Vale Mike Gibson

[axl rose]

Forget about overseas; how about sports coverage just within Australia itself....

by score updates on the hourly radio news bulletins at 8, 9 and 10pm. And that was only 9 years ago.

Or stay up late for a couple of minutes of Sports Tonight highlights. Seems unbelievable that we had no way of getting the score back in the day.

RIP Gibbo.

 

[ed612313]

Thanks Mike for all the memories.
The Back Page was my fav show when he and BB were hosting. Cant stand what it has become but either way Mike was great.
RIP

 

[Mr Spock!]

It's amazing to think back in the day with 3 commercial channels, WWOS and Sportsworld as sport magazine shows were the only way you could see most sport from overseas. And the people on had personality and opinions. These days you.can watch it all back then...

I'm getting old.

That's right.

In regional Qld, I remember having to wait up until 10:30 on ABC on Tuesday night to see a Sydney game!

 

[undertaker]

For some reason I suspected he took his own life and that has proven to be the case.

RIP Gibbo.

Unfortunately, you are correct.

As I said in a previous post, it wouldn't surprise me if something like this happened, given it had been reported several times in both the SMH and Telegraph sports columns that he had several problems which arose after his sacking from The Back Page. And as you said, it was somewhat unusual that the cause of death wasn't reported for a while:

https://au.news.yahoo.com/nsw/a/29635842/gibson-took-own-life-after-battle-with-depression-report/

Veteran journalist Mike Gibson took his own life after a long battle with depression, according to reports.

The 75-year-old sports journalist had battled depression as a result of a number of issues, including the break up of his partner of eight years Lisa Binney and a property dispute, News Corp reports.

"He went into a very, very black place and his brother started dropping in on him every day to check he was okay," a family friend said.

"When his brother Chris phoned Gibbo on Wednesday and the phone went unanswered, he went around and discovered the body."

The former host of Wide World of Sports and The Back Page was found dead at his NSW Central Coast home on Wednesday morning.

He has been remembered as the "bloke next door", a storyteller without peer and a legend of Australian sport.

Along with cricketing great Ian Chappell, Gibson was an original anchor for Wide World Of Sports when it was launched in 1981.

He later hosted The Back Page on Fox Sports for 16 years before stepping away from TV in 2012.

Former Wide World Of Sports colleague Ken Sutcliffe said in a statement: "We are all saddened by his passing. He was a pioneer in TV sport and he did it with his inimitable and special style."

Gibson was popular with viewers and a dyed-in-the-wool sports fan who wore his heart on his sleeve.

He was parodied by the 12th Man, Billy Birmingham, in his second album, Wired World Of Sports in 1987.

Birmingham and Gibson ended up working together on The Back Page with the comedian stepping away from the show one week after 'Gibbo' quit.

"Can't believe we've lost the great Mike Gibson. A terrific journo, excellent TV presenter & an even better bloke. Rest peacefully old friend," Birmingham tweeted on his official 12th Man Page.

 

[Norths Tiger]

Very sad to learn Gibbo's story.

Made me reflect on seeing Billy Birmingham a few times near my workplace in 2013. Both times were after work and Billy appeared to be walking around aimlessly in a part of Sydney cbd where not much else is happening.

In hindsight, maybe the end of Back Page also hit him hard and he was struggling also.

 

[undertaker]

Very sad to learn Gibbo's story.

Made me reflect on seeing Billy Birmingham a few times near my workplace in 2013. Both times were after work and Billy appeared to be walking around aimlessly in a part of Sydney cbd where not much else is happening.

In hindsight, maybe the end of Back Page also hit him hard and he was struggling also.

Birmingham wasn't sacked; he resigned after he was demoted to just a part-time pannelist:

http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2012/12/billy-birmingham-quits-the-back-page.html

Billy “The 12th Man” Birmingham has quit FOX Sports The Back Page, just a week after Mike Gibson retired from the show.

But Birmingham, who has been with the show for 15 years, exits in a blaze of glory after tweeting:

Just resigned from Back Page after being demoted to part time panellist next year. Matt Shirvington taking over my job as co-anchor. F### eh!

So pissed off I wasn’t told last week about being demoted. Unlike Gibbo, I was denied the chance to say goodbye to viewers after 15 years.

Tony Squires hosting Back Page with Matt Shirvington co-host is what I’m told. I’ve politely declined to do every few weeks on the panel.

Many thanks to everyone for their kind words. Chilling out over some chinese food now, working on ideas for a 12th Man live show#Marvellous!

A FOX Sports spokesperson told the Daily Telegraph: “It is disappointing Billy decided to resign before our plans for the show have been finalised.”

Although Billy too didn't take it well, his employment opportunities didn't dry up like Gibson: he still has occasionally appeared in the media, such as on Ch9's cricket coverage during the lunch breaks, released a 'best of 12th man' album and is now also on Triple M's Sunday NRL pre-game coverage since then. More importantly, post Back Page, he never lost his identity; people still know him as the 12th Man.

On the other hand, Gibson's identity and work opportunities pretty much dried up to zilch, going from being a household tv name to pretty much cast onto the scrapheap vanishing into obscurity, which would've been more difficult to accept when everything he ever had known for the past 4 decades suddenly came to nothing. Also, reading between the lines of that article I posted, it was also mentioned about his unsuccessful attempt to try and sell the North Shore unit strongly indicates he was in some financial problems (hence needing to liquidate the unit badly), and the 'inability to reach a resolution' with the sale with his former partner may've trigged the sharp downhill spiral that unfortunately led to his suicide. Sadly, I've personally known a couple of my parents' work friends who suicided due to financial debts.

As I said, the saddest thing about The Back Page is seeing the politically correct circle-jerk it has now become. I'm not saying that because of my RL-bias, but RL just gets briefly brushed over now and the only time it gets any extended airtime is when there is some scandal or controversy to try and make RL look like a joke of a sport (which was always is going to happen when 3 of the pannelists - Squires, Underwood and Fitzy - are AFL lackeys), whereas in the Gibbo years (even after Chippy Frilingos died) RL got a fair bit of airtime and any RL controversies/scandals were objectively discussed between the panelists.