Eddie Waring - the ups and unders

Eddie Waring became a household name in the 60s

"It's an up n under", cries the sing-song voiced Yorkshireman in a trilby hat. Inside Out follows the incredible career of Eddie Waring, from the rugby league commentary box to referee for a menagerie of giant animals in "It's a Knockout".

Originally rugby league was a sport played in the North of England and watched by a only a few thousand spectators.

But one man brought that sport out of obscurity and onto prime time television - Eddie Waring.

For 30 years he commented on the ups and unders of rugby league, every Saturday during the season.

With his famous catchphrase "up n under", Eddie was one of the most distinctive, and most mimicked, broadcasting voices of his era.

From pitch to screen

Eddie started out as a manager, rather than a commentator, running the rugby league club of his home town, Dewsbury.

Eddie began his career as manager for the Dewsbury Rams

He was the youngest manager in the league, and one of the canniest, winning wartime trophies by signing for Dewsbury any international player stationed nearby.

After the war, he was one of the first to spot the potential of televised sport, and encouraged rugby league to be televised.

He commented as part of the first TV coverage of rugby league and was a fixture from then on.

Six million viewers would tune in to Saturday afternoon Grandstands to hear Eddie declaim which players were to be sent off for an "early bath".

Opportunity knocks

The world of showbiz soon snapped him up.

A new BBC show, "It's a Knockout", needed a referee figure and Eddie was their man.

When presenter Katie Boyle walked out of a recording, Eddie Waring stepped in to become one of the show's co-presenters.

Together with Stuart Hall, Eddie took the show around Europe, applying the same professional skills to people dressed up as budgies or elves, throwing buckets of water around and sliding along slippery poles.

Eddie appears amongst a bevy of TV celebrities on the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show, 1977

Some rugby fans were critical, and thought Eddie's popularity was trivialising the game.

A petition was sent to the BBC. They claimed 10,000 signatures, the BBC said 2,000.

But there were far more fans who came out in support of Eddie.

Speaking his mind

He remained a sports commentator until 1981 when he retired, aged 71.

Eddie was famous for saying what was on his mind, rather than giving a technical analysis.

One of his most celebrated and most typical comments came at the end of the 1968 Challenge Cup final, Leeds vs Wakefield Trinity.

In the last minutes of the match, Don Fox had the chance to win the cup for Wakefield.

When he missed his goal kick, Eddie's reaction, which perfectly captures his gutsy commentary style, was a simple; "Eee, poor lad!"