David Anthony Gubba (23 September 1943 – 11 March 2013) was an English journalist and television sports commentator.

Life and career

Born in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, Gubba was educated at

Blackpool Grammar School Blackpool Aspire Academy is a secondary school located in the Layton area of Blackpool, Lancashire, England. The school was formed in 2014 by merging Collegiate High School with Bispham High School Arts College. It was temporarily located on Bi ...

North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...

. He began work as a local newspaper reporter with the Cyril Briggs Press Agency in Museum Street, Warrington

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

contracted to work on the Lymm edition of the Cheshire Country Express newspapers before moving up to the job of staff reporter for the ''

Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print ...

''. He later worked at

Southern TV Southern Television was the ITV broadcasting licence holder for the South and South-East of England from 30 August 1958 to 31 December 1981. The company was launched as 'Southern Television Limited' and the title 'Southern Television' was con ...

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

BBC

Gubba joined the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

as a sports correspondent, based in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

. His first

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

as a commentator with the BBC was in 1972, and he covered every World Cup tournament from 1974 to 2006. In 1972, he was given the job of presenting the popular '' Sportsnight'' show, a post he held until 1975. After leaving ''Sportsnight'', Gubba moved on to commentate on a range of sports for the BBC. He made regular appearances on '' Match of the Day'',Smith, Giles (2010)
Peerless Tony Gubba mixes heady cocktail served with ice and a slice of wisdom
, ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', 26 January 2010, retrieved 23 June 2011 frequently acted as stand-in presenter on ''

Grandstand A grandstand is a normally permanent structure for seating spectators. This includes both auto racing and horse racing. The grandstand is in essence like a single section of a stadium, but differs from a stadium in that it does not wrap a ...

'' and the occasional return to ''Sportsnight'', live international football matches and

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

matches. This was the era when

John Motson John Walker Motson (10 July 1945 – 23 February 2023) was an English football commentator. Beginning as a television commentator with the BBC in 1971, he commentated on over 2000 games on television and radio. From the late 1970s to 2008, Mot ...

and Barry Davies were the BBC's senior commentators so Gubba rarely got to commentate on games at the highest level, but notable matches he covered were the 1986 World Cup semi-final between France and West Germany, the 1992 Olympic Final, the 1996 Charity Shield and the 2007 League Cup final. He also commentated on ice-skating, hockey,

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

bobsleigh Bobsleigh or bobsled is a team winter sport that involves making timed runs down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sleigh. International bobsleigh competitions are governed by the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Feder ...

, 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 The World Professional Darts Championship is one of the most important tournaments in the darts calendar. Originally held as an annual event between 1978 and 1993, players then broke off into two separate organisations after a controversial split ...

from 1984 to 1990. Gubba spent 40 seasons as a football commentator, overtaking Barry Davies as the third-longest serving football commentator on British television after

and Gerald Sinstadt. He listed witnessing the debuts of

George Best George Best (22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005) was a Northern Irish professional footballer who played as a winger, spending most of his club career at Manchester United. A highly skilful dribbler, Best is regarded as one of the greatest pla ...

for

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

and Michael Owen for

as highlights of his career. He provided commentaries also for football

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

s: the PC version for ''

FIFA International Soccer ''FIFA International Soccer'' is a 1993 List of association football video games, association football video game developed by EA Canada's Extended Play Productions team and published by Electronic Arts. The game was released for the Sega Mega Dr ...

'' and the Nintendo 64 game ''

International Superstar Soccer 98 ''International Superstar Soccer 98'' (officially abbreviated as ''ISS 98'' and known as in Japan) is a soccer video game developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Osaka which was released exclusively for the Nintendo 64. It was released at the ...

''.

ITV

Gubba commentated on eight series of

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

's ''

Dancing on Ice ''Dancing on Ice'' is a British television series presented by Phillip Schofield alongside Holly Willoughby from 2006 to 2011, who then returned in 2018, and Christine Bleakley from 2012 to 2014. The series features celebrities and their profe ...

'' from 2006 to 2013. He provided a round-up of the performances and trivia about the celebrities and their skating partners. His last ''Dancing on Ice'' commentary was heard on 17 February 2013.

Personal life

Gubba lived in

Sonning-on-Thames Sonning is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England, on the River Thames, east of Reading. The village was described by Jerome K. Jerome in his book ''Three Men in a Boat'' as "the most fairy-like little nook on the whole river". Geog ...

, near

Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

, with his partner of 15 years, Jenny. He had two daughters Claire and Libby, from his previous marriage. He died on 11 March 2013 aged 69, of

leukaemia Leukemia ( also spelled leukaemia and pronounced ) is a group of blood cancers that usually begin in the bone marrow and result in high numbers of abnormal blood cells. These blood cells are not fully developed and are called ''blasts'' or ' ...

. The BBC's head of TV Sport, Philip Bernie, said of him:Tony Gubba: One of the great voices of football dies, aged 69
/ref>

"For a generation he was one of the most familiar and respected names in sports broadcasting. Tony was an outstanding sports journalist and a formidable broadcaster, whose death will sadden everyone at BBC Sport."

References

External links

Profile
bbc.co.uk {{DEFAULTSORT:Gubba, Tony 1943 births BBC sports presenters and reporters British association football commentators Cycling announcers English male journalists English sports broadcasters People educated at Blackpool Grammar School Journalists from Manchester Place of death missing Deaths from leukemia Deaths from cancer in England 2013 deaths English association football commentators