Alister Alexander – BBC

A tribute by Hugh Dan MacLennan.

It was a great privilege to share commentary duties with the great Alistair Alexander in my early days as a commentator. He was the second radio commentator I worked with, after David Francey. Now they are both gone. I learned a great deal from him and he was fantastic to work with as a young boy. As anyone who worked with him knows, he took pictures of every commentary position he worked in and his co-comms. It will be a fabulous archive extending over many years and many exotic locations. He was one of the old school and a great servant of the BBC’s great commentary teams of the 1980s and beyond. Alistair always loved the shinty and retained his interest in the shinty, often enquiring after some of the legends he admired so much such as Kerr Crawford and Tarzan Ritchie. He frequently asked after them and enquired as to “what the Frasers are up to.” Meticulous in his presentation and fastidious when it came to detail, he was a total Pro. He did shinty well and was an accomplished historian in other areas such as the naval history of the Clyde. I was delighted that he was able to attend the Hampden shinty exhibition in 2015 and he greatly appreciated the invitation. He lived just round the corner after all. A great man and a loss to our collective knowledge of our history, sport and broadcasting. As is often the case, he never really got the recognition he deserved for his work over a long stint behind the mic but his mellifluous tones will long live on in the memory. His friendship counted for even more. RIP Alister.