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Mar 23, 2020

So long Big Del, the sweary old-school Londoner who connected | Barry Glendenning

Shared experiences between people in separate places are quite the thing right now – plenty find the radio a comforting friendBig Del died last week. A fixture in my Brixton local, he hadn’t been in since Christmas and the cancer did for him pretty quickly in the end. Nobody in the pub, not even those closest to him, had known he was ill because he seemed the type who probably didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for him.A retired brewery drayman, Del was a sweary old-school Londoner who loved his football, rooted for “those facking Gooners” and was England till he died. We’d even fallen out over it once; nothing serious, a clash of nationalities more than personalities. He knew this...

Oct 10, 2018

Crisp, clear, fun: TalkSport’s opening cricket stint avoids apocalypse | Barney Ronay

Roguish interloper who stole radio rights to England’s winter tours bowls tidy opening over for listeners fearing loss of TMSThe barbarians are at the gates. The lunatics are on the grass. Ten kilo bags of mixed gravel aggregate are two‑for‑one at your local Bumcrack Warrior Warehouse. And most alarming of all, starting with Wednesday’s rain‑ravaged first one‑day international in Dambulla, the cricket is now on commercial radio.When the news broke in April that TalkSport had outbid the BBC to take the radio rights for England’s tour of Sri Lanka the response was mixed. Reactions tended to veer between mild irritation at the loss, for a few months, of a much‑loved programme; to wistful, sun-bleached nostalgia for a world shadowed with...