HOSPITAL RADIO PERTH SPORT

Hospital Radio Perth is pleased to bring regular sports commentary to our listeners - whether football, rugby or racing we do our best to ensure that the listener shares the complete experience.

Listen to our sports highlights (and some low lights) HERE

ST JOHNSTONE COMMENTARY - the only Scottish station to follow the same team home and away every week...

In the Spring of 1990, Hospital Radio Perth joined forces with Monklands Hospital Radio Service to broadcast commentary from McDiarmid Park. St Johnstone versus Airdrie was widely accepted as the best game of that season and few of us who were there will ever forget that memorable game when the title challengers met as the season drew to a close.

St Johnstone's win didn't actually clinch promotion - that came in the next week or so - but it was the victory which saw off the other title contender. The excitement in the fortnight leading up to the game was enough to convince Hospital Radio Perth that we should cover the game - and we installed a telephone line at McDiarmid Park. And so it was that two lads from Monklands Hospital Radio in Airdrie and John Watson transmitted our very first football commentary. Despite getting a hard time from the Lanarkshire lads when Saints went one down, John eventually had the last laugh - well actually the last three laughs.

Two weeks later we broadcast the boring end of season encounter with Forfar and already it was apparent that we were onto a winner with the patients. Over the close season we advertised for volunteer commentators and enrolled seven - five of whom remain with us over a decade later. Rick Hannigan and Bill MacDonald ran the stadium link for home games, ably assisted by Alistair Rawlings and Ron Greig.

Roy Spiers and the late Andrew Whyte took on away games - travelling over the years to stadia of football legend in the likes of Stranraer, Inverness and Berwick from their student flats in Edinburgh to bring commentary back to Perth Royal Infirmary and Murray Royal. On many an occasion, they would be joined by Mark Connolly who went on to work for the BBC's Good Morning Scotland and is now (I think) broadcasting in Canada.

After our first full season of commentary St Johnstone financed new equipment, which meant that we also broadcast to the blind and partially sighted within the stadium - and ever since we have built up an excellent relationship with our regular blind listeners. These days, even if we are not broadcasting the game, we generally do a commentary, even if there is only one blind person present. Hopefully we can cheer up even the most boring of games.

In addition Hospital Radio agreed to supply match reports for the St Johnstone Clubcall facility. Over the years we have submitted some hard hitting reports - some not particularly complimentary to the players or manager of the day - but give Saints their due, they have never tried to influence our reports. If it was a shocker - we tell you!

It was in these early, less technical days that we had two of our most embarrassing moments. The first was at Stranraer. There were very few lines available in the press box and Roy and Mark were broadcasting back to Perth via a mobile. The signal was terrible so at half time they decided to go outside the ground and commentate from the top of a nearby slope. But the battery began to fail, so they brought round Mark's car and plugged the phone into the cigarette lighter. However the cable was too short to reach out of the car and allow them to look over the wall, so they both stood in the car with their heads out the sunroof - passing the phone back and forward between them. It was at this point, wedged together through the sunroof and barely able to move, that one of them knocked the handbrake off. The patients in Perth were regaled with screams of "Stop!" and "Watch that pylon!"

A few weeks later Mark went to a midweek game at Ayr. Reception was poor and the agreement was, that to give him a breather, after every goal and at set points through the match, he would hand back to John Watson in the studio and he would update the patients with the other scores from around the country. Of course Mark wanted to hear these scores too, and in order to shut out the noise around him, he'd hand back, then bend over double and wrap his arms around his head. It was while he was bent over double that Ayr had a goal chalked off for offside - by the time Mark sat back up, play had moved on and Mark assumed that they had kicked off again. We went the rest of the match relaying the wrong score. We put the wrong score on Clubcall and even convinced Teletext to change!

It's not until you try to commentate that you realise that describing live action can be fraught with danger - the moment you say something, the opposite happens - ask Murray Walker! We're Saints fans with mikes! We don't try too hard to be neutral - in fact we don't try at all - we reckon that everyone in PRI and Murray Royal will be Saints fans, and if they're not, then they should be. It was superb to be able to broadcast our own reports from both Vaasa and Monaco in the UEFA Cup.

Our service is not the most technical in the world, but I reckon our commentary gives you a pretty fair representation of the game and we are certainly enthusiastic. Our thanks must go to the club for their support. From the Chairman down, everyone is only too happy to assist. Every manager has gone out of his way at some point to assist and Paul Cherry and Jim Weir in particular have gone that extra bit to make our programmes special.

Lastly, for any players reading. Do us a favour, if you get injured, lie on your face - it lets us see your squad number!

INTERNATIONAL RUGBY - so which one is Jonah Lomu then...?

In Autumn 2001, McDiarmid Park, Perth hosted Scotland A v The All Blacks. The match was part of a series and the Scots had been playing well. Hospital Radio Perth decided that this was a fine opportunity to branch out into rugby commentary. All the more so when we found out that sports presenter Kevin Giles is a senior rugby referee - an ideal commentator.

We contacted the Scottish Rugby Union with our proposal and they couldn't have been more helpful; offering players and members of the management team for interview and arranging for some of the players to visit the wards and meet the patients.

The SRU were delighted that we were to bring Scottish international rugby to hospital radio for the first time. They hoped that after the game we would get an exclusive interview with Jonah Lomu, the giant New Zealand player.

The week before the game, Scotland stars Nathan Hines and Nathan Ross paid us a visit. They spent an afternoon with the patients and made a lot of friends - not least with a bright young lady in the children's ward! They were both interviewed for the pre-match programme.

In addition, Kevin managed to arrange to record a "Desert Island Discs" programme with the Scottish international management team of Jim Telfer and Ian McGeechan.

The commentary proved to be a great success - despite the fact that the All Blacks won with some style. Transmitted live, from the Haka to the final whistle and on to post match comments from both management teams, everything went exactly to plan - well nearly everything...

Shortly before the game, along came Michael Aspel with his big red book and whisked Jonah Lomu off to "This Is Your Life"! So no interview.

Ah well! Even the UK's top hospital radio station struggles to compete with the BBC!

A DAY AT THE RACES - patient interaction with racing from Perth...

Each year, Hospital Radio Perth visits Perth Racecourse in the grounds of Scone Palace to bring live racing from the summer Family Fun Day. We're the only hospital broadcasters in Scotland, and one of only a handful in the UK to relay horse-racing - we've even had our own articles in the Racing Post!

Before the race meeting, every patient is given a copy of the race card. They use their skill and judgement to pick the horse they think will win each race - or they take a wild guess! The cards are then brought back to the studio.

On raceday we set up our outside broadcast unit at the racecourse. We have interviews with the course manager and staff, the weighing room staff, the stewards, the jockeys, the stable lads and the owners. It's all straight from the horses mouth!

We don't attempt to commentate on the races - we take a feed from the course commentator - he's the expert - and it's all transmitted live back to the patients.

Our studio team keep an eye on who is picking up winners and keep the patients informed. It's all great fun and we have been surprised at just how much the patients enjoy it. Most get one or two winners - some even get three or occasionally four. There are prizes for those who do well - a day out for two at a later meeting or a meal for two at a local hotel for the very best.

Mind you the very first broadcast in 1999 will be hard to beat. Two patients, one from PRI and one from Murray Royal, picked five winners from six races. Believe it or not, both also picked the horse who was just pipped into second place in the last race. If you ask us, there should have been a stewards' enquiry!