Don Mosey
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Don Mosey was a sports journalist and radio producer, best remembered for his lengthy tenure as a cricket commentator on BBC's Test Match Special, which he joined in 1974 and left in 1991.
He was nicknamed 'the Alderman' by fellow commentator Brian Johnston, in recognition of his somewhat mayoral bearing in the box and Mosey entitled one autobiographical book 'The Alderman's Tale'.
He was born in Keighley, Yorkshire in 1924, completed wartime service in the RAF and joined the Craven Herald as a journalist, going on to work for The Daily Express and Daily Mail. He often covered the great Yorkshire cricket team of the period.
He left the Mail in 1964, becoming a radio sports producer in Manchester, and developed a reputation for extreme professionalism and attention to detail.
He first commentated for TMS in 1974, a role he had long coveted, and remained a fixture on the much-loved programme through the 70s and 80s, sharing the microphone with such broadcasting luminaries as John Arlott, Brian Johnston and Christopher Martin-Jenkins.
He covered four overseas England tours but his speciality lay in his unrehearsed, articulate and tactically astute close of play summaries during Test matches at home. He commentated principally on matches on grounds in the north of England, but was also at times used for matches at Lord's and The Oval.
He acted as a ghost writer on several cricketer's autobiographers, including Ray Illingworth's Yorkshire and Back, as well as writing several volumes under his own name. His biography of Geoff Boycott, in typically forthright Mosey style, pulled no punches in either praise or criticism. He co-authored 'Fred Trueman's Yorkshire' with the ex Yorkshire and England fast bowler.
Mosey's son Ian Mosey was a well-known golf professional.
A man of firm views, his fame has dimmed since his retirement, but as a broadcaster of a game he loved and understood to the core he knew few peers. He died aged 74 on 12 August 1999.
