COLEMANBALLS

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By the age of 22 he was editing a local newspaper in Cheshire, with hopes of developing his running career.

Nowhere was his dedication and knowledge better illustrated than at the teleprinter as the football results came in. Fantoni, Barry; Larry (2002). Private Eye's Colemanballs: No. 11. Private Eye Productions. ISBN 978-1-901784-30-5. By 1953, Coleman was putting in regular scriptwriting shifts in the BBC northern region's Manchester newsroom, and the following year joined its staff in Birmingham, concentrating on sport in the Midlands. At once came the opportunity of which ambitious juniors dream.Michael Owen to Newcastle is the biggest transfer of the season so far - and it will be until there's a bigger one." - Jim White In 1984, he won the Television and Radio Industries Club award as Sports Presenter of the Year and, in 1992, he was awarded an OBE. He finally retired from broadcasting in 2000. Tributes Fantoni, Barry; Larry (2000). Private Eye's Colemanballs: No. 10. Private Eye Productions. ISBN 978-1-901784-19-0. BBC broadcaster Barry Davies described Coleman's coverage as "just the right balance of authority and sensitivity". Colemanballs

The late Brian Moore, who was a football commentator for ITV, was disparaging about Coleman in his autobiography. More or less since the inception of the BBC's regular outside sports broadcasts, Coleman's was the voice that brought the event into the living room. He anchored Grandstand and Sportsnight long before anyone had ever heard of Frank Bough or Desmond Lynam. He was the first commentator whose voice proclaimed that he neither attended a public school nor pretended to have done. Lord Sebastian Coe, two-time Olympic 1500m champion: "He was just incomparably the best. It wasn't just that he carefully choreographed intro pieces, but he could always capture the moment." The 33 or 34-year-olds will be 36 or 37 by the time the next World Cup comes around, if they’re not careful.”A professional perfectionist, he could be a hard man to work with. Coleman could reduce insecure minions to tears, and often did. He liked cold-eyed, no-nonsense journalists around him, not television's regular vaudevilleans. He had always – and with good reason – a fine conceit of his own value. Rivals were never comfortable with Coleman. In the mid-1960s when ITV hired the popular, amiable Eamonn Andrews to launch its Saturday afternoon World of Sport magazine programme to take on the BBC's Grandstand, Coleman dismissively told Andrews: "I'll blow you out of the water!" To all intents, that was, mercilessly, what he did. Fantoni, Barry; Larry (2004). Private Eye's Colemanballs: No. 12. Private Eye Productions. ISBN 978-1-901784-36-7.