Voices of Sport: Jim Rosenthal - The presenter of big sporting events on television for decades

Yahoo Sport’s Nick Metcalfe has been profiling famous broadcasters in our special series Voices of Sport for the past ten months. In this 40th and final feature of the series, we profile long-time presenter Jim Rosenthal.

Jim Rosenthal has been one of the very best television presenters for decades. He has always exuded authority and gravitas, along with a natural presence and charm. Pretty much the perfect broadcasting package actually. Little wonder he’s been such a major figure in the business for so long.

Whether it’s big football tournaments, Formula One or Rugby World Cups, we’ve shared so many memorable moments with Rosenthal over the best part of 40 years.

Like so many broadcasters in this series, Rosenthal worked for the written press in his early days. After a spell with the Oxford Mail, he moved into broadcasting with BBC Radio Birmingham and then Radio 2. He worked for the BBC Radio sports unit between 1976 and 1980.

But it’s television that has become by far the medium we most associate with Rosenthal, and he joined ITV in 1980. Two years later, he was part of their team covering the 1982 World Cup in Spain, a tournament that began with a bang for England when Bryan Robson scored against France after just 27 seconds. In the below picture, Rosenthal is seen interviewing England manager Ron Greenwood before their clash with hosts Spain.

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Soon big events on the channel pretty much always featured Rosenthal. He regularly presented football coverage on the channel, and worked on the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.

I’ll always remember his sheer delight at Wembley in the spring of 1986 when his beloved Oxford beat QPR to win the League Cup. I’m sure he wore an Oxford hat.

It’s not just been about football for Rosenthal of course, he has always been associated with a number of sports. He was a regular presenter of ITV’s athletics coverage, and occasionally commentated on boxing when Reg Gutteridge was unavailable.

The phrase “safe pair of hands” could have been written about pretty much everyone I’ve featured in this series, but it seems particularly apt with Rosenthal. I honestly can say that after decades of watching him, I remember hardly any missteps. He’s just been the unflappable face and voice of calm, making the rigours of working on live television look extremely easy.

In the 1990s boxing on ITV really became a very big deal indeed, with enormous audiences tuning in to see some of the most memorable fights ever seen on British soil. They include Nigel Benn twice clashing with Chris Eubank, and then an extraordinary battle in 1995 between Benn and Gerald McClellan. Later came the emergence of Prince Naseem Hamed.

Millions of us made big boxing Saturdays appointment viewing, with more than 16 million watching the rematch between Benn and Eubank in 1993. Amid all that drama and theatre was Rosenthal presenting the coverage. He was made for a lot of different sport, but he seemed to work particularly well at ringside. Rosenthal, Gutteridge, Jim Watt, what a team ITV had back then.

Rosenthal made occasional forays into radio in the 1990s too. He presented phone-in programmes for the new Talk Radio and commentated for the station on the first clash between American Evander Holyfield and Britain’s Lennox Lewis in 1999.

When ITV won the rights to show Formula One from 1997, ending the BBC’s long association with screening the sport, they turned to Rosenthal. Why wouldn’t they? By his own admission, he was anything but an expert on the sport. But typically he made the job his own over the best part of a decade, presenting coverage of more than 150 races.

It actually seemed like a dream job from the start, with Rosenthal sunning himself in Melbourne at the start of the season, and then cruising around Monaco’s harbour in the spring. During nearly all his time as presenter, German great Michael Schumacher was the dominant figure, winning five world titles in succession between 2000 and 2004. Rosenthal covered the sport for ITV until Steve Rider switched sides from the BBC for the 2006 season.

The biggest sporting moment with Rosenthal on duty came in November 2003. England had the best rugby team in the world under Sir Clive Woodward. They were favourites to win the World Cup, and despite not always being totally convincing, they had beaten Wales and France in the knockout stages to set up a showdown in the final with hosts Australia.

It was a titanic night in Sydney. And it was a memorable morning in Britain for nearly 15 million viewers who tuned into ITV, plus countless more who packed into pubs and clubs around the country.

We all remember the story. The teams were level at 14-14 after 80 minutes, and then locked together again at 17-17 with time almost up. Cue Jonny Wilkinson and his unforgettable drop-kick for glory. England were kings of the world, the rugby men following in the footsteps of the 1966 football heroes.

Rosenthal, at Sydney’s Olympic Stadium for the match, had a big responsibility that day, particularly in the moments after captain Martin Johnson had lifted the trophy and England celebrated their triumph. He rose to the occasion in trademark fashion.

Rosenthal continued to be a familiar face on ITV. He presented ITV4’s Champions League show, and fronted football highlights programmes. But he was dropped in 2008 from his exclusive contract with the channel. He still did work for ITV after that, including reporting duties at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Later in 2010, he joined Channel 5 to front their live Europa League coverage. Fans soon began to mock big teams for having to play in the competition, with the terrace song “Thursday nights, Channel 5”.

Far from ignore this, Rosenthal played along. When Manchester United were knocked out of the Champions League in late 2011, meaning Europa League football for them in 2012, he sang along to the song on air with pundit Stan Collymore.

Channel 5 eventually lost the rights, but Rosenthal has naturally kept busy. He has been the lead presenter on BoxNation for some time, and regularly appears on Manchester United’s own TV channel, MUTV. He was at Wembley for the 2016 FA Cup final, when United beat Crystal Palace, conducting interviews with pundits and key figures like former manager Ron Atkinson.

Something else I remember about Rosenthal, that I’m sure is important. Nobody seems to have ever had a bad word to say about him. Quite the opposite. It seems what you see is what you get. Decency, warmth, good company. That’s how we’ll always think of Rosenthal, I’m sure of it. He’s just been very good company.

Actually, that’s what this whole series has been about. For those of us who love sport, we’ve been lucky to share time with some truly wonderful broadcasters over the years. Illuminating characters that have added so much to our enjoyment of big events. Long may we carry on watching and listening.

Here’s a lovely picture to sign off with. Brian Moore and Rosenthal at Wembley in 1980. The first subject in our Voices of Sport series, alongside the last. Thank you very much for reading.