EVEN AMID THIS blizzard of news and turmoil in which we’re all buried, the death of John Virgo was a moment to stop you in your tracks.
Watching snooker on the telly will never be the same again.
The BBC are well-served for terrific snooker commentators but Virgo was the best of the lot. There is a sweet irony in Virgo’s building an iconic broadcast career after the finest moment of his playing career, his victory at the 1979 UK Championship, wasn’t aired on television because the cameramen went on strike.
The main virtue of the BBC’s snooker coverage is its timelessness – the venues, players, presenters, and commentators have hardly changed in 20 years – so that we’ll never again hear Virgo roll out a WHERE’S THE CUE BALL GOING? is jarring and frankly difficult to accept.
Virgo had a genius for conveying drama without always needing recourse to his catchphrase, for the brilliance sprung from the cadence of his voice. And that voice stood out because it was utterly distinct from those around him, and his passing means another unique voice is lost to sports commentary.
All of the sport’s greatest television commentators function like a film’s score: they consistently condition the drama in the background without you even noticing them until, of course, the moment of crescendo.
This is an extraordinary skill, and it is best summed up by George Hamilton’s adage that, whereas radio commentary is about knowing what to say, TV commentary is about knowing when to say it.
Commentators of Virgo’s talent and distinctiveness are becoming ever more rare on TV nowadays, despite the fact we are watching more live sport on television than ever before.
Where the best commentary is spontaneous, we now have an epidemic of commentators reading lengthy, and over-wrought introductory scripts at the start of games, with Sky’s Peter Drury still determined to preface Premier League games with stentorian parodies of speeches from Henry V.
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No Premier League game plausibly bear the alliterative weight with which Drury freights it: where most commentators’ job is to meet the moment, watching Sky’s coverage nowadays is an exercise in seeing whether any moment can meet Peter Drury.
His predecessor Martin Tyler went so rarely to such heights that he left himself the range to capture the truly stunning moments, most obviously Sergio Aguero’s goal to win the 2012 Premier League title.
Other commentators remained oddly terrified of silence: see how often TNT’s Darren Fletcher pads out his commentaries with utterly pointless stats handed to him by a production assistant. It’s no coincidence Fletcher’s best piece of commentary in years was his decision not to say anything amid the bedlam of Aston Villa’s late winner against Arsenal earlier this season.
Silence remains the most under-used tool in the commentary box, as anyone who recognised Jim Nantz’ magisterial, six-minute silence in response to Rory McIlroy’s meeting his dreams at Augusta National will testify.
With Virgo’s passing, we are robbed of one of the few truly distinctive commentary voices left on television. Aside from Andrew Cotter’s fabulously Scottish burr on the Beeb’s rugby commentaries and Sky’s darts commentators, who is left who truly stands out from the rest purely by the sound of their voice?
The arc of modern sport trends toward uniformity: I am reminded of Adam Hurrey’s brilliant piece during the 2022 World Cup in which he pointed out that each World Cup no longer has a unique look on television anymore. Glance at any game up to the 2010 World Cup and you’ll instantly be able to tell at which World Cup it’s being played, whereas everything from 2014 onwards looks identical.
The same is happening to commentary, albeit it’s hard to blame many individual commentators for this: it’s more likely to be a money thing.
Despite the fact the cost of paying for a TV subscription is growing all the time, the broadcasters continue to save money by forcing commentators to do a huge number of games off-tube, which is industry-lingo for doing it in a studio remote from the actual event. This, as a viewer, is an utterly rubbish development, and is easily figured out anytime a real-time event is occluded by a television replay.
When commentaries on games are being delivered from offices and retail parks, then it’s unsurprising they begin to lose any sense of distinction.
Virgo’s catchphrase told us to keep an eye on what it is about to happen next. His art regrettably appears to be in decline.
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John Virgo's death robs us of one of the last truly original voices in sports commentary
EVEN AMID THIS blizzard of news and turmoil in which we’re all buried, the death of John Virgo was a moment to stop you in your tracks.
Watching snooker on the telly will never be the same again.
The BBC are well-served for terrific snooker commentators but Virgo was the best of the lot. There is a sweet irony in Virgo’s building an iconic broadcast career after the finest moment of his playing career, his victory at the 1979 UK Championship, wasn’t aired on television because the cameramen went on strike.
The main virtue of the BBC’s snooker coverage is its timelessness – the venues, players, presenters, and commentators have hardly changed in 20 years – so that we’ll never again hear Virgo roll out a WHERE’S THE CUE BALL GOING? is jarring and frankly difficult to accept.
Virgo had a genius for conveying drama without always needing recourse to his catchphrase, for the brilliance sprung from the cadence of his voice. And that voice stood out because it was utterly distinct from those around him, and his passing means another unique voice is lost to sports commentary.
All of the sport’s greatest television commentators function like a film’s score: they consistently condition the drama in the background without you even noticing them until, of course, the moment of crescendo.
This is an extraordinary skill, and it is best summed up by George Hamilton’s adage that, whereas radio commentary is about knowing what to say, TV commentary is about knowing when to say it.
Commentators of Virgo’s talent and distinctiveness are becoming ever more rare on TV nowadays, despite the fact we are watching more live sport on television than ever before.
Where the best commentary is spontaneous, we now have an epidemic of commentators reading lengthy, and over-wrought introductory scripts at the start of games, with Sky’s Peter Drury still determined to preface Premier League games with stentorian parodies of speeches from Henry V.
No Premier League game plausibly bear the alliterative weight with which Drury freights it: where most commentators’ job is to meet the moment, watching Sky’s coverage nowadays is an exercise in seeing whether any moment can meet Peter Drury.
His predecessor Martin Tyler went so rarely to such heights that he left himself the range to capture the truly stunning moments, most obviously Sergio Aguero’s goal to win the 2012 Premier League title.
Other commentators remained oddly terrified of silence: see how often TNT’s Darren Fletcher pads out his commentaries with utterly pointless stats handed to him by a production assistant. It’s no coincidence Fletcher’s best piece of commentary in years was his decision not to say anything amid the bedlam of Aston Villa’s late winner against Arsenal earlier this season.
Silence remains the most under-used tool in the commentary box, as anyone who recognised Jim Nantz’ magisterial, six-minute silence in response to Rory McIlroy’s meeting his dreams at Augusta National will testify.
With Virgo’s passing, we are robbed of one of the few truly distinctive commentary voices left on television. Aside from Andrew Cotter’s fabulously Scottish burr on the Beeb’s rugby commentaries and Sky’s darts commentators, who is left who truly stands out from the rest purely by the sound of their voice?
The arc of modern sport trends toward uniformity: I am reminded of Adam Hurrey’s brilliant piece during the 2022 World Cup in which he pointed out that each World Cup no longer has a unique look on television anymore. Glance at any game up to the 2010 World Cup and you’ll instantly be able to tell at which World Cup it’s being played, whereas everything from 2014 onwards looks identical.
The same is happening to commentary, albeit it’s hard to blame many individual commentators for this: it’s more likely to be a money thing.
Despite the fact the cost of paying for a TV subscription is growing all the time, the broadcasters continue to save money by forcing commentators to do a huge number of games off-tube, which is industry-lingo for doing it in a studio remote from the actual event. This, as a viewer, is an utterly rubbish development, and is easily figured out anytime a real-time event is occluded by a television replay.
When commentaries on games are being delivered from offices and retail parks, then it’s unsurprising they begin to lose any sense of distinction.
Virgo’s catchphrase told us to keep an eye on what it is about to happen next. His art regrettably appears to be in decline.
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column John Virgo