Noticed the retirement of Rugby league stalwart Les Chapman hasn't been covered anywhere so thought I'd start a thread on it.

Les was born on 2nd April 1921 in Cardiff. He spent his formative years playing Rugby Union and working as a builder’s labourer. He was stationed in North Africa during the war and in 1946 decided to take up a course in English at Leeds University paid for by the government following his service in the Royal Signals. During this time he fell in love with Rugby league and became quite the player at amateur level.

In 1949 he is credited with inventing the tap restart. In those days it was a drop kick or scrum dependent on the toss of a cat. If the cat landed on his back it was a drop kick and if the cat landed on his feet it was a scrum. Invariably the decision was to scrum down. Until a county match between Yorkshire and Cumbria when the match official picked a lame cat. On the toss the cat surprisingly landed on its back. The referee awarded a drop kick. Spotting that the Cumbrian defensive line was at sixes and sevens as half the team formed a scrum and the other half stood around bemused Les dropped the ball kicking it only to about chest height and took the ball in both hands. He legged it through a gap and charged to the line unopposed.

This caused a stir the likes of which had never been seen before in the world of Rugby League. An unknown Yorkshire post journalist noted that “Such a level of cunning that could almost bring the sport to its knees”. Thus the tap restart had been invented.

Upon leaving Leeds University in 1950 Les began his apprenticeship with the Yorkshire Post before moving to the Brighouse Echo as sports reporter. Whilst working for this paper he first met Eddie Waring and it was this meeting that led to Les joining the BBC in 1956 to work on the sports desk long with Waring his now mentor.

Rugby league in those days was seen as little more than a provincial small time sport and Waring and Chapman would often thing long into the night about how to maximise the sports potential and increase it’s exposure on the growing medium of television. It was during one of these late night sessions that Chapman put on a funny voice after a bottle of Bells Navy Rum. Waring immediately jumped out his seat upon hearing this and shouted “I’ve got it!” he was sure this was the thing they had been waiting for.

The next scheduled Challenge Cup match between Dewsbury and Wakefield was seen as the ideal opportunity to try the voice out. This again had an immediate impact and Rugby League soon began to enjoy a renaissance. Waring and excellent sports reporter but with a terrible nasally voice would write the scripts and Chapman would read them in his funny voice.

During this time in 1959 a young sport reporter and ex professional footballer was struggling to find his feet in the world of radio and asked Les for his help. Overnight his reputation grew and it became clear that he could turn his hand to any sport and make the commentators script come to life. He was suddenly inundated with requests from sports commentators across the country. So busy he had to turn away work. For the next 40 years Les’ voice became a house hold voice even if no one outside journalistic circles knew who he was. He provided the voices of everyone from Brian Johnston (Cricket) to Sid Waddell (Darts) from Murray Walker (Motorsport) to Harry Carpenter (Boxing). All the time providing the well known voices to the well written scripts of these horrid voiced pen pushers.

His love for Rugby League though remained unconditional.
Apart from Rugby his other great passion was smoking cigs. He would often smoke up to 15 pounds of loose leaf Tobacco a day. It was his exploits in this field that led to him being presented with the Freedom of the City of Hull in 1974.

In September 1999 Les was forced into semi retirement after a polo accident in Kippax saw him rushed to casualty. He spent 2 days in a coma before being moved to Pinderfields hospital where he had a horse shoe removed from his thigh, an operation that saw him have both legs amputated after complications. Due to mobility issues he pulled back on his commentating commitments. From then on he was only able to continue with the voices of Ray French and Johnathon Davies (unscripted) on the BBC’s Rugby League coverage and his old friend John Helm’s UEFA Cup commentary on Channel Five.

Les now took up bell ringing (which would eventually be his down fall) in order to fill up the time left by his commentary work.

This pass time leads us to Les’ eventual retirement this summer. During July this year Les organised a get together at his house for the bell ringers of Upton. It was planned as a fairly low key affair but as is usually the case with bell ringing socials gallons of real ale were consumed and in the early hours of Sunday morning the get together became quite raucous. Les decided to take up a dare and attempted to break the world record for the number of kitchen knives taken in by an amateur sword swallower. Again, this lead to Les being rushed to Casualty only this time he had his vocal chords removed as a remedial measure.

Les’ world has been left upside down by this latest set back and a large number of different electronic voice boxes were tried out by Les and Nigel Wood from the RFL in a vain attempt to cover Ray French’s commentary on the Challenge Cup Final. The results were both comic and upsetting ranging from a cross between Darth Vader and George Formby to a cross between Les Dawson and Steven Hawkins’ Voice box but it was all to no avail. Ray French was forced to announce he was stepping down to allow Dave Woods (he uses Jan Ravens from Dead Ringers) to take over commentary of the Challenge Cup Final. Les was left reeling and has now decided to begin writing his Autobiography.

For your services to this great sport I salute you Les.

Not heard of Les before so was unaware of the contribution he had made. Thanks for bringing this to wider attention - it sounds like he will be missed. Do you have a photo of him that you could upload?

The man is a living legend. My dad told me the story of when was once arrived at Bradford interchange with no money to get up Manchester Road. He was about to start walking when a Bentley pulled up.

The window wound down and there was Les wearing that blo0dy awful fur coat you see on all his photos offering to give my dad a lift up to Odsal. He swears to this day that the back of the car was like a stately home with cut glass whiskey decanters and boxes of cigars that actually slid into the housing of the seat in front.

I remember him doing Its a knockout and repeating everything Stuart Hall said back to him in a perfect impersonation. Absolutely superb.

Generous to a fault is Les.

Hopefully none of Upton, there might be kids looking in.

Not him, but from his autobiography I found a pic of his wife feeding the said cat

(or should that be a link??)

[url=http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PG9h1CS1dfo/SKWvwyW7vdI/AAAAAAAADv4/NFufGPLAiH8/s400/cat+cartoon.JPG=redfunny and worthy of said linky- BP ( click anywhere on this text)[/url

If I had any more hats to take off to you MBBB, I would be doing so.

We are not worthy . . . . we truly aren't, Sir.

Well, certainly the cat looked Upton got a fright

I thought you were using cat in a 70's Starsky & Hutch vernacular, until I scrolled back, it all makes sense now. Looks like the best looking bird, or bloke, in Upton.

Dead ringer for the excellent Lesley in 'Benidorm'