John McCririck has died

That was fake news!

He looks like he was dying!

Controversial but almost always entertaining.

Clarkson before Clarkson became Clarkson.

Well it turned out he was.

Just noticed the Guardian's obit was written by Julian Wilson.

Who died 5 years ago.

So that obit is at least five years out of date. Why wasn't it redone?

I don’t know, you aren’t the editor of Guardian online as well are you?

Seems apt.

A true character in what can be a very bland area of broadcasting, and someone who you get the impression was pretty harmless.

It will have been updated, but it's far from unusual for an obituary writer to survive the subject.

Who could forget his unique throwing technique on Bullseye? Very effective too!

Here's John before his Horse Racing days and in his capacity as an investigative reporter on Thames's 'Today' programme in 1977. Odd to see what he looked like younger and with a flair of 70's style.

To unfortunately be a massive pedant, it wasn't before his horse racing days as he was still working in the sport in those days - he was writing for The Sporting Life in the week and working behind the scenes on the Beeb's racing coverage at the weekends, in his autobiography Frank Bough makes reference to him always being on the studio floor on Grandstand frantically sorting out the racing results.

As his obits have pointed out, he was a proper journalist and won awards for it, including being named Campaigning Journalist of the Year for his investigations into bookies ripping off punters. As Julian Wilson pointed out, those who knew him were always a bit disappointed that he became a bit of a pantomime dame as it overshadowed his journalistic work.