Comedian Billy Birmingham, better known as the 12th Man. Picture: Jeff Herbert Source: The Daily Telegraph
Tony Greig, right, will fellow cricket commentators Ian Chappell and Bill Lawry back in 1993. Source: News Limited
COMEDIAN Billy Birmingham remembers the "morvellous" man he famously sent up as The 12th Man.
I CORNT believe it.
Tony Greig, our cricketing giant, is no longer with us.
I too want to pass on my thoughts and prayers to his wife Vivian and family, and to the Channel 9 commentary team, who have been such a central part of so many lives every summer, especially mine.
I'm only new to Twitter but I was flooded with messages as the news broke on Saturday afternoon.
People were tweeting me saying they were sitting around having a few beers in honour of Greigy listening to their 12th Man CDs and sending me their favourite lines.
"Blow it out your orse Boll," was chief amongst them, capturing the essence of the rivalry between Tony and his old "sporring portner" Bill Lawry.
Or Tony to Richie when Max Walker was pestering everyone trying to get his job back: "For storters you can have the borsted bored from this port of the Broadcorst area."
One guy even tweeted me a photo of himself sticking his key in his driveway, recalling the ritual Tony went through for many years with his pitch reports.
We were all laughing through tears remembering one of the great cricket characters who graced our screens for more than 30 years.
I have been suitably chuffed by the connection a lot of people have felt to Greigy through me because Greigy more than any of the commentators, and more than a lot of other people from whom I have extracted the piss, really got the "12th Man joke".
Not long after my first album, Wired World of Sports, came out in 1989, Greigy rang and invited me to his office in "Pork St".
"If were really smort we can all make some money out of this," he said.
He'd always say, "We gave you a stort you borsted, why cornt we make some money out of you?"
It was hord to orgue with that.
Tony cottoned on pretty quickly to the old cliche that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
What a thrill it was to sit opposite the great man at his desk and study some of the finer points of ripping off his voice.
It was like a one-on-one lesson. I was listening to what he was saying but I was also listening intently to how he said it and trying to fine tune my piss-take.
Nothing ever came of that first meeting in a business sense but it was an invaluable education for the 12th Man and the "stort" of a great friendship.
And I know where all that unsold Channel 9 memorabilia that Greigy used to flog ended up. In his office! It went from a smattering in the late '80s to overflowing the last time I was there. You had to be careful where you sat in case you ended up with a Boonie Doll up your orse.
He saw the positive side of the whole 12th Man thing instantly, that Channel 9's cricket coverage had become an iconic broadcast and both the commentary team and the coverage were benefiting from this series of recordings this idiot was doing.
Tony cottoned on pretty quickly to the old cliche that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
People ask me how the whole 12th Man thing started. It was just me sitting in my loungeroom thinking, 'S---, I didn't know Richie Benaud sounded like that'.
And what about that fabulous South African accent of Tony Greig's: "The pitch is nice and flat, not much grorss on it. It should be hord and forst and there are quite a few cracks storting to open up."
He once phoned me about some appearance thing he was doing and asked me to remind him of some of the "Tony Greig-isms" I used.
"The cor pork's full and there is going to be plenty of cornage here today," I reminded him.
Thanks Greigy for a morvellous innings. You played it hord and forst and we cornt thank you enough for being such a lorge port of all our lives.
Rest in peace.
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