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He was the post-Tiswas "Mr Saturday Afternoon on ITV" throughout the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, and was sometimes a well-deserved diversion from Frank Bough and Grandstand. He was also the Sir Trevor McDonald of ITV Sport, working long shifts to oversee Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor get to the next round of snooker, and naturally, he was also the commercial channel's answer to Desmond Lynam (I think that it was the moustache that actually did it - at least Davies' didn't go grey). He helped to make the ITV Seven, Saint and Greavesie (Ian and Jimmy of course), and the Wrestling (and by implication, both Kent Walton and of course, Big Daddy, making sure at the end that we did have a good week till next week). He was, more or less, a national institution with a lucrative cultural currency. Dickie Davies, the black (and later white) haired moustached presenter of World of Sport has died at the age of 94.
Born in Cheshire on the final day of April in 1928, Richard John Davies as he was born as, was to become a lot more famous as Dickie - the shortened name "Dickie" was coined in the late 1960s in order to avoid confusion with Welsh actor Richard Davies of Please Sir! fame; LWT, whose studios housed World of Sport for a decade and a half realised that they had two of them on their books, and so one of them had to change or abbreviate their name, and it was the sports presenter that did the honours instead. When the sports presenter Davies was called Richard, he was a presenter on Southern Television before making it to the national network which in a way, the recently retired Fred Dinenage almost copied the same route of going to ITV Sport via Southern. That was also the case when Dinenage presented Gambit for Anglia - Davies had presented the non-broadcast pilot. Thankfully he was not really typecast too much as a sports presenter in an Alan Partridge sort of way, and he did have some forays into other genres of presenting work such as being a game show host, presenting All in the Game for HTV; and then many years later, switching to both the BBC and radio for Fighting Talk for BBC Radio 5 Live.
Of course, World of Sport became The Dickie Davies Show in many viewers' eyes; the packed studio with female typists in air stewardess-alike uniforms (some assumed that they were extras trying to get acting work and so therefore had nothing better to do on their Saturday afternoons, apart from watch sport on the television of course), were at their desks, supposed to be typing away as if they were listening to Leroy Anderson's The Typewriter and pressing the keys in time to the music. And contrary to one or two websites in the past; it was actually Grandstand that had the April Fools' Joke of the people behind the presenter having a fight during one year, and not World of Sport. Eric Morecambe was a huge friend of Davies and he had appeared on a Christmas Eve edition of World of Sport in either 1977 or 1983 - it was probably 1977 because of the fashions that they wore - where Morecambe substituted Ernie Wise for Davies, including the "catching something in a paper bag" trick that was famous by him and was seen many times on their Morecambe and Wise shows - cue the production team having hits of laughter in the background as if we were witnessing something that the late Victor Lewis-Smith would be interested in for TV Offal in 20 years' time.
For Channel 4, at a time that former TV presenters of huge profile programmes from the previous decade had often appeared on many years later such as former Blue Peter presenters from the Noakes era, almost in ironic style, Davies had presented a game show for the fourth channel called Jigsaw (not to be confused with the pre-Blue Peter Janet Ellis one on the BBC) where in those pre-Fifteen to One days, it became a replacement show for when Countdown was off. Outside his own territory, he made guest appearances on other shows such as You Bet!, sitting on Lionel Blair's team on Give us a Clue during the early Michael Aspel era, and Cluedo where he had partnered Annabel Croft in 1992, and he sat also on the TV-am sofa as a guest at one point. He even made it onto It'll Be Alright on the Night, firstly with his "cop-sucker" outtake, on duty in the World of Sport studio as usual which was an accidental spoonerism of "cup soccer", and he appeared again as a Talking Head (as well as a repeat of the "Cop-Sucker") on the Utterly Worst compilation in 1994. Another guest appearance was on two episodes of The Krypton Factor in 1988 when Granada Television had made two special episodes as a result of that year's Olympics in Seoul - it was a match of sports presenters against competitors, and the sports presenters had won!
