RADIO General, based at Warrington Hospital, is celebrating 70 years of Rugby Commentaries (1953 – 2023) for inpatients.
Yesterday, February 28, saw Radio General, the hospital station for patients in the Warrington Hospital and the wider Warrington audience celebrating 70 years of providing rugby commentaries of the Warrington Wolves games, originally from the Wilderspool Stadium and now the Halliwell Jones Stadium. In the early 2000s commentaries on the Widnes Vikings were introduced.
The idea to provide live commentaries came from ‘Jack Steel’ column in a local newspaper dated Dec 6th 1952, when he reported about a new commentary service being started in Oldham to provide football commentaries. He wrote to the club suggesting a similar scheme to provide rugby commentaries to the hospitals in Warrington. The Warrington board agreed to the scheme being set up.
Over the following weeks the ‘Jack Steel’ column gave a weekly update on the Warrington Rugby Commentators Association progress in setting up the scheme. The Post Office lines linking the hospitals were provided and a commentary team organised. By February 1953 everything was in place for the first commentary to take place.
On Saturday 28th February 1953, just before the 2nd round Challenge Cup tie at Wilderspool Stadium between Warrington and Workington Town, Fred Davies, the Warrington Club Chairman broadcast a goodwill message to the patients of the local hospitals. This was then followed by the first live match commentary by George Duckworth, Ossie Roberts, and Paul Cowell.
Over the years a small, dedicated team of commentators has provided the commentaries for the Warrington Wolves and now also the Widnes Vikings home games, today we have a team of four commentators.
With the move by the Warrington Wolves to the Halliwell Jones Stadium facilities were provided by the club for our commentaries to continue to the patients.
Keith Inman, Chair, said, “Radio General is thankful for the continuing support that they receive from the Warrington Wolves and Widnes Vikings clubs so we can continue to provide the coverage to the patients and our wider audience”.
Radio General will be broadcasting a special programme on 28th Feb at 6:00pm celebrating the 70th anniversary.
Patients can listen to Radio General on the Hospital Bedside unit on channel 1 and listeners outside the hospital can tune via our website or the Tune In app.
For further details contact the station by email on [email protected] or leave a message on 01925 662122.
