In search of Eddie Waring: the voice of rugby league who divided its fans

IT was almost inevitable a searching documentary would eventually be made about Eddie Waring.

He was a man who polarised opinion, who the public either loved or hated. While he introduced millions to the sport of rugby league as the BBC commentator for more than 40 years, he also attracted fierce criticism.

As Waring's profile grew in the 1970s, his decision to appear on TV shows such as Morecambe and Wise and host the whimsical It's A Knockout saw appreciation turn to disdain from those who feared he had become a northern stereotype and a figure of fun.

Unamused by the way he apparently portrayed both the sport and its northern heartland, for some the bumbling Waring became a subject of ridicule and a man who did more harm than good in the battle to close the North-South divide.

However, Waring had as many supporters as he did detractors. For those who recall him as the warm and effusive Uncle Eddie, with his unmistakable tone and appearance, decked with trademark trilby, he will forever be the man who brought rugby league alive.

Falling in love with the sport as a child growing up in Dewsbury, he was determined to take the game, so marginalised compared to rugby union, to a different level and now, in the year which would have marked his 100th birthday, the BBC has produced a film – Eddie Waring: Mr Rugby League – charting his colourful life.

Everyone has an opinion about Waring, but what could have been a standard portrayal of the history of the game has been choreographed around the commentator's various involvements. It highlights

once more not only the longevity of his career, but his impact across the generations.

"The programme shows Eddie's role in the history of rugby league rather than being a straight nuts and bolts analysis of who did what at the time," says BBC producer Paul Greenan. "We felt his story would make a great documentary and it is fascinating.

"People can draw their own conclusions about him, but it shows he was an entrepreneur, a rugby league evangelist; he did what was best for the sport.

"But there is a spell during the Eddie Waring story during the peak of his powers where some people just didn't see it that way."

Featuring interviews with Waring's son, his biographer Tony Hannan, historian Tony Collins and former BBC Sport executives, the programme follows Waring's career from his first job as a typewriter salesman in his home town of Dewsbury to his first professional involvement supplying match reports on Dewsbury RFLC .

In 1936, he was also installed as secretary-manager of his beloved club and set about revitalising the way the stricken side performed on and off the field. It was he who steered them to their first Championship six years later and the achievement was an early sign of the radical vision he had for the sport later in life.

"When he managed Dewsbury before and during the Second World War, he changed their name to the Black Knights which was revolutionary," says Greenan. "Here we are, the best part of 70 years later, and all sides now have nicknames.

"He had a vision of rugby league and I think he would be delighted with the way the game has evolved, particularly the Super League concept.

"That would be right up his street, something he would have recognised and welcomed with open arms.

"He was a showman and the razzmatazz we see at rugby league games now would be something he would no doubt approve."

Waring provided rich resource for impersonators like Mike Yarwood, who helped immortalise catchphrases such as "early bath", "up and under" and "poor lad" – the latter from his unforgettable commentary after Don Fox missed a last-minute conversion that would have won the 1968 Challenge Cup final for Wakefield Trinity.

Yet his popularity began to work against him and while the programme has been produced by the BBC, his old employer, it does not shy away from the difficult period in Waring's life when he came under immense public scrutiny.

It explores how a damning report by a firm of management consultants recommended several changes to rugby league and criticised the BBC's coverage, saying it was detrimental to the game. Worse was to come. In 1976, a group called the "1895 Club" claimed 11,000 fans had signed a petition asking for the removal of Waring and for changes in the way the game was portrayed.

In the documentary, 1895 Club member Phil Pennington admits: "He actually got in the way of the game being properly presented. You felt you were being patronised. Eddie embodied a North of England that had probably disappeared by the end of the Second World War. This was the 1970s, remember."

While a growing number of fans called for his head, the BBC stood firm. Disputing the numbers that had signed the petition, the broadcaster dismissed many of the criticisms and stressed Waring had never been more popular, with one executive memorably saying: "He is not a commentator, he is THE commentator." But for the man himself the damage had been done.

"There was a conflict between Eddie himself who was evangelical about the sport and those who were actually involved in rugby league in the North," says Hannan. "He saw himself spreading the word and helping the game to expand, but there were many who don't see it that way at all."

Waring commentated on his last final in 1981, by which time he was showing the early signs of Alzheimer's. He died five years later, aged 76, in High Royds psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Leeds.

"Eddie was a national treasure and much more than a hired voice," says executive producer Tony Parker, who was at a private screening of the programme at Headingley Stadium last night. "He was an entrepreneur, a fixer, a manager and a visionary who wanted to take the game to a new level beyond its North of England heartland. Yet as Eddie's star rose – through the world of light entertainment – the former sports journalist from Dewsbury also became one of the game's most divisive figures. For some, he was Uncle Eddie, a warm and friendly voice of the North; for others, he was a negative northern stereotype who was failing to take the game seriously."

Waring's drive was unquestionable. A series of letters, dating from 1931 right into the 1940s, were discovered in BBC archives, showing that he consistently pressed home his belief he could take the sport forward if taken on as a broadcaster. Undoubtedly, he did achieve that and Hannan adds: "It's really easy to overlook the entrepreneurial nature of the man. Yes, he was an entertainer but first and foremost he was a rugby league man. He was a rugby league man both of his time and a rugby league man who was ahead of his time."

Eddie Waring: Mr Rugby League will be shown tonight on BBC Four, 9pm. The programme kicks off a BBC4 Rugby League Night, which also includes The Game That Got Away at 10pm followed at 10.30pm by Challenge Cup Classic: The 1978 Rugby League final between Leeds and St Helens. It ends at midnight with the film This Sporting Life featuring Richard Harris.