Davies' true second home was sitting behind a desk for around five hours on Saturday afternoon on the South Bank - he had presented World of Sport for most weeks of the year from 1968 to 1985 when it was axed in September of that year - Saturday 28th September to be precise. Fred Dinenage and Steve Rider often sat in for Davies when he was on holiday, unavailable or ill. World of Sport was axed around the same time as ITV's 30th anniversary, and for the following Saturday afternoon onwards, it was replaced with films from the different regions; American series like Airwolf and comedy repeats of sitcoms. Many years after World of Sport ended, Davies was still presenting sports coverage on ITV on Saturday afternoons such as snooker during the mid-Steve Davis era. In the same slot, he presented two series of Sportsmasters for MAC Productions and Mike Mansfield Productions in association with HTV Wales between 1989 and 1991, the final series entitled Grand Sportsmasters. It was a sporting quiz, a sort of Question of Sport meets Mastermind, and one of the highlights recalled by the UK Game Shows website include a slide of a cricketer being flipped by accident gave a misleading indication that he was right-handed (David Boon) when he was actually left-handed (Allan Border). Sportsmasters was a truly family affair - Davies devised the quiz himself, his wife Liz was a researcher, his son Peter wrote the theme music, and Dickie's twin brother Danny was also involved.
Just like a lot of modernised broadcasters did in the day (think of Derek Jameson, Selina Scott and others), Dickie Davies moved to Sky Television to present some of their sports programmes in the 1990s, mostly wrestling and football, although as my property did not get proper Sky service until around 2000, I am just writing this based on hearsay. He even hosted a gardening slot on Classic FM until the mid 1990s when he had suffered a stroke but thankfully he had made a recovery soon after, although it had showed that ill health had happened - his black hair had finally turned white by then, and even the "badger" streak, (just think of Debbie in the 1980s Look and Read series Badger Girl), had disappeared but his trademark moustache had remained intact. When he appeared on a special about TV sport archive clips, Davies, in all-white hair was almost recognisable, apart from his voice, that is.
And of course, it had happened to the DHSS (the DWP of its day), Len Ganley, Dean Friedman, Nerys Hughes and Rod Hull (but not Emu sadly), and so what greater lasting legacy for Britain's number one ITV Sport presenter than have a namesake with a Half Man Half Biscuit song? It might have been Bette Davis that had her "eyes" turned into a song courtesy of Kim Carnes in 1981 and had got promotion in TV commercials for 7-Up later on in that decade, but Half Man... took it a step further with a song called Dickie Davies' Eyes. Yes, yet another C-list celebrity had received the "Biscuit" treatment at last...
He had a relatively long life, and we thank him for a generation of Saturday afternoons in front of the TV set as we waited for Bob Colston or Giant Haystacks to do their weekly duty, and not just once a year when the Grand National was on...
Born in Cheshire on the final day of April in 1928, Richard John Davies as he was born as, was to become a lot more famous as Dickie - the shortened name "Dickie" was coined in the late 1960s in order to avoid confusion with Welsh actor Richard Davies of Please Sir! fame; LWT, whose studios housed World of Sport for a decade and a half realised that they had two of them on their books, and so one of them had to change or abbreviate their name, and it was the sports presenter that did the honours instead. When the sports presenter Davies was called Richard, he was a presenter on Southern Television before making it to the national network which in a way, the recently retired Fred Dinenage almost copied the same route of going to ITV Sport via Southern. That was also the case when Dinenage presented Gambit for Anglia - Davies had presented the non-broadcast pilot. Thankfully he was not really typecast too much as a sports presenter in an Alan Partridge sort of way, and he did have some forays into other genres of presenting work such as being a game show host, presenting All in the Game for HTV; and then many years later, switching to both the BBC and radio for Fighting Talk for BBC Radio 5 Live.
Of course, World of Sport became The Dickie Davies Show in many viewers' eyes; the packed studio with female typists in air stewardess-alike uniforms (some assumed that they were extras trying to get acting work and so therefore had nothing better to do on their Saturday afternoons, apart from watch sport on the television of course), were at their desks, supposed to be typing away as if they were listening to Leroy Anderson's The Typewriter and pressing the keys in time to the music. And contrary to one or two websites in the past; it was actually Grandstand that had the April Fools' Joke of the people behind the presenter having a fight during one year, and not World of Sport. Eric Morecambe was a huge friend of Davies and he had appeared on a Christmas Eve edition of World of Sport in either 1977 or 1983 - it was probably 1977 because of the fashions that they wore - where Morecambe substituted Ernie Wise for Davies, including the "catching something in a paper bag" trick that was famous by him and was seen many times on their Morecambe and Wise shows - cue the production team having hits of laughter in the background as if we were witnessing something that the late Victor Lewis-Smith would be interested in for TV Offal in 20 years' time.
