Twenty-five years ago on 6th November 1999 the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff hosted the Rugby World Cup Final. Australia were the eventual winners, beating France by 35 points to 12. The match was televised by the BBC and the undisputed ‘voice of rugby’ Bill McLaren was the commentator.
Bill McLaren started working for the BBC as a commentator in 1953, only retiring in 2002 at the age of 79. He was recognised the world over for his lively and well informed commentary of rugby matches. Before each match he would write down all the match information and statistics on a single sheet of paper.
This information included amongst other facts, the history of the stadium, player’s histories and a prepared response to the different possible outcomes of the match. It would take him almost a week to prepare these notes. He was meticulous in his research and he used different coloured pens to separate each fact so there was no searching for them during a live broadcast.
The World Cup Final was no different to any other game on which he commentated and a framed display of Bill McLaren's actual match notes can now be viewed in the lounge of Old Penarthians RFC thanks to a kind donation from Martyn Ryan.
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