Idwal Robling

After being conscripted to work as a coal miner during World War II, Idwal Robling trained as a teacher but gave up teaching to take a management job at Lovell’s sweet factory in Newport.

The company sponsored Lovell’s Athletic football team played at the highest level of amateur football and Robling soon progressed to the Wales amateur team and eventually became captain.

Though part of the British football team for the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, he was overlooked for their only game of the tournament. After he retired from playing Robling became a part time commentator for a local radio station and wrote match reports for national newspapers. His big break in broadcasting came prior to the 1970 FIFA World Cup when he won a competition to become part of the BBC commentary team in Mexico. From that time he was a regular fixture commentating on domestic and international football, as well as rugby, boxing and British baseball, until his retirement in 1987. Robling later returned to broadcasting as a producer and worked until just a few months before his death.