Len Martin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Len Martin (1919 - August 21, 1995) was born in Australia. He was a famous voice in the UK for reading out the football results and associated football pools statistics on the BBC's Saturday afternoon sports programme, Grandstand. He performed this role from the programme's very first edition in 1958 until his death, aged 76, in 1995. Martin was well-known for his intonation when reading the scores, it was totally clear from the way in which he presented the home team name followed by number of goals precisely whether the opponents would have won, lost or drawn. He often said that his nightmare result was: Forfar 5, East Fife 4. He was succeeded by Tim Gudgin who also uses the distinct BBC intonation.

As well as his Grandstand job, he was a voice-over artist heard on Movietone newsreels. He also used to run four flights of stairs at Lime Grove Studios after Grandstand to introduce Simon Dee in his distinctive manner.

[edit] External links

• Death date