121:, he gave his first radio commentary. From 1 December 1959, he became the BBC's first racing correspondent, the first time the corporation had appointed a specialist correspondent on any sport. This was a full-time job: no commercial involvements or advertisements were permitted, and even opening fetes was frowned upon. He would remain in this position until the summer of 2001, calling home the winners of 202 Classics, with the exception of the 1969
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Bromley, who never seemed to betray his partial deafness, was a conscientious professional, working hard to prepare for each commentary, often presenting winning trainers and owners with his charts, featuring the colours of each horse in a race, as souvenirs. In his later years, he was especially
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to a roar of grand excitement - captured the drama and potency of horse racing, and his tireless championing of the sport within the BBC led to a dramatic expansion in the number of races covered - from only 50 a year in the early 1960s to over 250 by the 1980s, although in his later years that
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could not go on forever (O'Sullevan was only 42 at the time) and he would be the next in line, but after commentating for radio on a number of races in 1960, Bromley became BBC Radio's main racing commentator from the beginning of 1961 (Glendenning's last racing commentary was on the
144:'s commentaries - he showed little interest in the sport and required the assistance of a race reader - was intensifying, and the rise of television was making the field of commentary more specialised. Bromley was advised by
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less than a year after his final broadcast, and fell victim to the cancer 15 months later. He was survived by his second wife (his first wife had been killed in a car crash in 1960) and his three daughters.
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number would decline again. He was also responsible for the launch of a daily racing bulletin in 1964, which was cancelled in June 2007 when the bulletin was broadcast on
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in 1981 was heralded with the words "It's
Shergar ... and you'll need a telescope to see the rest!", encapsulating how far ahead of his field the horse was. The epic
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second and the rest don't matter - we'll never see a race like this in a hundred years!". An emotional piece of
Bromley's commentary was his call in 1981 of
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on 23 March that year - delivering the immortal line 'Atom Bomb has fallen!', after earlier test commentaries at the now-defunct
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For forty years from 1961 to 2001, Peter
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stood in for him when he hurt his knee and could not climb up the stairs to the commentary box in
Doncaster.
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In his later years
Bromley seemed to work less, giving much of his previous work over to commentator
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In 1955 he became one of the first racecourse commentators in
Britain (his first commentary was at
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tennis had interfered), and when he was told through his earphones, near the end of a race at
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His stentorian, almost military tones - which could turn almost instantly from calm
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until the early part of 1964). Bromley would, however, continue to commentate for
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for 40 years, and one of the most famous and recognised sports broadcasters in the
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The more memorable the race, the more memorable his commentary seemed to be:
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victory on 9 June 2001, 40 years after his first Derby commentary on
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on 26 December 1960, although he would continue to commentate on
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on 16 June 1998, to finish immediately after the race because
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22:(30 April 1929 – 3 June 2003) was
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509:People from Heswall
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342:Epsom Derby
306:Royal Ascot
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191:Irish Derby
189:, plus the
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488:Categories
437:4 November
431:The Herald
411:4 November
379:References
99:Hurst Park
48:the Wirral
38:Early life
406:0261-3077
364:Berkshire
310:Five Live
276:wins it,
255:Five Live
239:Five Live
203:Hong Kong
119:Newmarket
60:Sandhurst
50:(then in
24:BBC Radio
357:shooting
290:Aldaniti
215:Classics
163:football
131:St Leger
123:St Leger
95:Plumpton
52:Cheshire
42:Born at
450:Sources
368:Suffolk
353:gundogs
346:Psidium
338:Galileo
320:trial.
274:Red Rum
262:Shergar
235:Radio 5
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101:and at
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