Final frame...end of an era

David Vine, who died on Sunday aged 73, was the affable frontman for many popular BBC television shows of the 1970s and 1980s including It's A Knock Out, Miss World, Match Of The Day, Grandstand, A Question Of Sport, Horse of the Year Show and Ski Sunday. He also hosted coverage of snooker, the Eurovision Song Contest, Wimbledon and the Olympic Games.
Known as the BBC's triple-S man – for snooker, showjumping and skiing –the versatile Vine was renowned as a safe pair of hands. Such was his trademark blandness that when Vine retired in 2000, one television critic remarked that satirists and impressionists had found him impossible to mimic. "He hunches forwards and stares intensely into the camera from behind heavy glasses, as worn by Brains of Thunderbirds. His jackets and ties are strictly Man at C&A."
Yet Vine was nothing if not the consummate television professional, reliable, unflappable, at ease with off-the-cuff improvisation and – when the occasion demanded it – not a man to pull his punches. Interviewing the tennis star John McEnroe following his infamous "pits of the world" rant against a Wimbledon umpire in 1981, Vine blinked through his library frames and, mannerly as ever, memorably inquired: "What right do you have to call anyone an incompetent fool?" A stunned McEnroe, now a BBC commentator himself, swore he would never speak to Vine again; in fact he did, the very next day.
In the sleepy, smoke-wreathed atmosphere of 1980s televised snooker, Vine's homely Devonian burblings were well-matched to the hushed commentary of "Whispering" Ted Lowe. In 1985 a record 18 million people watched as Vine was obliged to stay at his microphone until the early hours of the morning to interview Dennis Taylor after his epic win on the last black against Steve Davis. It remained one of his dearest professional memories.
He enjoyed the occasional dig in the ribs, as when Clive James memorably recalled Vine's insistence at the 1978 Kitzbühel skiing that "Britain's sole representative isn't looking for first place today, he's looking for experience." "At that very instant – while Vine was actually saying it," noted James, "Britain's sole representative was upside-down and travelling into the crowd at 60mph, spectators mown down as if by grapeshot."
David Martin Vine was born on January 3 1936 in Newton Abbott, Devon, and attended Barnstaple Grammar School. In 1953 he started his career as a reporter on the North Devon Journal-Herald, and in his spare time played rugby. He joined Westward Television in 1960, subsequently moving to the BBC, where he remained for most of his broadcasting career.
In 1966 Vine began as a compère of It's a Knockout, the popular game show in which teams from British towns competed with each other in contests of extreme silliness, often involving outsize costumes, greasy poles and custard pies. The following year he introduced the tennis championships at Wimbledon when they were televised in colour for the first time, presenting Wimbledon highlights until 1982. In 1970 he was the launch presenter for A Question of Sport (which he hosted for eight years), and in 1973 hosted UK Superstars, which involved him poking a microphone under the noses of exhausted professional athletes who had just participated in various gruelling sporting events.
He provided the BBC commentary for the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974, and compèred the 1975 Miss World competition, which caused some embarrassment because he could not understand what most of the contestants were saying.
In 1978 Vine was the original television anchorman for the World Snooker Championships at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, and continued to cover the tournament for more than 20 years until his retirement. Vine's friendship with Steve Davis was parodied in a Spitting Image sketch in which Davis boasted: "Here's my favourite chat-up line: I'm a mate of David Vine".
He also anchored coverage of Grand Prix motor racing and UK championship and the Masters' golf.
His last assignment for the BBC was as a weightlifting commentator at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. After his retirement he underwent triple heart by-pass surgery, and later continued working as a consultant for the BBC.
David Vine's first wife, Shirley, died in 1970. In 1972 he married his second wife, Mandy, who survives him with their son, and two daughters and a son of his first marriage.

David died of a heart attack....R I P