Decibel Duo Greg ‘Hollywood’ Hartley and Peter ‘Zorba’ Peters reunite
Bombastic and boisterous, they changed the face of Sydney sports radio. Legendary broadcasters Greg ‘Hollywood’ Hartley and Peter ‘Zorba’ Peters have reconnected amid a wave of memories, barbs, tales and a bold whack at today’s game.
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Laughs, jibes and a few tears – this was the emotional reunion of rugby league’s one-and-only Decibel Duo.
Greg ‘Hollywood’ Hartley and Peter ‘Zorba’ Peters – rugby league legendary radio broadcasters – have been reconnected amid a wave of memories, barbs, tales and a bold whack at today’s game.
Calling with never-heard-before vigour, theatrical showmen Peters, now 79, and Hartley, 82, were Sydney’s number one rugby league radio team with 2GB and 2KY through the 1980s and early 1990s.
Bombastic and boisterous, they changed the face of Sydney sports radio.
Their unique, motor-mouth broadcast method was based around excitement, expertise, name-calling and a whole ton of fun.
They were the airwaves odd couple – Hartley, a diminutive, unyielding five-time grand final referee, alongside Peters, an ex-Manly premiership-winning forward of Greek descent known to be often obnoxious and raucous.
Yet their special bond remains unbroken more than 40 years later and in a touching moment, Hartley burst into tears when asked what Peters meant to him.
But the love between the pair was temporary with provocative Hartley calling Peters a “turkey” before Peters accused Hartley of being a “show pony.”
Ah, it’s good to have them back together.
While they remain in touch, Peters and Hartley rarely catch up in person with this masthead managing to pull the pair together for lunch at Magpies Waitara.
While reluctant at the time to brag, Peters and Hartley actually swooped past legendary caller, 2SM’s Frank Hyde, to become Sydney’s top rugby league broadcasters in just their first year together behind the microphone.
If you’re a midlife rugby league fan, there’s every chance you grew up with Bulldogs fan ‘Hollywood’ and Manly tragic ‘Zorba’.
The pair still love the ferocious collision in rugby league, but Hartley says: “Some of today’s players get a cold and they think they have pneumonia.
“Some would pull out of a game with dandruff. What’s wrong with some of these blokes?”
Peters added: “Someone said Payne Haas would be a tough man in any era. Kevin Ryan, John Sattler and John O’Neill would chew him up and spit him out.”
And Peters also offered some departing words for Manly skipper Daly Cherry-Evans: “See you later.”
Many have tried to mimic Hartley and Peters – but the original will always be the best.
ARGY-BARGY BANTER
The altercations were real – if not said with a little love.
“We used to punch each other,” Peters said.
“Greg would get so fired up and he always wanted to argue with me.
“He would try to be humble – it wasn’t in him. He has never been humble. It was his old trick. He was a bloody show pony when he refereed and he’s still a show pony.”
Hartley fired straight back.
“I’m not a show pony but you salute the rank, not the individual. Peter wasn’t going to get over me. I used to call him a fat Greek.
“I used to say to him, ‘Shut up, Panoutas Peterides’ … that’s his real name.”
Peters said: “It sounds better in French – Pierre Pierres – it has a bit of class.”
RECONNECTED AGAIN
They started with 2GB in 1982 – a year after Hartley retired from refereeing – before jumping to 2KY in 1991 and then returning to 2GB for a further three seasons.
They remained on top until eventually toppled by a young Ray Hadley and the Continuous Call team.
Hartley and Peters later co-hosted a Sunday morning sports show on Sky Sports Radio.
Asked what Peters meant to him, Hartley broke down.
“’Zorba’ is more than my mate, he’s my little brother,” he said.
“I just had this feeling that I found a second brother.”
Wiping tears from his eyes, Hartley added: “It’s hard to explain how much he means to me. I have met a lot of great blokes but I’ve never met a bloke as great as ‘Zorba’.
“That won’t change until they sprinkle me on the Hawkesbury River.
“I will get him to host my wake. I know he’ll be there because there’ll be free drinks. When I started getting tangled up with this turkey, we just had that chemistry together.
“We don’t see each other as much as we should.
“There is the tyranny of distance – he lives on The Central Coast and I live on the bush down by the (Hawkesbury) River, so it’s a little bit hard.”
Peters said he and Hartley had laughed and cried together.
“I’ve been with him through marriages and divorces,” Peters said.
“I saw Greg as a ref and thought he was a breath of fresh air, a character, and I love characters. He bleeds, I bleed, he hurts, I hurt.”
LAME START
Don’t quit your day job.
“After our first game calling together, at the old Sydney Sports Ground, ‘Hollywood’ asked me what I thought and I said, ‘Don’t give up your day job’,” Peters said.
“I didn’t think we were going anywhere. We made a lot of mistakes but we picked each other up. We started to entertain and we knew the game so that helped.”
Hartley was told by executives that he wasn’t good enough to call rugby league.
“As soon as they said that, it made me all the more determined,” Hartley said.
“Peter didn’t know all the rules, so I would pick him up, and I made some silly statements too and he’d pick me up.”
Peters said: “You used to say, ‘The rain is coming down’. It usually does! We had a producer (Richard Fisk) who let us be natural, he even wanted us to have some arguments.
“He wanted it to be different and entertaining – so that’s what we did.”
The pair said legendary callers Frank Hyde, Col Pearce and Tiger Black also helped them on their journey.
“We beat Frank in the first year but we didn’t want that publicised because he was such a nice, decent man and such a big help to Greg and I,” Peters said.
“It would have been like headbutting Mother Teresa.”
