Ray Hadley and Bob Fulton quit 2GB’s Continuous Call Team
Broadcaster Ray Hadley and rugby league immortal Bob Fulton have made a huge call on their radio careers just weeks out from the start of the 2020 NRL season.
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Broadcaster Ray Hadley and rugby league immortal Bob Fulton have called full-time on their 32-year partnership in radio on the 2GB Continuous Call team.
Hadley have announcemed this morning they are stepping down to spend more time with their families. Together they have dominated the ratings for more than three decades.
“We started together and we made a pact that we would leave together,” Hadley said. “We’ve both decided now is the right time.”
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It is the longest-running sporting show on Australian radio, which has topped the ratings every year since 1990.
The pair cited wanting to spend more time with their partners and wanting to attend their grandchildren’s sporting events on weekends as a contributing factor to the decision.
“I want to spend more time with my grandchildren,” Hadley said.
Hadley paid tribute to Fulton, who has been alongside the veteran caller for 32 of the 33 years the show has been running.
“I’ve never met a more loyal colleague and friend than Bob Fulton,” Hadley said before crossing live on air to Fulton on Friday morning to discuss their decision.
“It means on a Saturday now you can go and watch the grandkids play sport and as mine get older I can do the same thing.”
Fulton replied: “It’s time, Ray, that’s what it is.
“What a great ride – you go to work for 30 years with your mates, talk a bit of footy and have a laugh. And get paid for it.
“At 12 o’clock on a Saturday and Sunday for 30-odd years people could tune in and were guaranteed a laugh.
“Life is serious enough without talking footy on a Saturday and Sunday.
“It was a ratings winner. It was something that was out of left field and a lot of people didn’t think it would work, but it bloody worked, and worked well.”
It is not the last time Hadley will be heard calling rugby league as he is still contracted to call State of Origins and grand finals for the network.
Hadley, who is getting married again this year to his personal assistant Sophie Baird, told 2GB general manager Tom Malone of his decision before Christmas.
The show will now be hosted by Mark Levy, who has been hosting a new one-hour Wide World of Sport show weekday afternoons on the station.
“Bob and I bow out but the Continuous Call Team continues,” Hadley said.
Hadley started the Continuous call team in 1987 with legendary News Corp journalist Peter ‘Chippy’ Frilingos and Fulton joined him the following year.
Frilingos was inducted into the NRL’s prestigious Hall of Fame last year for his work at The Daily Telegraph and on the Continuous Call Team.
“When you look back at someone like that (Frilingos) he was a legend of a journalist, he was probably the greatest journalist of all time,” Fulton said.
“He was a great mate.
“When someone like Peter, who passed away at 59, was such an integral part of rugby league, people these days they forget.”
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The original Continuous Call Team featured Hadley, Frilingos, Richard Fisk, Ray Price and John Gibbs.
Others who have been part of the Continuous Call Team include the late Jack Gibson, Don Moseley, Andrew Moore, Andrew Voss, Laurie Daley, Paul Sironen, Mark Braybrooke, Craig Teevan, Tommy Raudonikis, Michael O’Connor, Ian Heads, Wayne Pearce, Steve Roach, Greg Alexander, Billy Moore and The Daily Telegraph’s Phil Rothfield, Dean Ritchie and David Riccio.
The remaining team will feature long-time member Darryl Brohman, David Morrow, Anthony Griffin, Mark ‘Piggy’ Riddell, Erin Molan, Chris Warren, Jamie Soward and Joel Caine.
“The thing that I liked about the Continuous Call Team that you were smart enough to be able put things together from the point of view of and personalities, and some didn’t work out,” Fulton said, to which Hadley replied with laughter “I can think of one in particular, Boze, but we won’t go down that path.”
Hadley and Baird will tie the knot on June 27 next year at their former boss and friend John Singleton’s acclaimed Mt White restaurant Saddles, with Rev Bill Crews of the Exodus Foundation officiating.