For Channel 4, at a time that former TV presenters of huge profile programmes from the previous decade had often appeared on many years later such as former Blue Peter presenters from the Noakes era, almost in ironic style, Davies had presented a game show for the fourth channel called Jigsaw (not to be confused with the pre-Blue Peter Janet Ellis one on the BBC) where in those pre-Fifteen to One days, it became a replacement show for when Countdown was off. Outside his own territory, he made guest appearances on other shows such as You Bet!, sitting on Lionel Blair's team on Give us a Clue during the early Michael Aspel era, and Cluedo where he had partnered Annabel Croft in 1992, and he sat also on the TV-am sofa as a guest at one point. He even made it onto It'll Be Alright on the Night, firstly with his "cop-sucker" outtake, on duty in the World of Sport studio as usual which was an accidental spoonerism of "cup soccer", and he appeared again as a Talking Head (as well as a repeat of the "Cop-Sucker") on the Utterly Worst compilation in 1994. Another guest appearance was on two episodes of The Krypton Factor in 1988 when Granada Television had made two special episodes as a result of that year's Olympics in Seoul - it was a match of sports presenters against competitors, and the sports presenters had won!
Davies' true second home was sitting behind a desk for around five hours on Saturday afternoon on the South Bank - he had presented World of Sport for most weeks of the year from 1968 to 1985 when it was axed in September of that year - Saturday 28th September to be precise. Fred Dinenage and Steve Rider often sat in for Davies when he was on holiday, unavailable or ill. World of Sport was axed around the same time as ITV's 30th anniversary, and for the following Saturday afternoon onwards, it was replaced with films from the different regions; American series like Airwolf and comedy repeats of sitcoms. Many years after World of Sport ended, Davies was still presenting sports coverage on ITV on Saturday afternoons such as snooker during the mid-Steve Davis era. In the same slot, he presented two series of Sportsmasters for MAC Productions and Mike Mansfield Productions in association with HTV Wales between 1989 and 1991, the final series entitled Grand Sportsmasters. It was a sporting quiz, a sort of Question of Sport meets Mastermind, and one of the highlights recalled by the UK Game Shows website include a slide of a cricketer being flipped by accident gave a misleading indication that he was right-handed (David Boon) when he was actually left-handed (Allan Border). Sportsmasters was a truly family affair - Davies devised the quiz himself, his wife Liz was a researcher, his son Peter wrote the theme music, and Dickie's twin brother Danny was also involved.
Just like a lot of modernised broadcasters did in the day (think of Derek Jameson, Selina Scott and others), Dickie Davies moved to Sky Television to present some of their sports programmes in the 1990s, mostly wrestling and football, although as my property did not get proper Sky service until around 2000, I am just writing this based on hearsay. He even hosted a gardening slot on Classic FM until the mid 1990s when he had suffered a stroke but thankfully he had made a recovery soon after, although it had showed that ill health had happened - his black hair had finally turned white by then, and even the "badger" streak, (just think of Debbie in the 1980s Look and Read series Badger Girl), had disappeared but his trademark moustache had remained intact. When he appeared on a special about TV sport archive clips, Davies, in all-white hair was almost recognisable, apart from his voice, that is.
And of course, it had happened to the DHSS (the DWP of its day), Len Ganley, Dean Friedman, Nerys Hughes and Rod Hull (but not Emu sadly), and so what greater lasting legacy for Britain's number one ITV Sport presenter than have a namesake with a Half Man Half Biscuit song? It might have been Bette Davis that had her "eyes" turned into a song courtesy of Kim Carnes in 1981 and had got promotion in TV commercials for 7-Up later on in that decade, but Half Man... took it a step further with a song called Dickie Davies' Eyes. Yes, yet another C-list celebrity had received the "Biscuit" treatment at last...
He had a relatively long life, and we thank him for a generation of Saturday afternoons in front of the TV set as we waited for Bob Colston or Giant Haystacks to do their weekly duty, and not just once a year when the Grand National was on...
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