HADLEY JAB
Peters regrets taking a swipe at a then rookie caller Hadley, who ultimately became one of Australia’s greatest broadcasters.
“I said a stupid thing one day that Ray obviously enjoyed reminding me about. He kept trying to get one-up on us while we were winning the ratings,” Peters said of the little-known Hadley.
“I said, ‘Hadley’s problem is he could rob a bank without a balaclava and with the cameras on and nobody would know who he was’.
“He put that story on the back of a toilet door at 2UE and looked at it every day until they became number one and he later became the legend of Australian radio.
“Ray and I went from mortal enemies to great mates and respected one-another.”
Hartley added: “I’m good mates with Raymond too.”
COKE AND COPS
The screaming and taunting were all in good fun – but there were times when it became a little more spirited.
“What about the day you threw a coke all over me?” Hartley recalled.
“Canterbury was beating Manly in the 1995 grand final and Peter got up, headphones still on, and poured a coke over me.
“So I got square. Matt (Hyde, 2GB statistician and technician) got me a bottle of water and I poured it over him when it was his turn to yap. He had the shits because Manly was behind.
“I poured the water over him because Greeks don’t tub.
“Then the coppers lobbed.”
That commotion did prompt the NSW Police to wander into the 2GB commentary box to discuss the commotion.
“They wanted to know what was going on because the crowd in front of our box had stopped watching the game,” Peters said.
“They stood up and turned around, because they were all listening and watching.
“Greg told them to get out of the box and out they went. It was the grand final when Canterbury beat Manly through a forward pass.”
Hartley added: “Forward my arse.”
FIRE-UP, HOLLYWOOD
Hartley revealed he works with a local fire brigade in northwest Sydney, a revelation seized on by Peters.
“I hope you don’t have to go up any ladders or are in charge of the hoses,” Peters said.
Hartley interjected: “I don’t. They won’t let me near a fire. I’m in charge of washing the vehicles when they get back from a fire.”
That only prompted Peters to take a cheeky dig at his old mate.
“That would be it, you’re a car wash man,” Peters laughed.
“You clean the fire engines. If there’s a fire, and you live in the northwest, get another fire brigade, don’t get ‘Holly’.”
Hartley responded: “Don’t worry about our fire brigade – we’re shit hot.”
GRAVE MISTAKE
In 1981, Peter outlandishly vowed to walk from Wollongong to Palm Beach if Parramatta won the grand final.
“It was another stupid statement, but I said if Parramatta won the comp with veterans Bob O’Reilly and Kevin ‘Stumpy’ Stevens in their team then I would walk from Wollongong to Palm Beach – in thongs,” Peters said.
“Of course they won it.
“Because ‘Hollywood’ was joining me in the commentary box the next year, he decided he would come with me, which was a great help because he pulled me up hills.
“I thought we’d just get in a van and do a few miles in the middle of the night but Parramatta fans followed us from day one.”
Hartley said: “Remember the graveyard? It was pouring and we saw this little shack. It was a gravedigger’s shed. ‘Zorba’s was in thongs and he kept slipping out of them in the rain.
“I was sick of picking up his thongs and I said, ‘We have to get out of this rain’.”
Peters added: “We were in this gravedigger’s shed for an hour and the rain finally stopped. I said, ‘Thank God, hopefully the van is here to pick us up’.
“We got outside and there were five Parramatta fans all with their flags yelling: ‘Parra, Parra’.
“So we knew we had to walk every step to Palm Beach. We made it and raised $30,000 for the blind.”
STOP HORSING AROUND
Peters and Hartley were on a flight with a Kangaroo tour supporters group when they met a gentleman named ‘Outback Jack from Dunedoo’, a wrestler travelling to America.
“So Greg and I were up the back of the plane and we’re having jugs of rum and fruit salad,” Peters said.
“We saw this bloke standing near a door and he said he was minding race horses. We said there weren’t any race horses on a plane.
“He said they had bled in Sydney and were going to race in LA.”
Hartley added: “So we got him to open the door and we went down this tiny elevator. ‘Zorba’ got in the lift first and I was squashed like canned sardine. Then we saw these two race horses.
“We sat on them but I don’t think ‘Outback Jack’ appreciated it. I told Peter to jump off because if ‘Outback Jack’ gets hold of us he will kill us.”
CHERRY SNIPE
Peters offered some sage words for Cherry-Evans.
“He has been a great servant of the club but he doesn’t want to be there,” Peters said.
“See you later. No player is bigger than the club. We’ve had players leave before and the club has recovered, better players than Cherry-Evans.
“They said we would never win a game or comp when the Immortal Bob Fulton went to Easts but Manly won a grand final two years later (in 1978).
“I was disappointed for the club and fans when I heard Cherry-Evans was leaving.
“But if he has a reason why he wants to go, and if it’s a big enough reason that he wants to keep himself, then so be it.”
Hartley added: “Wouldn’t I be dancing around the table if Canterbury signed Cherry-Evans, fair dinkum.”
TODAY’S GAME
Hartley and Peters offered some provocative thoughts.
“It’s a great game and the collisions are more ferocious than what they used to be, but if I look at players like John Sattler, Terry Randall, Arthur Beetson, some of the great forwards that St George had, the players today aren’t as tough,” Hartley said.
“The collisions are greater, as are the skills, but some of today’s players get a cold and they think they have pneumonia, some would pull out with dandruff.
“What’s wrong with some of these blokes? It’s precautionary because clubs don’t want their good players being knocked around.”
Peters added: “Someone said Payne Haas would be a tough man in any era. Kevin Ryan, John Sattler and John O’Neill would chew him up and spit him out.”
Concluding the interview, Peters said: “Look, Greg and I had a great ride – and we loved every second.”
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