Les Murray to retire from full-time football commentary
It's true. "Mr. Football" will call his last-ever World Cup in Brazil.
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It’s unthinkable…. Les Murray, 68, will call his last-ever World Cup in Brazil.
After 34 years behind the microphone at SBS, “Mr. Football” will retire from full-time commentary but has vowed to remain involved in the game.
“From the time I first read about Brazil and Brazilian football in the 1950 World Cup, which was held there, one of my dreams was to see a World Cup in Brazil so this is the climactic World Cup for me,” Murray tells Fairfax. “It’s just a fascinating country in love with football, a perfect place for the World Cup.”
“I’ve attended great games, great tournaments and I’ve seen the world … but the greatest joy I get is when some man or woman comes up to me and says ‘I have become a football fan because of you’. That gives me the greatest satisfaction.”
Murray has previously told TV Tonight, “The World Cup is invariably the biggest event that we do and that I’ve done. I’ve done others like the Tour de France and other fantastic events but the World Cup is the biggest. When we started doing the World Cup in 1986 we shared it with the ABC because the ABC didn’t want to run all the games and we put up our hands and said ‘We’ll run whatever you don’t run.’
“So the audience was able to see almost the entire World Cup across 2 television stations. But all those years of fantastic growth in audiences were very frustrating because Australia never qualified. All these heart breaks all the time, losing the last qualifying match and all that.
“Then the big bubble burst in 2005 when Australia did qualify for the World Cup of 2006 and that was the pinnacle, that was the cathartic moment in my career.”
FIFA World Cup begins 5:30am AEST Friday June 13 on SBS ONE.
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- Tagged with FIFA World Cup, Tour de France
3 Responses
I hope it will be as good as an experience as he hopes it will be. Also I hope he has a happy retirement. Although will they lure him back for the occasional guest talks but just locally?
Jimbo: a superb reply – I’ll be thinking of that for the rest of the day.
It’s unthinkable….
Also unthinkable that he’s 68. Must be very talented makeup girls at SBS, but seriously, can’t think of anyone else who has done more for soccer in Aust. than Les.
I believe the Les Murray of the AFL Dennis Cometti is also retiring at seasons end.
It’s funny, I was wondering only a couple of days ago about how long Les was going to keep going. Les doesn’t do every SBS Football program and David Basheer has done well with anchoring those. Should be a fairly seamless changing of the guard.
Funny, I thought he was already retired.
At least he will go down with a bang.
Well done to Les for his help in growing the game in this country. He has done a fantastic job and has developed a very solid team alongside himself. All the best mate…..I am so looking forward to the WC in Brasil
What nationality is Les Murray? Wherefore hails his ancestry?
Jimbo: Hungarian.