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AN AFTERNOON WITH BERNARD GENT, THE VOICE OF AYRESOME PARK 22-11-07
Steve Goldby
Bernard Gent will probably be best remembered as being the 'Voice of Ayresome Park' for almost a quarter of a century. But there is an awful lot more to his story than that. Bernard has covered the Boro in several different guises since 1947, was involved in the 1966 World Cup and is solely responsible for the introduction of 'The Power Game' as Boro's famous theme tune in the Ayresome Park days.
Shortly after leaving school, Bernard joined The Northern Echo as a cub reporter and then moved on to The Evening Gazette where he worked under the celebrated Cliff Mitchell who was then Chief Sports reporter.
"Cliff covered the first team and I covered the reserves. In those days there were no radio stations or newspapers covering the team other than the Gazette and Echo, who had the monopoly. We travelled with the team and were most certainly part of it and consequently made friends and struck up an excellent rapport with the players."
"I stood in for Cliff and covered the first team when he was ill and remember going down to Brighton for a cup-tie once. Raich Carter was the manager and he organised a trip to the cinema the night before the match. But none of the players were interested in going so just me and Raich went. I got some ribbing for that on our return."
"Away trips in those days were much different to now as it took hours to get to places like Port Vale. It was always a case of an overnight stay in a hotel and that's when a lot of the character came out."
"Micky Fenton was the reserve team manager when I was covering them and he was the man who gave Brian Clough his first ever job at the club. It was to put the bread buns out at the dinner table."
Bernard remembers one particular away trip to Newcastle when the bus stopped off at Anfield Plain and Irish player Frank Mulholland was left behind. Luckily the bus was caught in traffic in Durham centre and the first anyone knew about Mulholland's absence was when he was spotted running alongside the bus banging on the windows. It was a good job he caught up as it turned out he was required to play that evening.
In 1966 Bernard was invited by the Press Association to be Ayresome Park Press Officer for the World Cup Finals. This was a Football Association position and meant that Bernard was in charge of PR for the teams playing in Middlesbrough, namely Italy, Chile, USSR and the now fabled North Korean side.
"My role included matchday hospitality and making sure the teams were catered for properly. The North Koreans stayed in what was then The George near Teesside Airport and they were a very quiet bunch when they first arrived. That was probably because not one of them spoke a word of English and everything was done through an interpreter."
"But after they got their first, unexpected, result, things started to liven up a bit as the town really took them to their hearts. They played in red and were the clear underdogs so they became very popular in Middlesbrough and everyone made a big fuss of them wherever they went. They became instant heroes to the Boro fans."
"Once they had beaten Italy, 3000 fans from Middlesbrough followed the North Korean team to Liverpool for their quarter-final game against Portugal. Unfortunately the pint-sized heroes were knocked out, despite taking a shock 3-0 lead. Eusebio destroyed them and the Portuguese ran out 5-3 winners."
"The atmosphere at Ayresome Park for the '66 World Cup was very special. Renovations to the ground were required in order to bring it up to standard and this had to be done quickly as we were not one of the original choices of venue. Newcastle was originally on the list but St James' was replaced by Ayresome late in the day."
"After the World Cup, I received a letter from a Chilean journalist. He thanked me for the hospitality they had received whilst in Teesside and invited me to Chile but unfortunately it was an offer I could not take up. It wouldn't have been so difficult these days but back then it was impossible for me."
The return of the North Korean side to Middlesbrough in 2002 is a well documented event and Bernard was delighted to be involved in this as well.
The Power Game
Life took a major turning point for Bernard after the World Cup when he was approached by then Club Secretary Harry Green with a view to becoming the first professional matchday announcer at Ayresome Park.
Up until then, the matchday announcements had consisted solely of the team announcement and one record and this had been performed by a steward until Green had the idea of providing a much more up-market service. Bernard accepted the position and Radio Ayresome was born.
"I scripted some of the show and some of it was done ad-lib but one thing we really needed was a theme tune. There was a soap-opera on the TV at the time called The Power Game which was set in a business environment and the theme music of the same name was performed by The Cyril Stapleton Orchestra. I chose it as the Boro's theme music in 1967 and it remained until Ayresome Park closed in 1995."
"We started off playing it through a loudpseaker on a standard record player and later on we upgraded to a tape cassette player. The dedications we did became extremely popular. People would stop me in the street and ask for dedications and we often had so many that we couldn't possibly do them all."
