Sunday Session: Jim Tucker reflects on 42 years at the top as he farewells the Courier-Mail
From golf days with Brian Lara to rooming with rugby stars on tour and even the odd topless Gabba sunbather – JIM TUCKER has seen it all in his 42 years as a sportswriter.
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Jim Tucker is finishing his outstanding 21-year run at The Courier-Mail this week after covering more than 500 Queensland Reds matches and rugby Tests, three Olympic Games and top-level golf and cricket with a flair and style admired throughout the sporting world.
Long-time colleague Robert Craddock pinned him down for the great memories and wacky moments from 42 years as a sports writer before he left the building.
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That’s much harder today because players and the media aren’t able to mix as closely.
On my first rugby tour with Queensland in 1983, I was roomed with a player, prop Michael Crank, in Pukekohe. Can you imaginethat happening today?
What does four decades in the sports writing caper give you?
Perspective most of all because we overuse the terms “superstar and legend.”
Brian Lara does grow greater by the year. To hold the world record Test score of 375 and reclaim it at 400 not out is ridiculous quality.
A more subdued view on expense claims too...I remember a Courier-Mail photographer claiming for “a light plane” on the 1993-94 South African tour when the office was so desperate to snap Allan Border’s team at a game park with a giraffe or zebra that he had to hire a plane to get there. The bill was $10,000 but guess what? The photo did not even make the paper.
You mention Lara. He was an elusive figure for many... how did you develop such a good rapport for some excellent interviews?
I bumped into him at his local golf course in Port-of-Spain while covering the 1995 West Indies cricket tour, we finishedthe round together and he took 20 Trinidad and Tobago dollars off me.
After dinner, he drove me to a plot of land in the hills to show me “this is where I’ll build my home.” A few days later he scored his first international century on Trinidad soil and the hero worship from fans was incredible.
Nearing midnight in the Pelican Inn, the DJ, the steel drums and a packed dance floor was still booming “We aint goin’ home...jump up! We aint goin’ home....J-u-m-p up! Raise ya bat like Lara...tonight.”
What have been the biggest sports stories over the past 40 years?
I thought it was covering the first topless sunbathers on the Gabba hill for a Sheffield Shield match but I guess that was just my news sense to get the first interview.
Seriously, nothing has been bigger than the work done by you and other top cricket writers in the 1990s to uncover the murky underbelly of match fixing, the unsavoury Salim Malik and the tortured Hansie Cronje.
Players betting on sports hasn’t always had that smell. Lock Rod McCall thought his Reds were specials at $2.75 in the 1994 Super 10 final in Durban so a core of players bet $10,000 of the team fund on themselves winning.
That’s true because it was put through my betting account. Michael Lynagh knew nothing of the bet and nearly fainted when told after his masterclass.
What have been the best sporting moments to watch live?
I’ll narrow it down to the first 40 minutes of the Wallabies’ superb semi-final win over the All Blacks in Dublin at the 1991 Rugby World Cup, the complete 1995 Windies tour through to Steve Waugh’s 200 in Jamaica and the poolside mayhem that wentwith Duncan Armstrong’s upset 200m freestyle gold medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
After the miracle John Eales kick in 2000, I got to drink from the Bledisloe Cup for the only time when it was doing a lap of a crowded Wellington bar. A dirty Kiwi spat in it five seconds before it reached me so I figured it was still safe to swig beer from the other edge... quickly.
You are a collector of oddball newspaper bloopers. What is your favourite?
An old sub-editor still gets niggle about the great “Trevor Ballwork.” He misinterpreted “clever ballwork” and invented an NRL player for Parramatta instead.
Wally Lewis was so big in the 1990s that when the Reds played in front of the King of Samoa in Apia, coach John Connolly’squote was brilliantly fumbled: “Everyone from The King (Wally Lewis) was there.” The sub-editor thought the king simply had to mean Wally so he typed his name in brackets.
Who is Australian sport’s greatest living treasure?
Dawn Fraser. My father was a sports writer penning front page stories on Dawn’s world records and run-ins with swimming officialdom in the 1960s. They shared a strong friendship and I was still fondly writing about her in 2019.
You’ve covered Queensland rugby since 1982, what’s your greatest all-time Reds team?
Good question but here’s my All-time Reds’ Tour XV for fun on the road instead: Greg Martin, Chris Latham, Andrew Slack, Tim Horan, Wendell Sailor, Elton Flatley, Peter Slattery, Toutai Kefu, Jeff Miller, Tony Shaw, John Eales, Nigel Holt, Stan Pilecki, David Nucifora, Dan Crowley. Manager: Anthony Herbert
Any close calls on getting stories into the newspaper?
Yes. Sports’ journalism’s golden rule...always front up.
I didn’t for the final Wallabies’ training before the Murrayfield Test in 2009 because it fell after 10pm Brisbane time so it was almost irrelevant for any newspaper.
One great rugby media tradition from the late Bruce Wilson and Greg Growden was heading to St Andrews on Test eves in Edinburgh to play or simply walk the course before a whisky.
I chose the golf, had the most ridiculous front nine of 37 and found out on the 10th hole that Digby Ioane was a late injury withdrawal.
I dived out of the wind behind a gorse bush and dictated 100 words on a mobile phone back home. I hacked my way home and will never forgive Digby.
What special treats has sports writing given you?
Being pulled out of the hat to play Augusta National after the 2012 Masters was unbelievable.
Another was being invited to the INXS concert at Wembley Arena with Michael Slater and Adam Gilchrist on the 1997 Ashes tour because I saw two worlds collide at the before-show party.
Guitarist Tim Farriss is a cricket nut and he was as dumbstruck meeting Gilchrist as “Gilly” was meeting him.
At a Chelsea bar afterwards, the INXS guys told us their secret to avoiding fans at hotels...booking under “Don Bradman” or other cricket names.
Is there some prized sporting memorabilia among the dusty boxes in your garage?
Errr...yes. Greg Norman’s last divot from his 1986 British Open win at Turnberry. I shared the other half with his caddie Pete Bender, who stuffed it into the Moet & Chandon bottle he’d showered “The Shark” with.
I’ve been saying for 35 years you are absolute champion of our craft – as a journalist and a man – a great writer with no ego who’s always helping others and that sentiment is shared not simply by Courier-Mail staff but journalists around Australia and the wider sporting world. Well played mate.
Thanks. I’ve loved the journey. Throw in the fun of a tour, immense job satisfaction, good yarns, great workmates and friendships, keeping the right secrets and it’s been a dream job ... with more to come.