When Danny Baker said on his radio show on BBC Radio Five Live a couple of weeks ago that his appearances would be “spotty” for a while, it was difficult not to fear the worst. Due to illness, Danny has been covered by Suggs, Christian O’Connell and Alan Davies since the show returned from its summer break in September. On Monday our concerns proved well-founded. Danny announced that he is battling against cancer and will be entering treatment imminently:
After a pretty mouldy diagnosis about a month back I finally begin chemotherapy on Monday with further radiotherapy from January. Yes radiotherapy; can you beat it? This being so, the old treehouse baggy pants will be donned but sparingly. Once the quacks have soundly thrashed this thing I shall return like a rare gas and as if out of a trap. In the meantime I am watching Tommy Steele box sets (and has there ever been a more lying title to a film than TS’s “It’s All Happening”?) and urge you all to keep yakking up a storm and laugh extra loud at the incumbents.
Danny isn’t just a football man - his love for music and his industry are clear to anyone who’s heard his anecdotes and interviews - but football is the reason I listen to his show every week and the reason I look back fondly on previous gigs he’s had over the years. To more than a generation of football supporters Danny is an oasis in the barren world of mainstream football broadcasting. He’s one of the few people in the industry that understands that there is more to football than what happens on the pitch and is willing to say so.
From the glory days of his old Five Live show, through his brilliant but appallingly truncated stint back in the 6-0-6 hotseat, to his current Saturday morning show, Danny Baker has been a mainstay on the football media landscape and the one man who can see right into the true heart of the game.
You see, it’s not just the goals and the games that are important. What matters most is that railway detonators can be used as goalposts, that a totalitarian government would only let the league have two kits, that ‘nothing can go wrong now’. What matters is culture, community, memories. The nuances of football are what make it stand out, revelling in the stories of fans through the ages and the quirks and flukes of the modern game. Nobody - and I mean nobody - draws this out better than Danny Baker.
Without him, and a few other gems in less prominent broadcasting roles, radio coverage of football is moribund. The tributes are already pouring in, not because his fans don’t expect him to recover with characteristic verve but because there is a real heartfelt affection for him among supporters who have grown up with his voice accompanying every matchday journey. The modern football broadcaster brings nothing to the table but cheap tabloid gossip and barrel-scraping analysis of what happens within the boundaries of the playing surface. If you’re wondering why the well-wishing for Danny is so widespread today, it’s because he extinguishes all of that nonsense at the turn of a dial and the flick of a pirate hat.
The whole team at twofootedtackle.com wishes Danny a full and speedy recovery. He is, without exception, the finest broadcaster in football. But he’s also the most important, because his show, humour and outlook all protect the idiosyncracies that many miss but are absolutely essential to the beautiful game’s mystique.
Tags: Danny Baker, Football Coverage, Radio
Sad news. Wishing him and his family all the best.
Quite right and well said. Get well soon.
Nicely put. A fine and deserved tribute to the man. He’s a joy to listen to and I’m sure we all wish him a full and speedy recovery.
Nicely put. Love to DB.
This:
“To more than a generation of football supporters Danny is an oasis in the barren world of mainstream football broadcasting. He’s one of the few people in the industry that understands that there is more to football than what happens on the pitch and is willing to say so.”
sums it up perfectly. Excellent article and here’s wishing DB a speedy recovery.
My favourite is the Jeff Astle story ‘Anymore more pie??’ Still laugh about that to this day!
A Baker classic! I say “MAN ALIVE!” altogether too often.
AHOY HOY! Well written, I couldn’t agree more. Pls all re-tweet this / Facebook the link.
Get Well Soon DB.
[...] another appreciation of Danny Baker, I recommend a visit to our friends over at Two Footed Tackle [...]
I would like to add my best wishes to Danny who, to quote his Tshirt from long ago, is A GOD, A GREAT, A LEGEND
Hear. And indeed hear. I claim ‘FoxBaseAlpha’ by St Etienne and I have urinated in the ground of ‘our’ local rivals.
