Remembering Australian soccer commentator and personality Les Murray

It says a lot about the huge influence Les Murray had, not just on football in Australia but on the country itself, that the much loved broadcaster, who died at the end of July aged 71, was accorded the rare honour of a state funeral.

Regarded as the face and voice of soccer Down Under, Murray was an evangelist for the game at a time when it was largely overlooked in Australia and, through his work with the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), which would eventually span nearly 40 years, could legitimately claim to have made a significant contribution to the arrival of the ‘Socceroos’ on the international stage as well as the growth in popularity of the game at home.

But as a Hungarian-born refugee who had landed in Australia at the age of 11 after the crushing of the 1956 revolution in his homeland, his was also a national voice speaking eloquently in favour of multi-culturalism and the rights of asylum-seekers.