Voices of Sport: David Coleman - The peerless BBC presenter and commentator who guided us through 11 Olympic Games

In our weekly series, Yahoo Sport’s Nick Metcalfe features a famous voice of sport. As the Olympic Games begin in Rio this weekend, the legendary BBC presenter and commentator David Coleman goes under the spotlight.

David Coleman. Now there’s broadcasting royalty. Just that name. Coleman. It takes you back in an instant to a golden age of sport.

And he really did span the generations. If you’re aged from 30 to 100 you’ll remember Coleman. Just the bare facts are remarkable. Eleven Olympics. Eight Commonwealth Games. Six World Cups. Hundreds of editions of Grandstand. Thousands of other broadcasts. He was truly part of the fabric of our sporting lives.

But it was the Olympics above everything else for Coleman. As the watching world tunes in for the start of the Rio Games this weekend, it’s worth remembering that for decades he was probably a more familiar part of the Olympics to British viewers than anyone or anything else.

In his younger days Coleman was actually a very decent amateur runner, winning the Manchester Mile and competing in the English National Cross-Country Championships.

Like so many broadcasting giants, Coleman began his career in newspapers, first as a reporter for the Stockport Express. After military service (Coleman worked for the British Army Newspaper Unit) he became editor of the Cheshire County Express.

He always had his eye on broadcasting however, and Coleman approached the BBC in 1952 to see if they would like any help with athletics coverage. Although he did not have an audition, the BBC asked him to cover Roger Bannister running in Bradford. He began doing freelance radio work in Manchester the following year, and in 1954 he moved to Birmingham and joined the BBC as a news assistant and sports editor.

His first television appearance was on a programme called Sportsview. Typical of Coleman, it happened to be on an historic day, with Bannister breaking the four minute mile in Oxford. In 1955, Coleman was appointed Sports Editor for the BBC’s Midlands Region. A famous TV career was only just beginning.

In relative terms, television was still in its infancy. The BBC were keen to engage their audience on a Saturday afternoon with action from the very best in sport at home and abroad. And Grandstand, perhaps the most famous TV sports programme of all time in this country, began in October 1958.

The BBC’s head of sport Peter Dimmock saw Coleman as the man to hold it all together. It was an inspired choice. Coleman was quite simply masterful. Whether it was in the studio, or leading the programme from an outside broadcast, he was just unflappable.

Some of the great names in British broadcasting were becoming established at the same time, like racing commentator Peter O’Sullevan, rugby union’s Bill McLaren and Dan Maskell at Wimbledon.

The heartbeat of the programme was often that day’s football results, and decades before Jeff Stelling on Sky, he made dealing with dozens of results coming through on the videprinter look effortless.

Coleman oozed authority and gravitas. He had a prodigious memory, great knowledge and a genuine love of sport. He used them all to great effect. Also, he was a proper journalist, never afraid to ask the stars tough questions.

Even big news events were covered if they fell on a Saturday. Coleman once memorably interviewed The Beatles. “What are you doing here?” Paul McCartney asked Coleman. When told he was on Grandstand duty, McCartney replied: “We must really have made it.”

It wasn’t a surprise to hear the music legend say that. Grandstand had quickly established itself as an important ritual for millions of viewers. Five Nations rugby on short winter days, the Grand National and FA Cup final as spring came round, Wimbledon and The Open in high summer. The rhythms of the year for sports fans were reflected expertly by that one programme.

Sensibly, the BBC used Coleman for other major events too, like their General Election coverage. There weren’t many around that could deal as cooly with live, unfolding drama as he could.

Presenting Grandstand was only one of Coleman’s big jobs, especially as the years went on. There was Match of the Day on a Saturday night, a show still going strong today and recognised as the most famous TV football programme of all time. Every winter came the highly popular Sports Review of the Year.

Such was his name that the BBC’s midweek programme Sportsnight actually began as Sportsnight with Coleman. If important sport was on TV, the chances are it was that one familiar face introducing it to the nation.

Coleman’s association with football was a significant one. During the BBC’s coverage of the 1962 World Cup, he introduced action from an unsavoury clash between hosts Chile and Italy with the following words.

“The game you’re about to see is the most stupid, appalling, disgusting and disgraceful exhibition of football possibly in the history of the game.”

Coleman commentated on the national sport for many years too. He described the clash between Brazil and England at the 1970 World Cup that featured an incredible save from Gordon Banks and an engrossing personal battle between Pele and Bobby Moore.

When those countries met again in a quarter-final at the 2002 World Cup in Japan, the BBC replayed that 1970 encounter a couple of nights before the match. Millions of viewers were introduced to Coleman the football commentator for the first time. Many quickly noted the long periods of silence. This was typical of the time when commentators tended to choose their words more carefully.

Coleman became the BBC’s senior football commentator in 1971. He covered the World Cup final in 1974 and 1978, the latter a particularly striking affair played out against the backdrop of ticker tape in Buenos Aires.

He also commentated on many FA Cup finals, an event that was pretty much a national event back then. It was during the 1974 final between Liverpool and Newcastle that Coleman produced possibly his most famous line of all.

“Goals pay the rent, and Keegan does his share.”

But it didn’t have to be a clever turn of phrase to be classic Coleman. A scoreline would do. Just a “1-0″ became a trademark. That was how Leeds fans will remember Coleman describing Alan Clarke’s headed winner against Arsenal in the 1972 FA Cup final.

When Archie Gemmill scored an iconic solo goal for Scotland against Holland at the 1978 World Cup, Coleman greeted the ball hitting the net with a simple “3-1″.

Coleman also hosted the BBC quiz show A Question Of Sport for 18 years from 1979 to 1997. A time when the show was massively popular. He was almost a BBC brand in his own right.