Waking up to this news was depressing as hell, after an already depressing year. (I’ve had multiple surgeries, nearly died multiple times etc…)
I’ve been a fan of Danny for as long as I can remember. As an ex pat I was thrilled to discover the podcast of his Saturday show and have listened to it religiously. Have no interest in listening to guest hosts. (Except Alan Davies, but apparently I don’t have that one. Dang!)
What I like is his passion for football, but also that his show isn’t entirely football based. It’s just perfect. Hugely entertaining, and I drive my wife nuts telling her bits about it.
And the Sausage Sandwich Game is a work of genius. In fact we should start one on Twitter:)
Dearly hope Danny recovers as there truly is nobody else like him.
Keep chipper Danny boy, you’ll beat it. Thanks for saving the game from the snooze gang btw.
You only really realise how great this man is at Radio when some poor sap has to step in for him. Home, tube, studio, great show. A fantastic mind, incredible memory, wonderful anecdotes.
Half a sixpence Dan and when you come back, get Mr Kelly and let’s have some fun.
Sending loads of Get Well Wishes to you Danny. Deptford’s not the same since you moved away!!! Be strong and positive. Luv from us all.X
Danny’s radio show(s) are the funniest programmes broadcast on any medium. There is no programme, whether it is on TV, radio or download, that makes me laugh more than his.
I still cannot think of his description of a monkey with turmoil written across it’s forehead without giggling.
Get well soon Danny.
superb article for a richly deserving subject
get well soon danny
Get well soon Danny.
Just to say I’ve been listening to DB in all his various guises since about 1988. He’s a broadcasting genius, never failing to amuse, inform, entertain and generally get me at it.
I wish him well. One of life’s special people.
JVIP
wishing danny a speedy recovery two hours on a saturday morning just flies by listening to this man
Just heard the news about Danny, it’s like hearing news about one of your mates.
A real football man, articulate and makes me laugh out loud at his observations.
Get well soon Danny we need you back.
Get well soon Danny. Best broadcaster on the network, and an all round top man.
Awful news about a geuinely nice guy. Get well soon
So the Grim Reaper wants a piece of you eh ?,
well, I can’t blame him,
that said . . . . ,
F*** Him, He can wait his turn like everyone else !
I’m preparing myself for your next chapter, Mr Baker,
love and grins,
Paul
Danny is one in a trillion, a true living radio legend, he has more class than any Eton toff, a mind as sharp as Stephen Hawking’s, the wit of the entire Monty Python team, and interviewing skills that leave Parky in the shade. Radio is not the same without you Danny, so get well and get back soon.
I first came across Danny’s work a couple of years ago, on his arrival back at 606. Obviously I knew his face before then, but up to that time I’d not given him or any of his shows a real go. If I’m honest, I started listening out of illness - by that time in my life I’d been laid low, off-and-on, by serious depression for a number of years and frankly I could hardly take any more. I’d become agoraphobic; I had numerous, very physical nervous complaints; I’d go through days without eating and through whole weeks hardly moving a muscle. In short, I was in a bad way. A very bad way.
Danny’s show quickly became a ray of light at a time when almost everything else in my life felt inexorably dark. I’d thought to avoid cliches in writing this but, fuck it, sometimes they’re there to be used. His 606 was something to look forward to at a time when I’d given-up on damn near everything else in life worth knowing. And now, with no finger left uncrossed, I’m recovering, slowly. And now Danny gets the cancer.
I know that you’re unlikely to read this Mr. Baker and we all know that you’re not one for accepting praise easily, at least not just for the sake of being praised, so I won’t go on and on, just, please, Keep Fighting Candyman! You mean a fuck of a lot to me. And clearly many others.
Just heard about this sad news.
My favourite anecdote about Danny doesn’t regard football but combines Danny’s love of music and cartoons. Danny played ‘The Long and Winding Road’ by Roadrunner - a classic.
Get well soon, Danny
I just worked out how to upload recorded video to youtube.
Here’s Danny on the World Cup panel.
Give him a permanent seat at MOTD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtUJ2TL8duU