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A chauffeur to George Best, a sparring partner to Nelson Mandela and the only reporter who has ever – and probably will ever – interview an American president live on Wimbledon’s Centre Court.
Garry Richardson’s remarkable BBC presenting and reporting career will come to an end following Monday’s Today programme on Radio Four, 50 years to the day since it began on September 9, 1974, when he arrived at 9.45am at the corporation’s Written Archives Centre.
“I met my new boss, Dorothy Phillips. She looked like the actress Joan Hickson, who used to play Miss Marple,” Richardson recalled.
“I said, ‘Oh, good morning. What do I do?’ And she said, ‘Well, at 10.30 we’ll have a tea break. At 2.30 we’ll have a tea break. In between, you’ll be doing the filing’.”
His two years at the centre were character building in more ways than one. Among the treasure trove of documents he came across were early letters from the likes of Eric Morecambe and Tommy Cooper asking for auditions, long before they hit the big time, helping him realise even the greats suffered rejection.
Richardson’s BBC local radio apprenticeship included a six-month stint in Nottingham, at a time when the late, great Brian Clough was inspiring the local club Forest to unprecedented achievements.
Realising he had never been interviewed by Richardson before, Clough invited him into his office. Richardson got out his microphone to get started, but Clough told him he was having a cup of tea first and asked Richardson if he would like one too.
“He was relaxing me, because he knew I was petrified. To this day I don’t know if he actually made the tea,” Richardson said.
“But he came back with a tray of biscuits, a teapot and a jug of milk.”
Richardson had a sweeter tooth in those days and clocked there was no sugar on Clough’s tray. Clough appeared to read Richardson’s thoughts and asked if he took sugar.
“No, I don’t Mr Clough,” Richardson lied out of politeness.
“You bloody do, don’t you?” Clough replied and went off to find some sugar.
Richardson’s story harks back to a time when journalists could get closer to the stars they interviewed and his work on the after-dinner circuit helped Richardson build up a contacts book of stellar talking heads for the Today programme, which he joined full time in March 1981, including Best, Denis Law and Sir Stanley Matthews.
Former Manchester United star Best had been Richardson’s idol as a child and in the 1980s Richardson found himself driving Best around the country on a theatre tour “in an old green Granada with 100,000 miles on the clock”.
Making conversation on a journey from Manchester to Swindon, Richardson told Best he had once tried for his autograph when United played at Southampton, but he only got as far as patting him on the back before stewards ordered him back over the wall.
“When we stop at the service station, I’ll give you it,” Best told him.
One of Richardson’s most prized possessions as a child was a George Best anorak his mum ordered for him from a Freeman’s catalogue, which Richardson wore “364 days of the year”.
The tables turned on one chilly drive when the pair stopped for some toast and tea. Realising Best did not have a coat, Richardson went to the boot and offered him his parka.
“He put it on and he put the hood up,” Richardson said.
“I thought, ‘I cannot believe this. George Best is wearing my coat’. As a kid, I used to wear his.”
Richardson reckons he has done somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 interviews in his career but barely hesitates when asked which was his favourite.
Bill Clinton had ended his second term as President of the United States less than six months before he was a guest in the Royal Box at Wimbledon on ladies’ singles final day in 2001. Like any good reporter, Richardson chanced his arm at getting an interview with a written request and got much, much more than he bargained for.
A rain delay meant there was time to fill and Wimbledon officials called Richardson to tell him that not only had he got the interview, it would be done in the Royal Box to keep the 15,000 crowd entertained. It would also go out live to eight million people on BBC One.
He made a quick call home, asking his wife to get the kids in front of the telly and to ask his nan to record it. He told them he was doing a “really big interview” and it was going out live.
Then it was showtime with the President and an interview which Wimbledon itself recognises as one of the greatest Centre Court moments involving one of its special guests.
“All the time (during the interview) I thought, ‘I’m going to get told to wind it up from the studio’, and I didn’t,” Richardson said.
The interview lasted 15 minutes, with Clinton quipping about the great British weather and imagining that a pressure moment in tennis was like an encounter with a political adversary.
After the interview Richardson rang home and his daughter Daniella, then aged nine, answered.
Richardson recalled: “She said, ‘You were just on telly in the Royal Box’. I said, ‘I know, what did you think?’
“She said, ‘We’re so disappointed, we thought it was going to be Robbie Williams’.”
Richardson’s toughest gig came at Wimbledon too – a year later when Anna Kournikova cut short their interview after taking a dislike to his questioning.
Richardson had simply asked if her confidence was low and whether she may consider playing matches below top tour level to build it up, as other stars had in the past.
“It was unfortunate,” he said.
“And I’d love to meet her and just say, ‘Do you remember that day?’ Reporters have to understand that when a sportsman or a sportswoman has lost and they’re being asked questions about what went wrong, it’s like interviewing anybody in their job and saying, ‘Why did you have a bad day at work?'”
Memorable for different reasons was a brief encounter with former South African president Nelson Mandela at a boxing match.
Knowing that Mandela had been a light-heavyweight, Richardson asked him if he was a big puncher.
“He stood to the side and started jabbing me on the arm and said, ‘Tell me whether I was a big puncher’.”
Richardson’s robust interviewing style found its perfect home on Five Live’s Sunday morning Sportsweek programme, which he fronted for 20 years until he called time on the show in September 2019. He takes great pride in the headlines the show generated from asking sport’s decision makers the tough questions.
Every time I am asked about the last programme, I well up— Garry Richardson
Richardson’s final interviews on Today will be with Sir Andy Murray – with whom he can share retirement tips – and former England manager Kevin Keegan.
Though he will still do occasional work with Today, Monday marks the end of an era. He became visibly emotional when asked how he thought the final show might go.
“It will be difficult,” he said.
“I keep telling myself, psyche yourself up. It’s easier said than done, because I’ve loved it. Every time I am asked about the last programme, I well up.”
