The best laid plans

Peter Dimmock: the first presenter

Peter Dimmock, the presenter of the first Sports Personality of the Year, recalls the programme's beginnings and the early days of sport on television.

Spotting election fraud, a walkout and an early attempt at product placement were just a few of the pitfalls that awaited Peter Dimmock when he was persuaded to take the role of host for a new BBC programme reviewing the sporting year.

Dimmock presented Sports Personality of the Year, as it's now known, for the first ten years of the programme's existence and by the time he handed over to the likes of Frank Bough it was established as a major event in the British sporting calender.

But the beginnings were humble and not without difficulty.

Dimmock, after serving as a pilot in the RAF in the war, was director of television outside broadcasts at the BBC when he was persuaded by a colleague, Paul Fox, to start a midweek sports magazine programme.

You never quite knew if it was going to go according to plan - that was one of the great joys.

Peter Dimmock

It was called from Sportsview and from there came the Sportsview Trophy for the sports personality of the year.

"We started Sports Review of the Year quite modestly after one year of Sportsview," said Dimmock.

The following year they approached the Express newspaper group and asked to link up the review with the Sporting Record's annual awards ceremony.

"We thought why not take our cameras to the Savoy Hotel and combine the awards," said Dimmock.

"Everything went fine apart from one thing - the publicity director for the Express group was making their presentation and he mentioned the Daily Express no less than ten times.

"In those days at the BBC any kind of advertising was absolutely forbidden and I got absolute stick the next day from my bosses saying 'how could you allow it?'.

"I could only say that it was live. What else could we do - we couldn't stop.

"That caused us to no longer combine the awards - we set up our own Sports Review of the Year and started to do it from the Shepherd's Bush Empire."

Premier event

This new award was soon established as the premier event of its kind.

"We were very lucky," said Dimmock. "All the major sports personalities wanted to be on and all the administrators came as well.

"We had a big party on the stage after the programme - everybody met everybody. Everyone wanted to be there."

And everyone was. The stars interviewed by Dimmock over that first decade read like a who's who of British sport. Stirling Moss, Billy Wright, Donald Campbell, Roger Bannister, Denis Compton, Henry Cooper - the list goes on and on.

Walkout: Cassius Clay

But the one that Dimmock particulalry recalls was with a young boxer who was on the way to making his name as 'The Greatest.'

"I'll never forget Cassius Clay - as he was then - he took us for a bit of a ride," said Dimmock.

"I asked him a question which I didn't think too awkward - it was penetrating and he said 'I'm not answering questions like that' and walked out.

"He was very clever and it got tremendous publicity the next day, which he thrived on in those earlier days before he became Muhammad Ali."

From the beginning the main award, Sports Personality of the Year, was a public vote, but that was not without its teething problems.

"There was a coupon in the Radio Times that you sent in. One year some astute manager of some of our sporting personalities - I won't mention names - photocopied the coupons and sent in hundreds and hundreds for their particular client. But luckily we very quickly cottoned on."

The programmes themselves were often fraught affairs.

"The great joy about the programme was that it was live and the adrenalin was flowing and you were very nervous," said Dimmock.

"You never quite knew if it was going to go according to plan - that was one of the great joys."