Legendary Rugby League football caller Frank Hyde has died at the age of 91. Hyde was last year inducted into the Commercial Radio Hall of Fame.
Frank Hyde was best known for using the phrase, “It’s high enough, long enough, and straight between the posts” during his football calls.
Hyde became famous as a sports caller on 2SM after a successful football career. He moved to 2UE towards the end of his broadcasting career and retired aged 70. Frank Hyde was not well enough to attend the ACRA awards ceremony last year, but the Hall of Fame honour was accepted by his son on behalf of Frank and his family.
Born in 1916, Hyde had a successful football career with Newtown, Balmain and Norths, captaining Balmain to premiership glory in 1939. Frank joined 2SM in 1953 as a rugby league and boxing caller, replacing Reg Grundy. From 1953 to 1986, Hyde was Australia’s favourite rugby league broadcaster. He was never defeated in the radio ratings and called 33 consecutive grand finals.
In a posting on radioinfo’s forum blog page, Wayne Mac pays tribute to the legendary caller:
I have wonderful memories as a teenager in the ’70s strolling down to our nearby shops of a Sunday afternoon hearing Frank and the roar of the crowd blaring from a transistor perched on a shelf at the local milkbar. It cut through the air like a knife. What a sound! And the tightness of it all back at the 2SM studio with Frank giving his regular score out-cues, one commercial in the break, a rapid-fire ID jingle and he was off again. Quite simple, no fuss presentation, but oh SO effective.
Even though commentators of today do a fine job with energetic descriptions that evoke the full extent of ‘theatre’ that is the modern game, I must admit to missing the great man’s SM calls ever since he folded up the card table one last time after the 1983 Grand Final.
But one has to move on and now he’s gone. No doubt Frank Hyde entered heaven earlier today by travelling ‘straight between the pearly gates’. How fortunate we were to hear him on the radio for all those years. 2GB and 2UE have appropriate mentions of his passing and tributes on their websites and on air, but how utterly galling it is to note what is seen on 2SM’s website about their once-most enduring star… Bugger all. RIP Frank.
Listen to an Audio Tribute produced and kindly made available by 2GB at the link below (7Mb mp3).