Obituary
As a kid he was pretty damn smooth to me.
As a teenager, he was the perfect subject for a near perfect piece of affectionate piss-takery. Dickie Davies definitely had twinkly eyes.
Dickie Davies RIP
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
While I appreciate that World of Sport lasted a whole Saturday afternoon – encompassing a number of sporting activities – I associate Dickie Davies with the wrestling and that alone. How odd…
Didn’t realise he was still with us. World of Sport was always the poor relation to Grandstand consisting of football preview, racing, wrestling and final football results and, I think, not much else. Dickie was iconic though RIP
Wrestling on World of Sport?
Only one voice comes to mind: Kent Walton.
“Greetings, grapple fans!”
‘He’s a good looking guy from Gravesend’…
Yes, indeed! I used to watch the wrestling every week with my granny – plenty of shouting at the telly involved.
In the immortal words of Victoria Wood, “Kick ‘im in the trunks!!”
WOS was the place to see Mike Hazelwood’s water ski jumps and also had highlights of big boxing matches from Las Vegas (or in the case of Hagler v Hearns, where the highlights were the whole thing).
I’d go further than above and say, of all the people I had heard just left us, Dickie Davies is the one I’m most surprised to discover had still been alive..
In about 1988 I was in a lift in a Bristol hotel with a friend – we were on our way to a Blockbusters audition. As the doors were closing we heard a familiar stentorian voice ‘hold the lift please! Hold the lift!’, the kind of request to which two sixteen-year-olds could only comply.
A small, incredibly dapper figure burst in, breathing slightly heavily.
‘It’s Dickie Davies!’ We both said, instinctively and in unison.
A twinkle appeared on Dickie’s face.
‘It is, lads, it is. How are you? What brings you to Bristol?’ he said, shaking our hands, charm exuding from every bit of his blazered figure.
As he departed a few floors later, wishing us luck in our audition, we felt invigorated. This is the kind of hero you should meet, folks. Happy travels, Mr Davies.
I’m surprised to be the first person to reply to this and say how much I enjoyed this brief encounter. It also gives me the opportunity to add this tidbit from an obituary. Dickie claimed to buy those natty jackets from a New York establishment called The Suicide Shop which recycled clothes, with questionable legality, from the local morgue.
https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2023/02/21/this-detail-in-dickie-davies-obituary-about-where-he-got-his-suits-is-a-proper-eye-opener/
Football Focus at 12.35, switch over for On The Ball at 1, run out of the house for Enfield, Barking, Woodford Town, Leytonstone, Chingford, Orient, or wherever the bill of fare was that afternoon.
What were those opening credits with the planes all about?
Like introducing the snooker with pictures of tall buildings on the credits.
A completely different degree of national fame to today. I suspect that in 2023, whoever the person is, Dickie’s equivalent could kick the bucket tomorrow and the whole nation, including rabid fans of sport, would have to be given a detailed explanation of who he/she is.
What did Heppo say about Pop Music? Never been easier to take part, never been harder to succeed.
Like so many TV folk from his era, I took DD’s talent for granted – compared to a lot of today’s personality free bland- mongers, he looks like a Colossus.
He was a great presenter. I didn’t really realise it at the time, but WOS had slim pickings compared to Grandstand but DD kept the excitement going, no matter what. They would show spectacular events like the diving from Acapulco or demolition derbies or speedway. On one occasion, I think, they had an American hot dog eating competition.
But it was the wrestling that got them the viewers. If I remember rightly, the BBC would have rugby league with Eddie Wareing in that timeslot. Eddie had no chance if Kendo Nagasaki, Big Daddy or Giant Haystacks was on World of Sport. But then back to Grandstand at about 4:40 for the football scores, though. Always.
That was my Saturday afternoons in the late 1970s perfectly described.
Or as my younger brother thought he was called Kenny Nagasaki
I loved the sports special segment, especially when it featured Evel Knievel.
My late Dad was a huge fan of the Sat afternoon Grapple’n’Groan fest – especially if Les Kellett was on. Simon Garfield wrote a splendid book called (aptly enough) The Wrestling which is well worth tracking down if still OOP as it was when I read it a few years back
In a similar vein, the Luke Haines album 9 1/2 Psychedelic Meditations on British Wrestling of the 1970s & Early ’80s is worth a listen
strongly agree Rigid … one of his best
and the Simon Garfield book is great … pig farmer Les Kellett
Never watched ITV Sport, did we? Frank Bough, David Coleman, Eddie Waring – that’s us, BBC . Dad wouldn’t watch that ITV with all those adverts.
And, oh god, the teleprinter painfully spewing out the results:
P a r t i c k T h i s t l e 1 .v. A b e r d e e n (0, 3, 24?….)
… Teleprinter?! You were lucky…
Living in Dublin, we had BBC Norn Iron so had to suffer the switch to their sports news before the latest Hammers humiliation had been shown on the teleprinter. Often this left us not knowing the results until the Sunday papers were out. “Crusaders, Linfield, Limavady Swifts, Portadown, Cliftonville.” Names associated with that particular weekly misery.
Don’t get me started on the subject of Dr. Who or Match of the Day being interrupted by a police message. We hidden victims of the Troubles have been written out of history.
Well the BBC had the teleprinter too (in fact they still have it, a modern version)
Whenever the goal tally was 6 or more, the teleprinter helpfully spelt out the number (in a combination of surprise and proving it was not an error)
Luck they didn’t do it with the Rugby results or they’d be there a while and the teleprinter would’ve run out of ink.
7 (SEVEN!)
They really should have had the exclamation mark.