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The Roar

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A few words on what Les Murray meant to me

Les Murray has passed away, aged 71.
Expert
31st July, 2017
3

The sudden death of Les Murray has induced a horrible sensation within the Australian football community, an unusual hollow pang deep in the gut.

Football in this country has grown, over the past three decades, from a modest gazebo into a grand pavilion, with new wings propped up as the game has expanded, fresh arcades erected, novel parlours and chambers built joyfully, aired out and decorated.

The news of Murray’s passing, which emerged yesterday without warning, has sent a horrible tremor around this entire architecture; just as these newly-constructed rooms take their original, load-bearing columns for granted, so too have we taken Murray’s presence for granted, as a foundational pillar of the Australian football community.

His death has shaken us; we’ve suddenly lost someone we all leaned on, even if we didn’t realise it. The hollow pang we’re all feeling is a mournful echo reverberating around the void he has left.

Craig Foster and Les Murray

(AAP Image/Joe Castro)

My own lingering memories of Les Murray are steeped in a sort of closeness. I’ve never met Murray in person, or even been in the same room as him. I’ve spoken to him once, and not at great length.

No, this feeling of closeness was built up, like layers of varnish, over the countless Sundays spent in front of The World Game, back when it seemed to go on endlessly into the afternoon, although somehow never long enough.

Sunday was a day free of responsibility, a day to devote to life’s rare indulgences. With shafts of late-day sunshine falling softly onto the carpet, I’d sit cross-legged in front of the television, paying dutiful attention to Les as he chaperoned me through the week’s footballing high drama.

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The white strands of hair, parted in the middle, a soothing dulcet voice, and every player’s name – no matter how enigmatically spelt – rolling with perfect enunciated ease off his tongue. These are memories that occupy the sheltered recess of my mind where I keep my childhood’s most comforting mental souvenirs, and Les Murray is a cherished, avuncular presence in all of them.

At that time, SBS was the bastion of football coverage in Australia, a slightly kooky shining light. I mean, close to six consecutive hours of football programming on a Sunday should be testament enough to their commitment to thorough football coverage.

The channel has since dwindled in influence and dedication to the game, to the point where they now no longer have any broadcasting rights to the A-League. Murray stepped away from broadcasting three years ago, but the work he did championing the game on television, becoming synonymous with football coverage in Australia in the process, laid the essential groundwork Fox Sports – and, soon, Channel Ten – now enjoy.

It’s no overstatement to say that much of the current Australian football landscape would be uncultivated and barren if not for him.

His legacy as a broadcaster is far-reaching; nearly eight million people have listened to him rhyming a list of history’s greatest footballers to an impossibly catchy dance beat. He worked with vigour for the Southern Expansion A-League bid, as a figurehead and spokesman. We know now he must have done so while battling illness. There have been countless heartfelt words of tribute sent out by his colleagues over the last two days.

There aren’t many people who can truly claim a seat at the pantheon of Australian football colossi, but Les Murray is one of them. His impact on the game – its media coverage, its stability, its legitimacy – is too great to measure, and the void he leaves will be impossible to fill.

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But more than that, his death also leaves a mournful cavity in the core quintessence of millions of football fans; it was with Les that we nurtured our warm love for the beautiful game, and without him, now, everything feels a little bit colder.

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