'Woollers'

[Sweder]

I managed to miss the sad news that Ian Wooldridge passed away. It wasn’t a great shock – his diary pieces in the Mail were getting fewer and farther between, the banner ‘Ian Wooldridge is away’ appearing way too often.

Wooldridge was the doyen of English sports writers. Mick’s Pa would have known him better than most and could probably tell a host of tales, but I’d like to throw in my tuppence ha’penny’s worth.

Wooldridge was a man who didn’t suffer fools lightly, if at all. He eschewed football in all its modern profligacy, turning his sharp eye and merciless wit on any poor soul dumb enough to decry their lot whilst stuffing oodles of cash into their gold-trimmed tracksuit pockets. He covered 10 Olympic Games, though by the time he got to Sydney ill-health was already starting to catch up with him, if not slow him down.

Wooldridge covered sport on his own terms, armed with a packet of woodbines, never too far from a generous supply of gin and tonic. He remained detached enough to give you both barrels if he felt you’d lost touch with reality, no matter how he may have praised you in his columns. Wooldridge detested bullshit, a position reflected in his affection for Australia and the Aussies. I like to think of him as Hunter S Thompson without the pharmaceutical enhancements. His sometimes eccentric, often provocative but never, ever dull missives in the Daily Mail, a tome enjoying his contributions for a staggering 46 years, were pure gold.

I remember Wooldridge as a narrator, too. He covered The Great Fishing Race, a bizarre competition that, but for his wonderful invective, would have cured insomnia for a generation. And his astonishing Monte Carlo run, sharing a cockpit with Stirling Moss; it was the ultimate Odd Couple scenario, priceless, timeless television. I must track these down for an evening of quiet self-indulgence, abetted appropriately by a quantity of fine Claret.

The Independent recently described him as ‘possibly the greatest sports writer of this – or any – age’. If you’ve never read Wooldridge on sport I urge you to spend a moment to seek out his work. The world’s a slightly duller place now that he’s gone; we shall surely not see his like again.