Tony Gubba 1943 - 2013 RIP

The BBC Sports commentator Tony Gubba has died at the age of 69.

He was born in Manchester although his family could trace their ancestry to East Prussia, hence the unusual surname. He started his journalism career in local newspapers before moving to the Daily Mirror, then Southern ITV and in 1972 the BBC.

For several years he presented Sportsnight and was an occasional presenter of Grandstand and Match of the Day. He covered football on the BBC for 40 years, including seven World Cups and for a decade was "first reserve" if Barry Davies or John Motson wasn't available. The biggest games he covered were the 1986 World Cup semi-final between France - West Germany, the 1996 Charity Shield and the 2007 League Cup final.

He also commentated on ice-skating, hockey, table tennis, bobsleigh, ski jumping, speed skating, cycling, rowing, judo, golf and tennis and was the main presenter of the BBC's coverage of the World Darts Championship from 1984-1990. He covered 8 Summer and 6 Winter Olympics.

Since 2006 he had been the commentator on ITV's "Dancing on Ice".

This was a shock, couple of weeks ago Phil Scholfield said it was the first time in 8 years he had a day of from dancing on ice and now he's dead.

Tony Gubba was an excellent all rounder in presenting and commentating on a wide variety of sports.
He was widely respected across his industry and I thoroughly enjoyed his work.
R.I.P.

Sad news. A great commentator

Sad news indeed. I'll always remember his commentary for Match of the Day, not just the Premier League but for me particularly the FA Cup coverage. RIP Tony.

(12-03-2013 07:26 )bytor Wrote:  A great commentator

I'd call him a solid, reliable commentator, rather than a great one. He always tended to play at least third fiddle to John Motson and Barry Davies (Davies was the finest BBC football commentator have had, after Kenneth Wolstenholme, far better than Motson, and the way he was given such short shrift by them is a scandal), and always seemed to wind up covering the less glamorous ties. The Motson bias probably explains why he and Davies branched out more into covering other sports. He was always a likeable and enjoyable commentator, though, with his own quirks, and the news of his sudden passing is shocking and very sad.