HE was neither a player nor a manager in the senior game, but the passing of Bob Crampsey yesterday represents the breaking of one of the strongest links with Scottish football's heritage.
Whenever the story of the Scottish game has been told in recent years, Bob has been present as a witness to a glorious and at times notorious past. If anyone could chronicle football in Scotland it was Bob, by means of eloquence, intellect and a rema
rkable power of recall. The historian in him meant that his ability to dip into the past came naturally, and he was one of only a handful of individuals who could provide a true sense of perspective, but he was equally at home with analysis of purely contemporary events.
One of his favourite stories was of his childhood in Mount Florida, when at seven years old he persuaded his mother to let him attend the 1938 Scottish Cup final – on his own. It was understandable that his mother showed some reluctance, as a crowd of 90,000 converged on Hampden Park. But the young Crampsey quickly made friends with a group of visiting supporters from Fife who hoisted him up on to a crush barrier so that he could see the match. "They filled me up with American cream soda," he later recalled. "They came from a place called Coaltown of Wemyss they said, and East Fife was their team. One American cream soda later, they were my team too."
It was the start of a lifelong passion for Scottish football that would lead to him to become a respected broadcaster, author and newspaper columnist. Countless football reporters have tapped into his vast knowledge of the game, and Bob would always be happy to oblige if he knew the answer to a historical query. With typical modesty, he would react to expressions of astonishment at his wealth of information by saying that the trick was to know where to find the answer. It was true that he had an indispensable personal archive of facts and figures, but none of this material was at his fingertips when he was sitting in the famous black chair in the semi-finals of Mastermind, or when he won the BBC radio quiz Brain of Britain.
In football, he was best known as a broadcaster, possessing a rich and distinctive voice that flowed with authority, dignity and character. He had the gift that every radio commentator would kill for: the very sound of his voice made people stop and listen. Admittedly, it also helped that his opinions were reasoned and stimulating.
It is fair to say that Sportsound on Radio Scotland has never been the same since Bob retired from his Saturday stints in 2001, after 14 years in the role of summariser and analyst. Towards the end of his radio career, it was often hard to work out why he continued to contribute, as his bickering colleagues clogged up the airwaves with petty point-scoring and half-cooked controversies. Bob was the voice of reason, and at times the voice of sanity. It was worth staying tuned, in the hope that he would be allowed to speak at some stage and end the jarring jabber with a statement of common sense – a responsibility that has thankfully been taken up by current host Richard Gordon.
Bob would never get involved in such squabbling, or lose his patience. He was a professional, and cut his broadcasting teeth in front of the cameras in the 1950s, when televised coverage of sport was in its infancy. Another of his favourite stories was from the not-so-favourite England v Scotland match in 1961, when he was working for ITV in London. Bob was in the studio, and at the end of the infamous 9-3 defeat for Scotland he had to introduce Arthur Montford from Wembley. "When I made the introduction," recalled Bob, "no Arthur came up on the screen but a cardboard lid came through the producer's window on which it was written 'Bob the film has broke. Talk.' About what? I had no details of the game. I looked at what had happened in Scotland that day; nothing, except that Sammy Stewart had played his last game. For four minutes I filibustered on Stewart's career and if viewers didn't know much about him, I soon put that right."
In the world of print, Bob's talents were called on most frequently when an authority from another era was required, often when a footballer from another generation had passed away. But if a sports editor rang the family home in Mount Florida and Bob's wife Ronnie answered, it would often mean that Bob was in Taunton indulging his other great sporting passion, Somerset County Cricket Club – and regretfully, was unavailable for duties.
When he was able to accept a commission, the copytakers were in for a treat. They would say they could listen to his voice all day, and I can recall great disappointment on a couple of occasions in The Scotsman's previous home at North Bridge, when Bob delivered a typed version of his copy to the office back door, instead of ringing it over.
His last contribution to the sports pages of The Scotsman came in November 2006, following the death of legendary Hungarian footballer Ferenc Puskas. As a Real Madrid player, Puskas had thrilled Scotland – and Crampsey – in 1960 by scoring four goals in his team's 7-3 win over Eintracht Frankfurt to lift the European Cup. With a little trepidation born of the knowledge that Bob's health was failing, I asked him if he could write about Puskas. "Yes, but not before tomorrow," was the response, an indication that of his condition slowing him down. Yet five hours later, his copy arrived in my basket, sent via one of his four daughters. It was a briefer account than he would normally produce on such occasions, but it was no less readable and it took no short cuts when description required precise detail. And when Bob wrote that Puskas 'was the most perfect striker of a ball I have seen,' there was the historical perspective that set his tribute apart.
Perhaps a measure of how much Bob will be missed by Scottish football is the absence of anyone to take on the mantle of chronicler of the game. He takes with him a big part of our past, but leaves us an abundance of fond memories.
The full article contains 1090 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
