Clan Rising

Coleman Family Champion

David Coleman(1926–2013)

David Robert Coleman, OBE

The Alderley Edge railway-clerk's son who anchored the BBC's Grandstand for twenty years, presented every Olympic Games on British television from Rome 1960 to Sydney 2000, and chaired A Question of Sport.

David Robert Coleman was born at Alderley Edge in north-east Cheshire on 26 April 1926, only son of a railway clerk at the Crewe goods yard. He left school at sixteen to work as a junior reporter on the Stockport Express, served two years in the Royal Marines, and came home in 1947 to his old reporter's post.

He was an athlete first, winning the Manchester Mile in 1949 in four minutes twenty, on the day after he had filed a piece on the same meeting. An ankle injury ended competitive running at twenty-four, and he spent the rest of the decade as the Stockport Express sports editor and a freelance football and racing correspondent.

The BBC's Manchester office recruited him to its new North television service in 1954, and in 1958 he moved to London for the launch of Grandstand, the four-and-a-half-hour Saturday-afternoon sports programme. He took the anchor's chair on 11 October 1958 and held it for twenty seasons, the longest tenure of any Grandstand presenter, and the live-cut format he helped architect became the model of every Saturday-afternoon sports programme on British television since.

He presented eleven consecutive Olympic Games for the BBC, from Rome 1960 to Sydney 2000. The Munich Games of 1972 produced the most demanding hour of his career: anchoring live when the Israeli team was taken hostage two hundred metres from the BBC booth, he stayed on air for nineteen hours through the crisis, and the broadcast established his as a live-television journalist, not only a sports presenter.

A Question of Sport gave him the BBC One quiz chairmanship from 1979 to 1997 and a wider public recognition; Private Eye's long-running Colemanballs column, which collected commentators' on-air slips across the networks, attached the whole genre to his name. He was awarded the OBE in 1992, the Olympic Order in 1996 and the BAFTA Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996, and died on 21 December 2013, eighty-seven years old. The Coleman name, the medieval Anglo-Norse personal name compressed into a surname, he carried from an Alderley Edge railway-clerk's family into the foundation generation of post-war BBC sports broadcasting.

Achievements

  • ·Manchester Mile, 1949 (4:20)
  • ·BBC Manchester regional sports presenter, 1954
  • ·Anchored Grandstand, 1958 to 1978, twenty seasons
  • ·Presented 11 consecutive Olympic Games for the BBC, Rome 1960 to Sydney 2000
  • ·Nineteen-hour live coverage of the Munich Olympics crisis, September 1972
  • ·Chaired A Question of Sport, 1979 to 1997
  • ·OBE, 1992; Olympic Order, 1996; BAFTA Lifetime Achievement, 1996

Step Into History

Walk the streets and halls David Coleman knew — a photoreal walk through time, on foot.

Step Into History · New

Walk London in 1818Enter →

St Paul's, Covent Garden and the gaslit West End — Regency London, soot-hazed and horse-drawn.

Where this story lives

Frequently asked

What is David Coleman famous for?

The Alderley Edge railway-clerk's son who anchored the BBC's Grandstand for twenty years, presented every Olympic Games on British television from Rome 1960 to Sydney 2000, and chaired A Question of Sport. David Robert Coleman was born at Alderley Edge in north-east Cheshire on 26 April 1926, only son of a railway clerk at the Crewe goods yard.

When was David Coleman born?

David Coleman was born in 1926 in Alderley Edge, Cheshire. The full biographical record sits on the dedicated page on Clan Rising, set alongside the wider history of the Coleman family.

When did David Coleman die?

David Coleman died in 2013. That gave a lifespan of about 87 years.

How long did David Coleman live?

David Coleman lived for around 87 years, from 1926 to 2013. The page records the substantive years in full, with the achievements and the geography that frame the life.

Where was David Coleman born?

David Coleman was born in Alderley Edge, Cheshire. The atlas links the birthplace to its tile page so the surrounding geography and other families of the area can be explored from the same record.

Where did David Coleman live and work?

David Coleman's life and work were concentrated in Cheshire, London and Berkshire & Oxfordshire. Each location has its own page on the atlas with the broader historical context for the area.

What is David Coleman's connection to the Coleman family?

David Coleman is recorded on Clan Rising as a Coleman Family Champion, a figure whose life is inseparable from the surname. The Coleman family page sets the wider context for the name and links through to every other notable bearer.

What did David Coleman achieve?

Headline achievements recorded for David Coleman include Manchester Mile, 1949 (4:20), BBC Manchester regional sports presenter, 1954, Anchored Grandstand, 1958 to 1978, twenty seasons and Presented 11 consecutive Olympic Games for the BBC, Rome 1960 to Sydney 2000. The full list and the surrounding biographical record sit on the dedicated champion page.

Was David Coleman a Coleman?

Yes. David Coleman is filed on Clan Rising under the Coleman family. The naming convention follows the surname a diaspora reader would search for today; titles, particles and pen names sort under that same canonical surname.