"The first season that Radio Ayresome was in existance was a memorable one. Boro gained only ten points from the first six games of the 1966/67 campaign but won the last six to secure promotion back to the second division. The celebrations on the night we beat Oxford 4-1 were dampened however because due to the pressure of the crowd, a wall in the main stand near the 'bob end' collapsed and we were very lucky not to suffer any casualties."
"We were on a high after the promotion but John O'Rourke left the club and Stan Anderson never quite had the cutting edge to take Boro up one more level. Stan was too quiet and I can't ever recall him dishing out a good rollocking to anyone. Jack Charlton, on the other hand, was a totally different kettle of fish."
"Jack was a bit of a grump and never seemed to be the same person two days running. He worked on fear mainly but it got the best out of the team as the 1973/74 side was easily the best Boro side I have ever seen."
"Jack once threw me out of the Hutton Road training ground. I had gone down there to watch them train and he just turned on me and told me to get out for no apparent reason. The next time I saw him at Ayresome he was fine with me, as though nothing had ever happened."
"The Power Game was played continuously throughout the Stan Anderson and Jack Charlton eras and beyond. In fact, the only time it wasn't played was for one short period in the Eighties when the team were on a bad run and Tony Mowbray, the captain at the time, requested that it be dropped in favour of a pop song of the time. There was no change in fortune so I resurrected The Power Game and the team started winning again almost straight away."
"Fans on the way to Ayresome knew that if they could hear the theme belting out, they had three minutes to take their seat as it was a case of the teams coming out and kicking off almost straight away in those days. Not like today when they warm up on the pitch for half an hour first."
For some time either side of the 1986 liquidation crisis, Bernard waived his £10 fee for presenting Radio Ayresome and this made the manner in which the end finally came even harder to swallow.
"Boro were sponsored by The Evening Gazette at the time and they claimed that if I was to continue at Radio Ayresome it would cause friction as I was reporting for The Echo. It was especially disappointing to be manipulated out like this as I was the creator of Radio Ayresome but the club relented and that was the end for me and Mark Page was installed in my place."
The story then took on an ironic turn when Bernard went to what was then Radio Tees - now TFM - which is where Page had previously made a name for himself. As Sports Editor for the station, Bernard introduced a rooky presenter to the ropes who eventually went on to make a name for himself on national TV.
"Jeff Stelling was a pro-temp when he started working with me and I showed him the necessary radio techniques and completely trained him in radio technique, although I never had that privelege myself as I was completely self-taught. We turned into a good duo who built the show from scratch ourselves."
"John Murray, now a Radio Five Live presenter, took over from Jeff and I after three seasons as I wanted to go back to journalism as that was always where my heart was."
Bernard was Editor of The Challenger for five years in the 1990s, an East Middlesbrough newspaper set up by community project City Challenge. He then became Press Officer for North Yorkshire County Council in Northallerton and worked alongside daughter Alyson who was PR for Hambleton Council in the same town.
These days Bernard is still a sports reporter, working freelance and appearing regularly in The Echo, The Journal, The Chronicle and The Sunderland Echo amongst others.
"I do cricket and motoring these days as I can't do football any more. I had a hip operation about eight years ago and couldn't climb the steps up to the press box any more."
Cricket is more than an adequate replacement though as Bernard played for Middlesbrough Senior cricket team as wicket-keeper in the North Yorkshire/South Durham League for over twenty-five years and won wicket-keeper of the year award during one particularly successful season. Bernard's cricketing days lasted until 1980 when he finished up playing for Stokesley.
As Bernard is now a Riverside season ticket holder I asked him to compare The Riverside with Ayresome Park and to give his opinion on the modern game.
"There was definitely a better atmosphere at Ayresome Park. It seems to be just a 'hospitality' event these days and all seater stadia have taken something away from how it used to be."
"Players are overpaid these days. It would be better if they were on a small basic with a decent win or draw bonus and nothing if they lose."
"I'm disappointed with the Boro this season but I don't think we will go down as there are too many other bad teams. Also we will improve as soon as Julio Arca returns as I think his absence is the sole reason why we are so poor at the moment."
"But the academy is a major plus point for Boro. It was great to see four players in the England Under-21's last Friday night. If there was a restriction on the number of foreign players in each team, Middlesbrough would do an awful lot better than they are currently doing."
It would probably take one almighty Power Game to push through that sort of legislation though...
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