Ray French, who has died aged 85, was a dual international rugby forward who later became the voice of rugby league as a BBC commentator for 30 years.
Joining the BBC in 1981, French had the unenviable task of succeeding the extrovert Eddie Waring, who for three decades had simplified the complexities of rugby league for southern viewers, and whose memorable catchphrases including “up and under” (a ball booted high) and “early bath” (sent off for bad behaviour) had provided much fodder for impersonators.
French, then employed as English master and rugby coach by Cowley Grammar School in his native St Helens, thought he was victim of a prank when he was told the BBC wanted him to take over as rugby league commentator. French had been summoned to the phone in a Chinese restaurant in Melbourne, where he was leading a school rugby tour of Australia. He assumed it was one of his pupils up to mischief until he heard the sound of cricket in the background.
“I’m in the press box at Headingley watching Ian Botham bash the Aussies and it’s been a devil of a job to track you down,” the BBC sports executive Nick Hunter assured him. “Now would you like to take over from Eddie?”
French went on to commentate on 27 Challenge Cup finals between 1982 and 2008. At his first Wembley final, he nervously gulped down a large bottle of water before ascending to the television gantry high in the stand, only to be informed that the nearest lavatory was some distance away. He was obliged to relieve himself into a bucket as Widnes and Hull took to the field.
He was also Today’s first rugby league reporter when Eddie Shah launched the newspaper in 1986, and a regular correspondent to the sport’s trade papers. His last television role was in the 2013 World Cup, but he continued to report rugby league matches on BBC Radio Merseyside until 2019.
French was an articulate and impassioned champion of the sport he had learnt to play as a seven-year-old boy in St Helens with handkerchiefs tied around his knees, at a time when “every street had its own team and I was manager of MacFarlane Avenue because I was the only one who had a ball,” he recalled.
French held rugby league to be the best and most honest game in the world. “I see soccer players rolling around as if they’re at death’s door just because someone’s tapped them on the ankles; stretchers on, stretchers off. Rugby league is a hard, hard sport played by hard men who get up off the floor and get straight back in again,” he told The Daily Telegraph, adding that “the best player in the world – the very best – still queues up for a beer behind the fans in the bar at the end of the game.”
Raymond James French was born in St Helens on December 23 1939, the only child of James (known as Richard), a glassmaker, and his wife Ellen.
Ray’s father, who had played for his amateur club United Glass Bottles against the mighty Hunslet in a Challenge Cup tie in 1930, had been asked to sign for St Helens but had to turn the Saints down because he could not afford to come off shifts at the bottle factory.
As a child Ray made sure he was top of his own team-sheets, which he pinned to the gate of their house. “I became a forward for the simple reason that if you played on the wing, you were liable to wrap yourself round one of the gas lamps.” The children would go on “tour” to neighbouring streets in St Helens.
At Cowley Grammar School he discovered Chaucer, Shakespeare – and rugby union. After Leeds University, where he read English, Latin and Russian, with a diploma in education, he won his first England cap as lock forward in a 6-3 defeat by Wales at Cardiff Arms Park in 1961. He played throughout that year’s Five Nations’ Championship alongside Dickie Jeeps, Richard Sharp, Mike Weston and Bev Risman.
The rookie French assumed his expenses would cover tea and a sandwich on his train down to London; he was forced to return eight pence to England’s stern chairman of selectors.
He found rugby union a culture shock in other respects. “I had no idea they held a dinner and ball after each game. I’d never worn an evening suit in my life so I had to borrow one,” he recalled. He invented “skiing and squash” as his hobbies for the press, because they sounded “posher” than rugby league and snooker.
Although French was a strong candidate to join the 1962 British Lions’ tour of South Africa, he decided to return to league and avenge his father’s thwarted ambitions by signing with St Helens for £5,000 – rejecting more lucrative offers from Leeds, Oldham and Wigan.
He represented St Helens from 1961 to 1967 – beating Wigan 21-2 in the 1966 Challenge Cup final before a 98,000-strong crowd at Wembley – before moving to Widnes, in whose colours he played for Great Britain in the 1968 World Cup. He was also in three Lancashire Cup-winning teams in 1961, 1963 and 1964. He retired in 1971.
French taught throughout his playing career, first at Fairfield School in Widnes and then at his alma mater, Cowley in St Helens. As a schoolmaster, he observed, he was somewhat of an oddity in his first St Helens pack, which included a drayman, a joiner, two miners and a scrap-metal dealer.
He was appointed MBE for services to rugby league in 2011. His books included My Kind of Rugby (1978).
Ray French married, in 1963, Helen Bromilow, who survives him with their daughter Susan and their son Gary, who played rugby union for St Helens, Bath, Orrell and London Welsh, and represented Lancashire, the North of England and England “A” as a hooker.
Ray French, born December 23 1939, died July 26 2025
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