But underneath it all was Coleman’s biggest love affair of all, with athletics and the Olympics.

Coleman himself once revealed: “I first became aware of the Olympic Games listening to a radio set in 1936 (the infamous Berlin Games in Nazi Germany). I’ve been fascinated by Olympic history ever since.”

From Rome 1960 to Sydney 2000, Coleman and the Olympics proved to be a perfect match. Some of the most dramatic track and field moments of all time were accompanied by that glorious voice.

His voice crackled with emotion as Britain’s Ann Packer won a brilliant 800m gold at the 1964 Tokyo Games.

“Here she comes on the outside, a tremendous run, and she’s going to do it. Ann Packer is going to take the gold medal.”

Packer later said that soon after winning the gold, one of the first things she could think about was how Coleman’s commentary had sounded.

Four years later, his excitable description of David Hemery’s 400m hurdles win at the 1968 Mexico Olympics came at such a pace, it was apparently recorded at 200 words a minute.

“David Hemery is going to take the gold. David Hemery wins for Britain. In second place is Hennige. And who cares who’s third? It doesn’t matter.” As it happened, it did matter very much for another Briton, John Sherwood.

At the 1972 Munich Olympics, Coleman showed he was a true broadcasting all-rounder when tragedy struck the Games. Eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team, along with a German police officer, were taken hostage and eventually killed by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September.

Coleman fronted hours of live television as the tragedy unfolded, and later presented coverage of the memorial service. He did it with his familiar authority and good sense. His commentary during a poignant closing ceremony was also pitch perfect. All things considered, it was probably his finest hour.

In the latter stages of his career, Coleman began to focus almost exclusively on track and field. Famous British Olympic triumphs of the 1980s and 1990s went hand in hand with more superb commentaries.

The battles between Britain’s middle distance pair of Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe at the Moscow Olympics of 1980 are the stuff of folklore. Ovett won the 800m to upset the favourite, with Coleman producing another of those fabulous turns of phrase - “those blue eyes like chips of ice’“ when he was in fourth place. Days later, Coe bounced back to claim the 1,500m title in a classic meet.

“Could this be Ovett’s first defeat? Ovett is in trouble. And Coe gets the revenge he wants. And what a comeback for Sebastian Coe. Hardly anyone would tip him for this race, but you don’t become a bad athlete overnight.”

Four years later in Los Angeles, Coe defended his 1,500m title on another unforgettable day. Coleman, who else, rose to the moment with his ‘garrulous gurgle - as one newspaper put it - in full song.

“Cram digs in, but Coe comes away to retain the Olympic title. Sebastian Coe, back at his best, is the Olympic champion again.”

It didn’t need to be a climax of a race to be special of course. Just the way Coleman introduced an event could make the hairs on the back of the neck stand up. A simple “the men’s 400m final at the 1988 Olympic Games” would do it. Coleman was chronicling sporting history as he went along. And didn’t he know it?

By this time, Coleman – like nearly every other famous person in the country – was being lampooned on ITV’s Spitting Image. He was caricatured as a commentator who exploded with delight at the mere suggestion of any action. He once reached fever pitch as Coe broke for the line with 600m still to run. “And I’ve gone far far too early,” he screams. “It will be impossible to keep up this level of excitement without my head exploding.” And of course, it did.

The phrases “quite remarkable” and “quite extraordinary” became synonymous with Coleman. And because he wasn’t unfamiliar with the odd slip-up, the venerable commentator spawned a term from the satirical magazine Private Eye. The name Colemanballs would come to be associated with commentating gaffes for decades.

In truth however, these were affectionate portrayals. Coleman was the real deal and the public knew it. As the big athletics championships and Olympics kept coming, Coleman remained a priceless presence. Linford Christie and Sally Gunnell both won gold for Britain in Barcelona in the summer of 1992. Those special moments, unsurprisingly, were accompanied by brilliant commentaries.

The 2000 Sydney Games felt like a ftting way for Coleman to bow out, with Cathy Freeman winning 400m gold in the race that stopped Australia, and Britain celebrating track and field golds from triple jumper Jonathan Edwards and heptathlete Denise Lewis.

Coleman was presented with the Olympic Order by then IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch in 2000. His association with the biggest event in sport had been profound.

It’s fair to also note the more difficult side of Coleman. He was certainly well known throughout the industry as a perfectionist, who could at times be extremely demanding.

Even those that have paid the most glowing of tributes to him have been the first to admit he could be sometimes be tough to work with. He really did have the most exacting of standards and if anybody - fellow commentator, editor, cameraman - fell short, they knew about it. The following video says it better than anyone else could.

Coleman retired soon after those Sydney Olympics, without much fanfare. He could have gone on longer but had bowed out on top at 74. Coleman enjoyed 13 years of retirement before he died following a short illness in 2013, at the age of 87.

Tributes came in from across the world of sport. Brendan Foster, who for so many years had worked alongside Coleman at the BBC, said: “He was the greatest sports broadcaster that ever lived. A man who the sport of athletics owes a bigger debt to than any other single person in the world.”

If you look back over the time that Coleman worked, it really is remarkable. Generations of heroes. Some of the most celebrated matches and moments in history. A landscape of sport that altered dramatically. National life in the early years of this century was totally unrecognisable from the 1950s, when Coleman first held a microphone professionally.

He truly was one of the great constants. Sport on television was nearly always Coleman. And if it was the Olympics, it just had to be Coleman. I’m sure many of you will still miss him as you enjoy these Rio Games over the next two weeks. But that voice will never die in a way - as long as we watch special sporting moments of the past, we’ll hear those timeless tones.

As I said at the start of this feature, he was royalty in broadcasting terms. The best of the best. One of a kind. That was Coleman.