Eddie Waring

Edward Marsden "Eddie" Waring (21 February 1910 – 28 October 1986) was a British rugby league football coach, commentator and television presenter.

Waring's commentaries on rugby league divided opinion: for some viewers he was "Uncle Eddie," the warm and friendly voice of the north, but others believed that his voice simply confirmed and promoted stereotypes.

Waring was born on 21 February 1910 in Dewsbury, West Riding of Yorkshire to Arthur Waring, an agent of the Refuge Assurance Company, and Florence Harriet Marsden.

Waring was never a noted rugby league player; he was actually more proficient at football, once having had trials with Nottingham Forest and Barnsley. He began work as a typewriter salesman in his home town of Dewsbury, but he swapped that career to use them instead, joining a local newspaper and reporting on rugby league matches.

Alongside his fledging journalism career he ran the local Dewsbury Boys Rugby League Club, renaming them the Black Knights (this foreshadowed how Super League clubs were branded some 60 years later). During the Second World War Waring managed Dewsbury RLFC as he was exempted from armed service with an ear condition. Recruiting men from a nearby military camp, he led the club to its second Challenge Cup victory in 1943 - the club's last ever success in the competition.

Waring travelled on the HMS Indomitable with the Great Britain national rugby league team on the first post-war tour of Australia. Returning home via the United States, he met Bob Hope, who alerted him to the success of televised sport. This is believed to have convinced him that television would be crucial for rugby league's long-term success. In the UK, he pushed this case harder with the BBC, having written to them as far back as 1931. After several rejections, he was given a chance as a broadcaster when the BBC began to cover the sport.

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