John Roberts retired as tennis correspondent of The Independent in 2006, but for years afterwards he would spend one day every summer back at Wimbledon. However, on those return trips to the All England Club he would not spend much time watching backhands and forehands. Instead, most of his day would be spent talking to the dozens of former colleagues and acquaintances who wanted to catch up with him.
John, who has died at the age of 84, was a hugely popular figure in media centres and press boxes around the world during his 44-year career working for British newspapers, namely the Daily Express, The Guardian, the Daily Mail and The Independent. He was one of the best connected and best informed reporters and was always happy to share his knowledge with colleagues.
He was a great wordsmith who brought the hard-nosed qualities he developed on the Express and Mail to his work on more “serious” newspapers. As Matthew Engel once wrote: “I suspect posh-paper sports writing changed forever the day John Roberts left the Daily Express to join The Guardian in the late 1970s, was handed a piece of routine agency copy and picked up a telephone to start asking questions.”
Born in Stockport in 1941, John joined the Stockport Express after leaving school and became the paper’s sports editor at the age of just 19. At 21 he was recruited by the Daily Express in Manchester and at 24 he was posted to report on sport from Belfast, where he met his future wife, Phyllis. They married two years later.
One of John’s jobs at the Express was to ghost-write columns for the great Northern Ireland and Manchester United footballer, George Best. John later wrote that he had undertaken this task during Best’s “alarming transition from being the best thing since sliced bread to becoming sliced bread dunked in vodka”. He added: “Working with George could also be a curse. He sent me the wrong way more often than he dummied defenders.”
John spent many years reporting on Merseyside football, where he earned the trust of, among others, Bill Shankly. John worked with the Liverpool manager on his autobiography, ghost-wrote Keegan’s first book and wrote the official centenary history of Everton Football Club.
He also wrote a much-acclaimed book about Manchester United’s Busby Babes (“The team that wouldn’t die”) and another about Best’s final years at United (“Sod this, I’m off to Marbella”).
John eventually left the Express to join The Guardian and then the Mail, where he first covered Wimbledon. When The Independent launched in 1986 he was recruited as tennis correspondent and joined a formidable team that included the likes of Martin Johnson, Ken Jones and Patrick Barclay.
Apart from a brief spell as football correspondent following Barclay’s departure in 1990, John remained The Independent’s tennis correspondent until his retirement in 2006. For two decades he was a fixture on the tennis circuit. He wrote beautifully about the sport and was often ahead of the game. In 2003 he broke the news that Wimbledon was planning to build a retractable roof over Centre Court.
With his warm smile, infectious laugh, keen wit and readiness to help anyone who sought his assistance, there was no more popular figure in the press room. “John was among the first tennis writers I met early in my career,” said Howard Fendrich, tennis correspondent of the Associated Press and co-president of ITWA. “He was friendly, witty, warm, welcoming and armed with a terrific laugh. A real gentleman. And on top of it all, a terrific reporter and writer.”
While John loved sport, it always felt that what he loved even more was the people he came to know through his work. Charlie Burgess, John’s first sports editor at The Independent, recalled: “In the days of landlines paid by the minute, he had the largest bill of anyone on the Sports Desk. He loved a chat.”
John was a creature of habit. On the tennis circuit he tended to stay in the same hotels and eat at the same restaurants year after year.
Nick Harris, who worked alongside him at Wimbledon for many years as part of The Independent’s team, said: “We’d often eat in the same few places, either in East Sheen, or in Richmond near the same hotel where he stayed every year. John would invariably order Dover sole, off the bone, with chips and salad, bread and butter, and a cup of tea. If he really wanted to throw off the shackles, he would occasionally have a glass of white wine.”
On learning of John’s death, many ITWA members paid tribute to him. Steve Flink said: “He was an extraordinary human being who kept us all laughing through long days, never took himself too seriously and was an outstanding tennis journalist. He set the highest of ethical standards. I don’t think I have ever met a better man in our field. I will miss him immensely.”
John is survived by Phyllis, his wife of 58 years, their children Chris, Leanne and Gerard, son-in-law Jason, daughters-in-law Svenja and Jo, and grandchildren Jack, Noah, Mai and Hassie.