Here is his Times obituary, well worth a read....
Genial broadcaster who became one of the most recognisable voices on radio reading the football results
James Alexander Gordon’s reassuring voice was so embedded in the psyche of football supporters that, on his retirement in 2013, many expressed surprise that he had read the BBC’s classified football results service for only 40 years.
For generations of football supporters the sympathetic and avuncular inflection in Gordon’s voice as he read out the results on Saturday afternoon at 5pm would signal either euphoria or gloom. If he read out the team’s name on an upward note, the listener could anticipate delightfully that their team had won even before he had read the score. Equally, the downward inflection would prepare the listener for disappointment, while a flat voice signalled a draw.
“In those days it was funereal when people read the football scores,” he said. He explained his simple formula: “I decided I would communicate better if I was in sympathy with the listener. So, for example, if Arsenal have lost, I always try to put some sympathy into my voice when I say: ‘Arsenal 1’. I’m then more upbeat when I say: ‘Manchester United 2’.”
Known fondly as Jag, he read out the classified football results from 1972 to 2013 — first on Grandstand, Radio 2 and later Radio 5 Live. As the clock struck 5’o clock, the marching song Out of the Blue would play before Jag’s luxuriant voice filled the airwaves. Over the decades he read tens of thousands of reports and prided himself on never having read a score incorrectly.
“I believe the key to not making a mistake is finding a rhythm, which I put down to my musical experience,” he said. “If you have that rhythm, it is hard to go wrong and, though it may sound square, I think you owe it to the listeners to get it right.” He said that the alluring Scottish scoreline “East Fife 4 Forfar 5’’ was a myth, but admitted “Wolverhampton Wanderers is still a bit of a mouthful”.
There were only two occasions when he faltered during a broadcast. The first was on the afternoon of the Hillsborough tragedy. “The other time was a midweek shift when Inverness knocked Celtic out of the cup, and a bit of excitement crept into my voice. I thought ‘How marvellous that Scottish football can still produce results like that’.”
His voice was even recognised beyond Britain; students of English in Sweden were given audio copies of him reading the football scores in order to practise their inflection. And such was the enduring affection in which he was held that when he had to pause from reading the results one Saturday owing to a coughing fit there was a rush of cough sweets sent in to him by concerned listeners. Admirers included Michael Palin and Eric Morecambe — who became a friend and often mimicked Gordon — and he received mail bags weekly, including numerous letters from members of the Armed Forces serving around the world. Fans were known to name their dogs, goldfish and even children after him.
James Alexander Gordon was born in Edinburgh in 1936. His mother died in childbirth and he was adopted into what he described as a “loving home with lots of laughter”. He contracted polio as a boy and spent time in and out of hospitals. “I would listen to the radio, the old home service, for hours,” Gordon recalled. He learnt to pronounce many words from RAF wing commanders recuperating in the same hospital after the Second World War.
The notion of reading out the football results first entered his head as a boy, when his father complained that the scores were being read too fast for his pools coupon. Aged eight, Gordon said that one day he would read out the results and do it properly. His father bought him an old radio set and the young James would practise reading out the results, even though he had a speech impediment.
He played the piano and clarinet and went on to work in music publishing, promoting artists such as Bert Kaempfert and James Last. He evaded the swinging side of the Sixties: “You heard all this stuff about drugs and wild parties, but I never saw a thing. I wasn’t into all that media celebrity stuff, but I suppose I was a bit naive at times, looking back. Jimi Hendrix came into the office one day and said to me ‘Have you got any s**t, man?’ I was completely baffled, and only later found out what he meant. I was a Condor man, myself.”
Gordon realised his childhood dream after a chance meeting with a BBC producer — “By an amazing bit of luck, the then head of presentation, Jimmy Kingsbury, heard me and asked me to meet him.” The BBC at this point wanted to recruit announcers with regional accents, and had yet to recruit any Scottish broadcasters. Gordon was invited to apply and taken on as a newsreader. He began reading the weather forecast, but soon graduated on to the football results when he was told to “nip across to the sports room and read the classified, old chap’’. On hearing Gordon’s first broadcast, his father cried. “The wee bugger’s finally done it,” he said.
Although he enjoyed watching the football on monitor screens Gordon said he had no favourite team. Instead he was passionate about food.
When BBC Sport moved from London to Salford in 2012, Gordon was allowed to continue commuting from his Berkshire home to the London studios to read out the results. He arrived without fail to take a seat in his small cubicle with the scores placed in front of him and his producer standing nearby. His wife Julia survives him, together with their son David, who is a football commentator for Southend Hospital Radio.
Gordon once said he would “die with the microphone in my hand”, but was forced to retire from the results service in July 2013 after announcing that he was suffering from throat cancer. He had his larynx removed and his voice was no longer strong enough. His successor was the former Radio 4 newsreader Charlotte Green, who said that replacing Gordon was a “huge honour”.
Having begun with the aim of giving listeners “five minutes of magic”, Gordon drew the curtain on his career as one of the most recognisable voices in British broadcasting.
James Alexander Gordon, reader of the classified football results, was born on February 10, 1936. He died on August 18, 2014, aged 78
