Robert Philip - wonderfully gifted sports writer

A “larger than life” man has left us, but the memories of a wonderfully gifted football and tennis writer for Reuters and the Daily Telegraph will live on for years.

His famous sense of humour didn’t leave him even after he was given a terminal diagnosis 18 months ago. He lived the remainder of his life without a trace of self pity. He went to the beach with his wife Yvonne, he played tennis, he had his wine, he supported his beloved football team, or “Partick Thistle Nil” as he always dubbed them, because they were often so bad.

I first became aware of “Wee Scotty”, as he never minded being called, in the pubs of Fleet Street in the early 1980s when he held court with jokes and stories in performances that could have earned him a living as a stand-up comedian. 

But his chosen business was sports writing and he excelled, not so much as a newsgatherer but as a writer of immense depth, feeling and colour.

He and I were together at the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985, we worked together at the World Cup in Mexico in 1986 and year after year at Wimbledon.

When the great Australian-American reporter Steve Dunleavy died a few years ago, one tribute to him was that “there are a million Steve Dunleavy stories and they are all true, even the ones that never happened,” and much the same could be said of Robert. There are a million stories.

Ian Chadband, who knew Robert well and was one of the reporters who enjoyed his company on the road, recalls what happened at the World Athletics Championships in Edmonton, Canada in 2001.

“I was having a coffee with him in Edmonton when the whole of the city seemed to be on the hunt for him, outraged after he’d dubbed the place, with devastating accuracy ‘Deadmonton’.

A TV reporter approached us, asking if we were British and might know where he might find ‘This Robert Philip guy’. Robert, carefully concealing his accreditation tag, told him: “I don’t  know the man but I’ll let you know if I find him … he’s a complete disgrace!” Poor guy never did get to know he’d missed his exclusive.

Robert really was a fantastic friend, colleague and a seriously gifted original writer.

And now it’s unlikely you will ever think they are just called Partick Thistle when their name is read out on the football results.

They are and forever will be, Partick Thistle Nil.
Even if they’ve scored three.

RIP Wee Scotty.

 

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