Off The Field
He was one of only a handful of players to have been awarded the title of English Footballer of the Year on two occasions, winning in both 1958 and 1961. On 6 February 1961, he also became the first person to turn down the invitation to appear on This Is Your Life, simply walking away from host Eamonn Andrews live on air. "I consider this programme to be an invasion of privacy", he explained. "Nobody is going to press gang me into anything."
Blanchflower commentated on a match for ITV as early as 3 January 1956 - the final of the Southern Junior Floodlit Cup between West Ham and Chelsea. He was the colour commentator for the CBS television network broadcasts of National Professional Soccer League matches in the United States in 1967. His candour about the fledgling league's shortcomings distressed network executives, as he recounted in a 10 June 1968 Sports Illustrated article he authored. In the 1968-69 season he was the regular commentator for Yorkshire Television.
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Famous quotes containing the word field:
“Yet, hermit and stoic as he was, he was really fond of sympathy, and threw himself heartily and childlike into the company of young people whom he loved, and whom he delighted to entertain, as he only could, with the varied and endless anecdotes of his experiences by field and river: and he was always ready to lead a huckleberry-party or a search for chestnuts and grapes.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)