Eddie Giles, a former northern sports editor of the Daily Telegraph, has died at his Essex home, aged 84.
Giles, who was born in Cheltenham but whose family moved to Derbyshire when he was two, began his career with the Derby Evening Telegraph, which he joined in 1944 after leaving Loughborough Grammar School.
He remained with the Derby paper until 1956 – interrupted when he did his National Service in the RAF – when he moved to the Bristol Evening Post as chief sports sub-editor and then deputy sports editor.
In 1970 he moved to Manchester, where he worked at the Daily Telegraph until 1987 before switching to the London office.
For the last eight years of his career, until he retired in 1993, he was the broadsheet’s northern sports editor. He continued writing, producing books on Derby County, Nottingham Forest, Notts County and both Bristol clubs.
He died just after Christmas, from prostate cancer from which he had suffered for a number of years. He leaves a widow, Joan, two children and four grandchildren.
“Eddie Giles was an old-style newspaperman, a good operator. He was also one of the nicest people you could ever wished to have met,” SJA member Anton Rippon, who worked with Giles over many years, said.
- The funeral will be held at St Giles and All Saints, Orsett, Essex, at 11.15am on January 15.
When I left the Mirror in Manchester I did a few shifts on the Daily
Telegraph. After a couple of nights Eddie Giles, the sports editor,
recognised me, and asked if I would like to do a match.
I did one and the next night he approached me in his usual quiet way to say: “The editor has kicked up a fuss about us calling you Ted. He says it’s a nickname.” A week later I did another match and the next day I
appeared in the Telegraph as “Edward Corbett”.
I told Eddie my first name was in fact Edwin . . . and that is how I
came to appear in the Telegraph three times in three weeks under three
different names!
No blame on Eddie who bizarrely later offered me the racing editor’s
job. He was a decent man, entirely without side, or malice and any
other characteristic of the high-flying head of department.
Read me on twitter @tedcorbett1