Tim Gudgin, the voice behind the Saturday tea-time football results, is to retire from broadcasting.
Described by Gary Lineker as “one of the most familiar voices in sport” and “a quintessential part of Saturday afternoons”, the BBC veteran will hang up his microphone after more than 60 years service.
Best known for his distinctive rising and falling intonations as he delivers delight and disappointment to millions of football fans on Final Score every Saturday afternoon, Gudgin originally announced that he was to retire at the end of the current season.
He will read out his last classified results on November 19, the week before his 82nd birthday.
Lineker told BBC Sport: “Saturday afternoons will never quite be the same again.”
Having started out on British Forces Network Radio in Germany in 1950, Gudgin became studio manager for the BBC’s European Service, where he was also a newsreader.
After joining Grandstand in the mid-sixties, the corporation’s long-running flagship sports programme, he read the racing and rugby results in the Final Score segment of the programme for nearly 20 years.
Following the death of Len Martin in 1995, Gudgin became only the second person to read out the football results for BBC television on Saturday afternoons.
When Final Score was seperated from Grandstand in 2001, he continued in his role as the reader of the classified results well past his retirement age.
Gudgin has cited the BBC’s relocation to Manchester as one of the main catalysts for hanging up his microphone. He now intends to spend more time with his family, including six children and seven grandchildren.
But he has not ruled out doing voiceovers for TV commercials, something he was not allowed to do at the BBC.
The BBC has confirmed that Radio Lancashire presenter Mike West will read the classified results from November 26.
‘Grandstand 40th Anniversary’ clip courtesy of Andy Walmsley
Read his unique profile of Tim Gudgin, charting his career through the decades, with classic clips and press cuttings – CLICK HERE