Hugh McIlvanney-sports journalist dies;but what a send off!

[toyboy54]

The well respected sports journalist Hugh McIlvanney died this earlier this week but what awake his friends and family are going to have as the man with the gravel voice coated in honey had the proviso in his will that £10,000 was to be specifically spent on drinks/food for his friends and family at his wake!Pure Class;just sums the man up.
I don't know if everyone is familiar with his writings in various newspapers(latterly The Observer?) but you can give yourself a treat by listening to a series of interviews he did with Radio Scotland-Sportsound-The McIlvanney Conversations (6 episodes)covering football/boxing/horseracing and life.
This man doesn't just talk---- he caresses words and gives you a new perspective on our language.His stories and reminisces about the great and the good and the characters whom he met and actually became friends with will impress the hell out of you.A truly amazing,erudite and intellectual man from the coal fields of Ayrshire.
Wish I was going to his send-off,pure class!!!! DFT and SILH, in fact all from Gods chosen country would enjoy.
Happy Jimbo

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

The well respected sports journalist Hugh McIlvanney died this earlier this week but what awake his friends and family are going to have as the man with the gravel voice coated in honey had the proviso in his will that £10,000 was to be specifically spent on drinks/food for his friends and family at his wake!Pure Class;just sums the man up.
I don't know if everyone is familiar with his writings in various newspapers(latterly The Observer?) but you can give yourself a treat by listening to a series of interviews he did with Radio Scotland-Sportsound-The McIlvanney Conversations (6 episodes)covering football/boxing/horseracing and life.
This man doesn't just talk---- he caresses words and gives you a new perspective on our language.His stories and reminisces about the great and the good and the characters whom he met and actually became friends with will impress the hell out of you.A truly amazing,erudite and intellectual man from the coal fields of Ayrshire.
Wish I was going to his send-off,pure class!!!! DFT and SILH, in fact all from Gods chosen country would enjoy.
Happy Jimbo

He died a month ago? - but all else you are spot on. A great writer and a great voice for Scotland and sport. Like his brother William (if you haven't read his Laidlaw books then do so - they are a treat for West of Scotland eyes and ears) he will be sadly missed - but we have their legacies ever available for us to dip into.

 

[Liverbirdie]

Great journalist of the old school along with Brian Glanville and our own Bill Elliot. People around when the likes of Matt Busby, Bill Shankly, Jock Stein were about and some great stories over the years, but delivered with a certain panache when a lot of these people were also friends to the managers.

 

[toyboy54]

Great journalist of the old school along with Brian Glanville and our own Bill Elliot. People around when the likes of Matt Busby, Bill Shankly, Jock Stein were about and some great stories over the years, but delivered with a certain panache when a lot of these people were also friends to the managers.

How very true that is.lso well in with Sir Alex,co-wrote his biography(tells how Fergie input 250K words and phoned him from the balcony of team hotel on afternoon of the European Cup Final 1999 to say''Hughie,I've been thinking about that chapter and came up with....)McIlvanney gives him 'Alex,have you not got something else to think about/on your mind,you know ,like getting your team ready?)
Och aye but thought I'd come up with this.............
Been listening to them again,just superb how the man takes words and moulds them into poetry that just has you in awe in at his gift of putting a different facia on these people.I mean describing Jock Stein as 'an ill educated intellectual(so simple,yet so effective)Or Sir Alex as 'a volcano sitting inside an iceberg'.And they don't go anywhere near his eloquence
Happy Jimbo....Yep I know,I need my head re-wired.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

One of the very best. An inspirational writer with a world of knowledge and the ability to say something very powerful with minimal use of language. Agree wholeheartedly with the comparisons to Glanville and Bill Elliot

 

[toyboy54]

One of the very best. An inspirational writer with a world of knowledge and the ability to say something very powerful with minimal use of language. Agree wholeheartedly with the comparisons to Glanville and Bill Elliot

Sounds like a hint Homer,pity my brain has had the circuits well and truly scrambled?!
Happy Jimbo