George Taylor Interview

"Shoot" presenter and commentator George Taylor spoke to John Bourn in 2003

"From the time it opened, "Shoot!" was a one-man show. I combined that with working on a newspaper (the Daily Mail) until I left the paper in 1963. The early shows were done on film and inevitably a goal would be scored while you changed the reels. We were usually stuck in the corner of each ground and at St James' Park, we were above the toilet! We were in the corner at Ayresome Park and Roker Park, until we did a deal at Sunderland to take over the commentary position that had been built for the 1966 World Cup. We were in the corner for many years at Darlington because there was no room in the Main Stand and you were filming into the sun. At Hartlepool, we were in a good position but the only problem was that kids could get at the generator and once they pulled the plug out and I had to chase them away!

When we switched from film to tape, we got some brand-new Outside Broadcast equipment. However, we had a disaster with one unit (OB3). It was the opening day of the season and we were covering Sunderland versus Leicester City. It finished 3-3, a really good game, and Sunderland had a kid called Derek Forster in goal. He was only 16, the youngest goalkeeper ever to play in the Football League at that time. I finished up at the ground, went home, had a couple of whiskeys and then my wife said there was an emergency call from the studio. There was nothing on the tape! So I had to go in and record some sort of apology for the viewers who were expecting to see the game.

Until 1977, "Shoot!" was done totally on site, at the ground. I would record an introduction before the game, say something at half-time for the commercial break, then sum up after the game and we would do an interview if one could be arranged. When we got studio access, I hired Joe Cummings, a Sunday newspaper writer (who has since died) and Tony Green to give their comments, along with George Wardle, who was an FA coach and very knowledgeable about tactics.

"Shoot!" had a number of commentators. As well as myself, there was an Australian commentator whose name I can't recall and also George Bayley, who was then a golf correspondent. George went on to host Radio Newcastle's sports coverage for many years. We then hired David Taylor, who had entered a "Find a Commentator" competition for the BBC. He had come 2nd or 3rd but the BBC couldn't find any work for him, so we hired him from 1970-1974. David also worked for Granada and later went to join the BBC. In 1974, I was at an ITV network sports meeting in London and I saw a billboard for the "Evening Standard". It asked: "Whatever happened to Kenneth Wolstenholme?" So I got in touch and we hired him to commentate for us. Ken would come up on the Friday, do the odd interview for "Sportstime" that night, do his commentary the next day and then fly back to London. He was a good commentator but the drawback was that, because he wasn't living in the area, he had no local knowledge. Eventually in 1979, we got Roger Tames, who we'd hired to work on "Sportstime", to do the commentaries.

There were strict rules governing what games you could show and when you could broadcast the programme. When we were going out on Saturday nights in the 1960s, we once covered a Newcastle home match. I was talking to a director after the game and he asked when it would be shown. I said: "At 10.45 tonight." He said: "That's no good, put it on at 9pm." I said: "We can't do that because the League Management Committee (of which you're a member) won't allow us to show it any earlier than 10.45!" We only screened one game in those days and if it was a goalless draw, you were stuck with it. Matches were selected weeks in advance in conjunction with the BBC. I was co-ordinator for the network's choice of games. We would pick two, the BBC would pick one, we would pick some more, then the BBC would pick their second game, and so on, then you went to the League for approval. Our contract required us to cover two games every season from the Fourth Division. But even if it hadn't been in the contract, we would still have gone to Darlington and Hartlepool because, in fairness, they were in the region and were entitled to some sort of coverage. You tried to pick their games carefully. Obviously, if Newcastle were due to play Sunderland or Middlesbrough to play Man United, then you didn't want to be showing Darlington v Aldershot!

In the early days, we had no slow-motion facility. If we wanted to use slo-mo, we had to hire a facility from London and to book the lines to connect with it. But the risk was that, if there was an emergency and the network needed to use the lines, then you'd lost your slo-mo. Eventually we got our own machine."

"Shoot" commentator David Taylor spoke to John Bourn.

David Taylor was a current affairs journalist and writer who commentated for Tyne Tees during the 1973/74 season, an eventful campaign in which Newcastle reached the FA Cup Final and Middlesbrough were promoted from Division Two.

"In 1969,  I entered the BBC's "Find a Commentator" competition as a laugh and reached the final where we were asked to commentate on a home international with the live feed from a foul-mouthed director. How Kenneth Wolstenholme put up with it, I'll never know. Idwal Robling won and Ian St John came second. I believe I was third but that is only hearsay. Encouraged by this, I looked for further work with Tyne Tees - I already presented their evening magazine programme - and did a trial commentary on the Fairs Cup semi-final with Rangers at St James' Park where the Scottish fans invaded the pitch and the mounted police came on the field to deal with the drunken Glaswegians. This was more like reporting on Christians v Lions in the Roman arena than a football match. What I got out of it was a gig as an after-match commentator which got the Tyne Tees cameras banned from St James' at one stage.

Some years later, in 1973, I was offered 'Shoot' after Jeff Thomas left to go back to Australia. Previously, I'd been doing after-match opinion pieces which used to get Tyne-Tees into regular hot water. As a BBC current affairs reporter I really didn't have the time to do 'Shoot' but took the job for a year because it meant I could travel up to my beloved North-East, see football matches and claim expenses for it. Sometimes this was really hairy. I'd  be working for 'The Money Programme' or 'Panorama' on a Saturday morning in London and have to drive like a maniac to get to the game before kick off. Once I arrived with only ten minutes to spare and relied on what was, in those days, an almost photographic memory for footballers to get me through the first half before I could look up the teams in the match programme!

As a football commentator I would say I started poorly and got worse. My favourite story is of a dire goalless draw at Roker Park between Sunderland and Crystal Palace when I actually fell asleep in the second half. I was quickly wakened by an irate director telling me he was going to take a picture of Palace's manager Malcolm Allison sitting in the stands in his famous fedora and that I should say something. As I recall, my exact words were: "And there's Malcolm Allison, famed for his champagne lifestyle and if I were Crystal Palace's manager, it would drive me to drink." This had to be edited out before transmission. One thing I was good at was instant replays. In those days the technology didn't allow for that to happen during commentary so when a goal was scored you had to get excited and then describe the move that led to the goal in real time. Believe me, that's quite difficult to do. The picture was added later in editing.

Of course, my year was quite an interesting one for the North East.  Newcastle reached the cup final and were stuffed 3-0 by a Keegan inspired Liverpool and there I left it, going before I was pushed. It allowed me to say in later years that I was Kenneth Wolstenholme's  predecessor which was a bit like saying you were with Moses when he got the Ten Commandments. The first commandment for TV football  commentators should be 'don't rabbit on' but they all do it."