Our speaker today was Peter Slater, a semi-retired BBC Radio sports presenter, who gave us a talk entitled “Do you know who I am?”
He started his career as a sports journalist in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1976, and his thoughts centred around some of those sports personalities who’s egos could sometimes get the better of themselves. He recalled interviews with Brian Clough, Geoff Boycott, and particularly Muhammed Ali, and reminded everyone that he might meet people at the top of their careers, but he also meets them on the way down!
Rumours abound in sports journalism and radio, and he often found himself chasing down unsubstantiated rumours, citing when he dashed to Newcastle Airport to interview Bobby Robson who was rumoured to be taking over as manager of Newcastle United, only to find that he was waiting for B.Robson, a pig farmer from Haltwhistle!
Peter particularly disliked working at both Wembley football grounds, the oldest of which required interviewers to work from a small area of sandy ground behind the goalmouth,and the latest ground which appears to encourage a degree of unsuitable language from his interviewees. Needless to say, any bad language from either ground is looked on very unfavourably by his employers when they are broadcast live to the nation!
As well as covering football matches during the winter season, he ventured long into cycling events, and particularly enjoyed covering Formula 1 racing, which he covered for 8 years during the Michael Schumacher/Ferrari era.
Bernie Ecclestone was apparently a very difficult person to interview, and he was often facetiously dubbed as “The Brains behind the Great Train Robbery”.
Whilst he very much admires Sir Alex Ferguson, the comments made by Sir Alex about the BBC5Live coverage was very disparaging, though these comments, according to Sir Alex, did not refer to the then commentator, Peter Slater himself.
After a short question and answer session, a vote of thanks was given by J.Holden.