From copyboy to sportswriter…my memories of Mike Gibson
September 30, 2015: I couldn’t wait for dad to come home from work….not just to see him and welcome him with open arms but to dive into his work bag and grab the newspaper.
Dad worked at the Daily Telegraph as a fitter and turner, one of those guys who would fix the printing presses when they broke down.
Mum would always say to me “You’re just like the rest of the family…straight to the sports pages.”
I guess it was the Australian way. We lived between Manly Oval and Brookvale Oval and luckily just a sidestep away from North Steyne beach between Manly and Queenscliff.
A magical playground for sports loving boys on the northern beaches.
And with limited access to TV in the mid 60s, newspapers and the wireless became your source of news.
You became attached to those guys who wrote the stories on football, cricket, swimming, the Olympics.
Mike Gibson and Ian Heads were two of those guys who this sportsmad kid from Manly could relate to.
They had jobs that took them to the game. They seemed to have the best jobs in the world, covering sports all round the world.
They would be a source of getting to know the players, the game and the results.
They were heroes of mine along side the players who you would crawl through the rabbit holes under the back fence at Brookie and Manly Ovals to watch the games and to chase sweaty, blood stained autographs afterwards.
Sportswriters were people who you got to know, even though you didn’t know them but they were on a pedestal in the Hanson home in Pine Street and then in Kangaroo Street.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for the sports writing community with the loss of “The Prince” Alan Clarkson a doyen of rugby league writers on the Sydney Morning Herald and then ‘Gibbo” Mike Gibson and for those close to them – their immediate families and then those who sat with them, cheered with them and admired their work.
“Gibbo” was a sports columnist I grew up with in those years when dad would arrive home with an empty lunch box, a bottle of DA and the Tele.
To read “Gibbo” you learnt more about the game than just the score. He had an amazing gift to tell the story behind and beyond the result.
An ability to keep the reader enthralled until the very last paragraph when the whole story unraveled in the most beautiful way.
It may have been an obituary on a great rugby league player and it wasn’t ‘till the end of the column that you realised the subject had in fact passed away peacefully.
And you couldn’t help but think – what a lovely tribute to a great player.
It was sad to hear of “Gibbo’s” passing at 75 on the NSW Central Coast.
Along with his colleagues Ian Heads, Phil Tresidder and Brian Mossop it was “Gibbo’s” words that inspired me to join the sports writing ranks.
I was lucky enough to get a job straight out of school as a copy boy in 1971 at the Daily Telegraph, the only boy on the job who wore a three-piece suit to work and I was assigned to work in the library.
My old man’s words ringing in my ears. “You gotta look good son…”
For me, the perfect place to start my newspaper career.
I got to deliver files and photos to my heroes.
The library was on the fourth floor of Sir Frank Packer’s old Consolidated Press building on the corner of Park and Elizabeth Streets in Sydney – with the King’s Head Hotel on one corner and the Criterium across the road.
If the sports writers were not at their desks they were either at football training or in the pub chatting to everyone and anyone – that’s the way it was.
And if the library copy boy wasn’t on the fourth floor he was more than likely on the third floor where the sports department was.
There was a general sports room where all the writers had a desk with rickety old typewriters, piles of copy paper, half-full cups of coffee and cigarettes burning holes on the sides of their desks.
But not Mike Gibson. He had his own special room. He was a senior sport writer in a section reserved for Sir Frank’s best of the best.
Mike had a familiar shuffle and always wore slip on shoes so you knew he was coming down the hall…
To meet Mike Gibson was a joy to a budding young sports writer and to get to know him as a person was even better.
Sports writers were a breed. They were an extension of the game, They were respected by the players, by the clubs and by the coaches and administrators.
They relied on contacts and they told the untold stories. To learn from these guys who would love nothing more than to have a beer, a bet and a chat about the game.
To eventually get a cadetship and write stories on the same newspaper as Mike Gibson and Ian Heads was a dream come true.
Friday nights in the Evening Star were always memorable when the cream of the sportswriters would gather at beer o’clock and in would walk an all-star cast… Ian Walsh, Richie Benaud, Bobby Simpson, Tony Greig, Graeme Langlands, Jack Gibson, Reg Gasnier and Neil Harvey….amongst others.
Cheers Gibbo and thanks for the memories…Your words will be a gift that will live forever…
Ian Hanson| Media Manager
Ian Hanson| Media Manager Triathlon Australia Managing Director
Hanson Media Group | P O Box 299 | West Burleigh Qld 4219
Phone: +61 7 5522 5556 | Mobile 0407 385 160 | Fax: +61 7 5522 5557
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