Les Murray: An Australian Icon and a Top Football TV Show Host

On Friday I showed you a couple of clips from former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s farewell speech. The entire speech did go on a bit, way too long for anybody to have to listen to a politician. So that’s why I didn’t subject you to all of it.

No, instead I chose to show you a couple of clips which didn’t really show Kevin Rudd at his best, whatever his best was. For those who care to, the whole speech is available on YouTube.

But despite the fact that the sudden step down or overthrowing the Prime Minister, which virtually happened overnight, was obviously big news here in Australia, I actually wanted to talk about something completely different in Friday’s post. Because Kevin Rudd wasn’t the only man making a “stirring” speech on that day.

Meet Les Murray.

I think it is safe to call Les Murray an Australian icon. But he falls into the “love him or loath him” category. For those of you in England who are old enough to remember, think Jimmy Hill and you’ll know what I mean.

Les was born just outside of Budapest in Hungary and came to Australia when his family moved here in 1957 when Les was 12. If I may use a football phrase, “the boy done good.” Les went on to become Australia’s leading football show host, hosting The World Game on SBS; he even coined the phrase that is the title of the show.

Anyway, Les could sure teach Kevin Rudd a thing or two about making speeches. This is great, this is Les Murray’s salute to the Australian football team following their exit from the World Cup. Forget Kevin Rudd, this is Churchillian! He even uses one of Churchill’s quotes.

By the way, in the “love him or loathe him” debate, I love him! Here’s Les opening his World Cup show with a speech following Australia’s exit from the competition at the group stage, and it is cringeworthytastic….

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But Les isn’t always as sharp as that, sometimes he does get caught out. This is 19 seconds of your life well spent….

There, I managed to get through my entire post today without mentioning Germany, a blind linesman and having too many beers in the Pig and Whistle along with 600 other sobbing England fans. “They think it’s all over”…… yes, it is.