stuff. And you're absolutely right, it's one of those things that um you can just sort of think about and talk about. Uh, I find it quite sort of uh almost a relaxing space to think about sport on certainly to hear good sports commentary as well. But it sort of regularly comes back to me, I think, because of this, etc. bit as well, what sport means to people. I mean, if you sort of just um scratch it all back, it is remarkable how sport has this capacity right across the world, uh, right across it, doesn't matter where you come from, what you look like, uh, what what gender you are, what your income is, how sport has uh all these different things with you know a ball or leaping high or uh whatever it might be or swimming fast, has this capacity to just stir the individual and say something about us and and our lives. And of course, you've spent your your your life in that sort of in this parallel universe, which in many senses is more important than the daily lives that we lead.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Yes, no, it it it's it it fascinates me on a on a daily basis, really. And um you're dead right, John. And I'm I say I I go back to to the emotions of of of watching any sport, what people go through, and then they put themselves through it again, and it becomes part of the fabric of life, if you like, and of all the areas of um I'm I feel very fortunate that sport has been the tapestry of my life, really. And because you have to deal with so many with so many things in it, and and um if you again if you get cocky when you win, you automatically take a fall almost. And it and in in these days of The other thing of choosing when you when you want to watch a movie, when you whatever whatever it is, you do it in your own time. You can't you can't do that with sport. Sport remains, and it's this great salvation appointment of you. You can't say I'll watch that match in the morning, or I can't, you know, I'll I'll I'll I'll watch it. You you if you want to enjoy it to the full, you have to be there at the start and and see it all through. And the other thing is, I alluded to it, scripts and sport do not exist. The most ridiculous, the most ridiculous things happen, and you never know it all. And and and it's uh it it it's it's it's kept me going in a very enjoyable way, really, and and and hopefully for a few more years there. Yeah, and and this is this is great for me, guys, honestly. I'm I I'm I mean it just uh and it has been a chat, it's probably gone on a bit longer than you wanted, really, but uh it has has been has been the three of us and um it's and thanks John and thanks Declan. It's been great for me, I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

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SPEAKER_02 23:01

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SPEAKER_03 23:20

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SPEAKER_00 23:26

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