He lived a full life and he's died way too soon". Les was unwittingly that trail(blazer) for me, a reassuring night light in the wall socket, and an almost subliminal guide towards becoming ensconced in this sunburnt country. The commentary. he said. There are so few public figures who could trigger a lump in my throat, but Les made my eyes well up on the tram home when news broke of his untimely passing. The teams. MIKE GREWCOCK (author of Border Crimes & UNSW Law lecturer) EDWINA LLOYD (lawyer for Indonesian boat crew jailed on ‘people smuggling’ charges) HADI HOSSEINI (Afghan Hazara detained on Christmas Island and in Darwin on … He could, and did, talk football with anyone, anytime.He'd share moments with strangers as easily as with colleagues and friends he'd had for decades.Remember when respected SBS commentator Les Murray claimed Lucas Neill had led a Socceroos revolt against World Cup coach Pim Verbeek in 2010?It's hard to imagine now what Australia must have been like without football.It's almost impossible to imagine a football landscape But then we don't have to, do we? On the evenings when I happen to get home from work before my husband, Igor, one of the first things I do – and I wager I’m not the only one – is switch on the TV, which I’ve habitually been doing since I was a kid. "It gave him a rare and enduring ability to express his love for football and in so doing bring the multitudes into its orbit. Les James Murray AM (born László Ürge [ˈyrɡæ ˈlaːsloː]; 5 November 1945 – 31 July 2017) was a Hungarian-Australian sports journalist, association football (soccer) broadcaster and analyst.He was the host of The World Game on SBS television, retiring in July 2014, and has been inducted into the FFA's Football Hall of Fame. He left it forever yesterday, as a 71-year-old who'd This well-dressed man with a velvet voice loved life.Everything he loved about it was contained in a game he wanted us to love too.He made it his mission to clear a space in this sports-crowded landscape for the game they played everywhere — yet was largely ignored in his adopted home.But he couldn't have done it without his great mate, former Socceroos captain Johnny Warren.They were an odd couple — dubbed Mr and Mrs soccer.The freckly faced Aussie in a tracksuit, and the impeccably suited European with an elegantly held cigarette in one hand and a short black in the other.Together they celebrated, shouted and despaired in equal measure. Now, it’s not because I want to “bask in television’s warm, glowing warming glow,” but because the apartment otherwise ends up being too quiet and, well, a tad The TV is on and you do things away from the screen while your aural companions suffuse the space. He said to Australia, 'this is the global game, you need to understand it, this is how we relate to the world and actually, without it, we are diminished'," he said. His voice had become And when Australia sublimely qualified for the storied 2006 “Golden Generation” World Cup in their November 2005 qualifier against Uruguay, I still remember Les saying, “Johnny Warren told us so. My interest in the World Cup was quite high in 1998 purely by virtue of it being the World Cup (and like any other 13-year-old with a pulse I sang “The Cup of Life” with reckless abandon and imitated Ricky’s hip swaying), but my interest skyrocketed in 2002 due in part to the advent of my former crush, Michael Ballack, and the hormones that come with being 17. There are things that catch you – how that one residential apartment building in North Melbourne looks uncannily like a little slice of Yugoslavia, how the kids playing soccer out on the school oval look like you and your friends once did in the dusky summer evenings, how the sea in Williamstown sometimes resembles the azure Adriatic. The moments. They described, dissected and analysed the game they loved.Les Murray is the face and voice of football in Australia, yet little is known about his childhood and escape from Hungary as a refugee.Like a patient teacher with a wayward child, they persisted until we got it.When we did, we tuned in to SBS in record numbers to watch the world's ultimate single-sport event, the FIFA World Cup.Now at Fox Sports, Andy Harper was a former colleague of Murray's at SBS.The author of Johnny Warren's biography, Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters, and Mr and Mrs Football, said from the US overnight that he felt dislocated, being so far away from home. "Australia is a better place for Les Murray. "A great Australian in the truly modern sense of the word. I’ll miss his humble expertise, his wit, the way he made Australia fall in love with football, but most especially I’ll miss how his kind baritone warmed countless homes on Sunday afternoons. The guest speaker at the Sydney launch was Les Murray, SBS-TV football broadcaster and former refugee from Hungary. "No one better embodied what SBS represents than Les Murray. That dream was realised at the most recent World Cup — Rio 2014.He said at the time that if he died then, he'd be a happy man. With every World Cup, Les was always there and I always felt a little more at ease hearing his commentary from 1998 until 2014 in Brazil. To read his speech, click here. He departs as Les Murray.Mr Football. His program made sense; I think back to watching Les in my first five years in Australia and having that reference point of the proverbial migrant boy made good. Les wrote and spoke — the tools of his journalistic craft — so beautifully. He embodied the bounty available to Australia through immigration. He will always be there.He will be at every major tournament; at every A-League or W-League game; in the commentary box; watching on from the sideline.Since his passing I've had messages from people I don't know; from students at university; from people in the taxi queue at the hospital where Les died; from friends overseas.They all have memories of Les. ‘I told you so, I told you so.’ And there it is: he has been proven right tonight. On the evenings when I happen to get home from work before my husband, Igor, one of the first things I do – and I wager I’m not the only one – is switch on the TV, which I’ve habitually been doing since I was a kid. The tournaments. "I'll remember him as someone who changed the country. More My refugee journey: Les Murray SBS broadcaster Les Murray writes about his experience returning to Hungary in 2011, to track down the man who helped his family escape the communist country.
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