Dec 8th, 2016

Dec 8th, 2016

From rubbing shoulders with racing royalty in Fremantle, to talking Formula One with a Beatle, Ken Sutcliffe has done it all in a career where he has had a front row seat to some of the biggest sporting events on the planet.

On Thursday, the veteran Channel Nine sports broadcaster will finally call it a day after a distinguished 50-year career to spend more time with his grandkids, travel the world with his wife, and just take a well-deserved break.

Ken, who was immortalised by the 12th Man as ‘The Male Model from Mudgee’, admits it will be emotional to walk away from a career that began at a radio station in his home town in 1966, followed by stints in Young, Orange and Townsville, before he finally arrived at TCN-9 in 1979.

“I’ve got to say it’s been a little bit nostalgic because I walk around the newsroom and down to Wide World of Sports and you sort of see the place in a different light,’’ Sutcliffe said.

“It’s no longer yours, you don’t own this part of your career anymore so that to me is a bit melancholy I guess.

“But to counter that, I’m thinking of all the things I will be able to do in my own time when I want to do it and how I want to do it. I’ve worked every year of my life since I was 15 so I’m going to enjoy seeing my grandkids play sport.”

Final day for 9NEWS veteran sports presenter

Sutcliffe started working as a sports presenter on TCN-9’s evening news in 1982 and has held that role ever since.

He has been a long-time host of Nine Network’s Wide World of Sports productions and even spent a year in 1988 alongside the King of Australian television, Graham Kennedy, where he battled to get through bulletins because he was crying from laughing so hard at Kennedy’s jokes.

Sutcliffe covered the Olympic Games in Los Angeles (1984) and London (2012), the Winter Olympics in Calgary (1988), Albertville (1992), Lillehammer (1994) and Vancouver (2010), and the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane (1982), Auckland (1990), Kuala Lumpur (1998) and Melbourne (2006).

He covered the US Open for a decade, Wimbledon for 20 years, the World Swimming Championships in Japan, countless rugby league grand finals and State of Origin matches and was at Augusta when a young Tiger Woods made history at the US Masters in 1997.

They are pinch-yourself moments that any person would love to have witnessed and it has never been lost on Sutcliffe how lucky he’s been to have a front row seat at most of them for the last 37 years.

“They call them elite athletes because they can do things the average Joe Blow just hasn’t got an idea of doing,’’ Sutcliffe said.

“When you see them and the way they perform under pressure and the way they perform when they’re winning and the way they perform when they’re losing, you get a pretty good scope for what’s happening in the human race. You win, you lose, you have your fun, you suffer your setbacks, as we all have them.

“And you don’t have to be an expert in a sport to cover it because sometimes you just need to be able to tell the story, and that’s all I ever set out to do.”

Nine of the best: Ken’s career highlights

World Cup, Germany, 2006

“I put at the top of the tree going to Germany in 2006 for the World Cup. It brought home to me just how big this thing called the world game is. It was pretty special because Guus Huddink had a terrific team and I think they were hard done by when they got knocked over by Italy and they should have gone one step further.”

World Swimming Championships, Fukuoka, Japan, 2001

“Seeing Grant Hackett and Ian Thorpe at the peak of their powers along with Madame Butterfly, Susie O’Neill, was a watershed moment in Australian swimming. Wherever they went, we went, and it looked at that moment like swimming was bombproof. We just couldn’t do anything wrong, we just rode this terrific wave and they were the three big guns but there were others just below them who were also performing really, really well. That Fukuoka swimming world championship was pretty special and any time any of these guys swam, you just had to be there. You didn’t know what was going to happen but you knew they’d probably do something special.”

Masters Tournament, Augusta, Georgia, USA, 1997

“I would have been happy with one Masters gig but when I was there to see Tiger Woods claim his first major championship, it broke a lot of barriers, particularly at Augusta. We all know the history down there with the deep south and all that sort of thing, but to see a black man who was having such an influence on everybody, and to win the way he did on that final day. To win his first major, was a real watershed moment for me in golf.”

Wimbledon final, 2008, Rafael Nadal defeated Roger Federer in a match regarded as the greatest ever

“This was one of the two greatest finals I’ve ever seen. It was the final year with the roof being built at Wimbledon so it looked a bit threadbare because it was a construction site more than anything else. When you get five sets of tennis usually there’s one or two that aren’t that great but it was five sets of tennis of unbelievable, extraordinary quality.

Brisbane v North Queensland grand final, 2015

“I can’t imagine anything being better than the way the Cowboys won that grand final. I was on the sideline there and I was only a metre away from Johnathan Thurston when he went for the conversion that would have won them the game, and then it went into extra time. For me, you get wrapped up in it and I became, on that night, a spectator. I wasn’t sitting there writing a story. I was sitting there experiencing it like everybody else was in the stadium that night.”

America’s Cup, Fremantle, 1987

“It was like another world. I didn’t understand anything about sailing too much. I just knew what a good story was. When you’re running around Fremantle, and the Aga Khan has done up an old bank building, there’s gin palaces swimming through the heads all the time, unbelievable wealth, ostentatious, very good sailors, very good athletes, and to me it was just a really good picture story.”

Winter Olympics, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2002

“I was there for the last man standing, Steven Bradbury. They all fell over and he went past them. I still look at it from time to time and have a bellyful of laughs. It was a fabulous time.”

Formula One racing, Adelaide 1985-95

“Jackie Stewart hosted 11 Formula One Grand Prix, and sitting beside him and watching people like Ayrton Senna just going at unbelievable breakneck speeds was extraordinary to me. I remember one year we were down in Adelaide and and we had a bit of a break and I see Jackie go over to the corner and I realised the person he’s talking to is George Harrison, the Beatle. He was always my favourite Beatle, I thought he was terrific, and it turns out Jackie was a very, very close friend so he dropped by and basically spent an afternoon with us and didn’t talk about anything musical, just about car racing.”

Wide World of Sports introduction, gymnast Brian Meeker runs into pommel horse

“The other great sporting moment for me is not necessarily a sporting moment, but that scene in the Wide World of Sports opener of the guy running into the pommel horse. I sit back and it’s still not lost on me how funny it was. It wouldn’t have been funny for him but we’ve spoken to him since and he’s a really nice guy. He said, ‘I’m really proud of that chest thing, it’s made me a household name around the world.'