Voices of Sport: Dan Maskell - The gentleman of Wimbledon that became part of the soundtrack to our summers

In our weekly series, Yahoo Sport’s Nick Metcalfe features a famous voice of sport. This week, with Wimbledon in full swing, the legendary tennis commentator Dan Maskell goes under the spotlight.

‘Oh I say’

Dan Maskell was for many decades the voice of the ultimate British summer sporting event.

Two weeks at the All England Club. Strawberries and cream. Centre Court. Wall-to-wall-tennis. And Maskell. He was pretty much Mr Wimbledon.

It’s fair to say that tennis was Maskell’s life. Before his broadcasting days, he was a very fine player himself. He was only 16 when he became a junior teaching professional at Queen’s in 1924, and was given a five-year contract in 1926. Maskell won the British Professional Championships 15 times, and coached Britain’s winning Davis Cup team in 1933.

He continued as a coach for many years. Among his students were members of the British Royal family, including Prince Charles and Princess Anne.

He yearned as much as anybody for the next British success story in the sport. While writing this piece, I watched a BBC video from the early 1960s, which showed Maskell talent spotting youngsters in Norfolk. His words during a TV interview that day are well worthy of a repeat here:

“I don’t think young British people, boys or girls, ever go on to a tennis court in the first place to become champions. I think they play games because it’s fun, for recreation, companionship, that sort of thing.

“If you compare them with young Australians, I think your young Australian goes on to the tennis court very nearly at the beginning to say 'well I’m going to be a champion’.

“I think it’s a characteristic of the British people, we don’t necessarily want to dominate our friends on the games pitch.”

It will always be as a commentator that we most remember Maskell. After the Second World War, where he served in the Royal Air Force, he turned his attentions to broadcasting.

He first commentated on Wimbledon for BBC radio in 1949, alongside Max Robertson. Maskell then switched to working on BBC television coverage in 1951, and stayed doing the job until 1991.

Forty years. It’s amazing when you think about it. He was the voice of all those summers for generations of tennis fans.

It wasn’t a voice you’d always hear a lot during matches. Maskell came from a generation where silence was very often golden. Sometimes, you’d tune in and wonder if there was anybody in the commentary box at all.

But he never wasted his words. When the moment was right, he spoke. And we listened.

Maskell himself always said that he had a golden rule, which he credited to another great voice of a bygone era, golf commentator Henry Longhurst - “A second’s silence is worth a minute’s talk.”

In America, where a very different kind of broadcasting culture had developed, bosses would on occasion be frustrated when they carried BBC coverage of the grass court grand slam. Can’t you just imagine it? “What’s going on here… why isn’t that guy talking more often?”

As it happened, some TV people didn’t like it, but many American viewers did. For those watching on the other side of the pond, it must have sounded like a character from a different century was talking to them. When you listen back now, you’re reminded that Maskell really was incredibly well spoken. Very much a fully paid-up member of the old school.

Like all the true greats of the broadcasting business, Maskell had a trademark catchphrase. It was one of the simplest too. “Oh, I say.” A brilliant shot, a fabulous rally, a telling moment. And we’d know it was something special when we heard those three words: “Oh, I say.”

There were others too – the “quite extraordinary” to reflect a piece of genuine drama. The delighted “dream of a backhand” in appreciation of the sheer skill and grace on offer. Millions of viewers tried to imitate him, but nobody really managed it.

There was something so clearly good-natured and warm-hearted about Maskell and, most crucially of all, he had such an obvious deep love for the sport. That’s probably what endeared him to the public more than anything else.

Think of that voice now and it will take you back to long-lost summers. To Billie Jean King and Chris Evert, to John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg. To those wonderful two weeks in high summer when nearly everybody in the country becomes a tennis expert, as the BBC shows the action in a famous corner of SW19 from lunchtime to night-time.

Have a look at this very fine footage from the iconic 1980 Wimbledon final between Borg and McEnroe.

I like the simple “yes” as McEnroe executes a perfect pass. And soon after, “I don’t believe it” as the American saves another championship point in that epic fourth set tie-break. And of course, the long periods of silence. John Barrett and Mark Cox chip in pretty regularly, but Maskell was content to keep his counsel.

When Borg clinched the five-set epic, Maskell exclaimed: “That’s it.”

The special sporting moments kept coming throughout Maskell’s time behind the microphone. The brilliance of Australia’s Rod Laver in the 1960s. The wonderful win for Britain’s Virginia Wade (later a commentating colleague of Maskell) in the Silver Jubilee year of 1977.

There was the total domination of Martina Navratilova. And then there was Boris Becker, the teenage sensation with the strawberry blond hair, who stunned the sporting world by winning the tournament at the age of 17.

It was Becker that played in the last Wimbledon final Maskell commentated on in 1991, an all-German clash that he lost to Michael Stich.

Maskell’s retirement brought an end to a long and profound era. He first attended Wimbledon in 1924, where he saw the women’s singles final between Kitty Godfree and Helen Wills Moody. And remarkably he claimed never to have missed a day at the tournament from 1929, until he retired.

It wasn’t long after that retirement that Maskell died, of heart failure, in December 1992. He was 84.

How, as a proud Briton, Maskell would have loved the past quarter of a century, first Tim Henman’s valiant attempts to win Wimbledon, and then the glories of Andy Murray, with the Scot first breaking that long grand slam drought with US Open victory, before he memorably won Wimbledon and then inspired Britain to Davis Cup success.

To put that last one in perspective, Maskell was 25 when he led Britain to the Davis Cup in 1933. Britain were then champions again in 1934, 1935 and 1936. But after that came a very long dry spell, only ended when Murray and co claimed the grand old team prize in 2015.

So Maskell really does occupy a significant place in tennis history. He was so central to the sport for the most part of the last century.

I’ll leave the final words to Arthur Ashe, Wimbledon champion in 1975. How beautifully does this sum Maskell up?

“If you had been in a long sleep and suddenly woke up and heard Dan Maskell broadcasting from Wimbledon, you’d know all was well with the world.”