David Miller, a hugely respected sports journalist for newspapers including the Times, the Telegraph and the Daily Express, has died at the age of 91; a former chair of the SJA, a Times obituary describes Miller as “authoritative” and extremely well connected…
By The SJA
Tributes are being paid to the renowned sports journalist and historian David Miller, who has died at the age of 91.
Miller was the chief sports correspondent of The Times and also served as chair of the Sports Journalists’ Association from 1981 to 1983, when the SJA was known as the Sports Writers’ Association.
He also covered sport with great distinction for the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Telegraph and the Daily Express, and wrote many books, including biographies of Sir Matt Busby, Sir Stanley Matthews and Lord Coe.
In 2023, Miller was awarded the Pierre de Coubertin Medal by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in recognition of his journalism on the Olympic Movement, of which he wrote the “Official History“.
Another of his books was a biography of Juan Antonio Samaranch, the seventh IOC President whose term lasted 21 years.
He graduated from Cambridge University in 1956, and in a career that lasted more than 50 years, he covered more than 20 editions of the Olympic Games and 14 FIFA World Cup tournaments. He was a fine athlete himself and won football blues during his college days.
In an article for the SJA website in 2006, looking back at his long career, he reflected on moments such as freelancing for The Times at the 1958 World Cup in Sweden, when he would have been 23 years old. “My wife came too, the weather was fabulous, and we existed largely on milk and biscuits,” he wrote.
He joined the Telegraph in 1960, and then the Sunday Telegraph. He recalled his experience at the 1972 Munich Olympics and missing out on what would have been a “world scoop” about the tragic terrorist attack that unfolded.
Miller became the chief sportswriter for the Daily Express in 1973, and a decade later, he returned to the Times.
In a Q&A with the Football Writers’ Association website in 2013, Miller said the 1966 World Cup Final was his most memorable match and that the goal he never tired of watching was Pele’s first for Brazil against Sweden in the 1958 final.
On the occasion of his De Coubertin Medal, then IOC President Thomas Bach said: “Your writing ultimately served a higher purpose than to simply inform people of the latest scores and results.
“With your expert knowledge of the Olympic Movement, you always instinctively grasped the central idea of the Olympic mission: to unite the entire world in peaceful competition.”
Miller won the Doug Gardner Award for services to the SJA and sports journalism at the SJA British Sports Journalism Awards’ 2000 ceremony.
An obituary of Miller in The Times reads: “He reported on the beautiful game with a style of writing unadorned by superfluous phrasing while nobody could accuse him of not being well connected in the sporting world.”
When I was a kid, I would wait for my Dad to come home form work, scrabble thru his briefcase and get out The Times. I devoured all the sports pages but when I read David Miller it opened my eyes to a different, observational way of writing. I wanted to be that man! That he wrote about my sports – football and athletics – with such authority only increased my awe as did his collaboration with my hero Seb Coe on a definitive biography: still on my bookshelf + I still regularly consult as a coaching manual. Undoubtedly he became too close to some of his extraordinary contacts, yet when I finally met him as a fellow pro, I was able to tell him he was the first sports writer I aspired to be. RIP
— Rob Draper (@draper_rob) October 20, 2026
In its obituary to Miller, the Telegraph described him as “one of the great figures of British sports journalism”, adding: “It says something for the breadth and longevity of Miller’s sportswriting that he should have seen both Stanley Matthews and Lionel Messi play and covered 50 Wimbledon championships.”
Among those to send personal tributes was the longtime Daily Mail sports writer, Jeff Powell MBE. “David Miller was totally dedicated to accurate, fully researched, meticulously analysed sports reportage of the highest professional order,” wrote Powell. “RIP old chap.”
‘David left you feeling wiser about the sports field’
Norman Giller, chief sports reporter of the Daily Express from 1966 to 1974, writes…
The biggest of all Fleet Street sports oaks has just fallen with the passing of THE doyen of sports writing, David Miller.
We were press box colleagues for many years and briefly team-mates at the Daily Express, and I was always in awe of David’s astonishing breadth of knowledge across all sports.
Who else do you know wrote descriptive and authoritative eyewitness reports of Stanley Matthews and Lionel Messi, Roger Bannister and Keely Hodgkinson, Ian Botham and Joe Root? He was an acclaimed expert on the heritage of the Olympics, and my bookcase is weighed down with his meticulously researched histories of athletics, football and a procession of sporting masters.
David was a keen, influential member of the SJA and also the FWA, was fluent in several languages and an internationalist at home in many countries.
I always felt I was in the company of a tour guide when we were abroad together on reporting assignments. He invariably dressed in an all-white suit, looking aloof and dignified like “Our Man in Havana.” We called him the Great White Hunter!
People who did not get to know him may have considered David arrogant and distant, but anybody burrowing deeper found a warm, receptive, loyal man who was an intellectual willing to share his vast experiences of this sporting life. You invariably left him feeling better informed and wiser about the sports field and its top participants. He made it his business to know them all.
David and I kept in touch with frequent telephone calls. He tucked away in Norfolk, where he was often to be found on his yacht, two-fingered typing memories of a sports scene he knew better than most and captured it beautifully with an unmatched vocabulary.
We will miss him. Rest easy, master.
‘David rose to the occasion, writing with precision and understanding’
John Goodbody, sports news correspondent of The Times from 1986 to 2007, writes…
I knew David for more than 60 years, working alongside him and subsequently together with him on The Times.
In 1962, when I joined Hayters, David was with the Telegraph, working for the Daily during the week and then the Sunday as its first football correspondent.
Sometimes I used to cover amateur games in the afternoon and then be at First Division matches in the evening. David would frequently be at both fixtures and was always encouraging me. You remember the people who helped you when you were starting out. David was one of those.
He was a talented player, a Cambridge Blue, who represented the England amateur side, for whom, as he admitted, he missed an open goal against QPR and so was not selected for the match against Scotland the following Saturday.
This contributed to him failing to make the squad for Great Britain for the 1956 Olympics – something he deeply regretted.
He continued playing into the 1960s, once appearing for the Corinthian Casuals at Oxford, a match he also covered for the Telegraph, and he duly reported that Miller had to leave the field with a damaged leg.
If his journalism became legendary, so did his driving. In 1987, he went in his Mercedes from the World Athletics Championships in Rome to Dusseldorf for an England match escorted by a colleague on The Times, also known for his speed behind the wheel.
On returning to the office, he was asked how the journey went. The reply was: “It was marvellous. I did not have to encourage David to overtake on the hard shoulder.”
David had both a wide and profound knowledge of sport, covering a total of 24 Summer and Winter Olympics, 14 World Cups and 50 Wimbledons.
His industry was extraordinary, once working 63 successive days for The Times. He rose to the occasion as journalists have to do when a big story occurs. In 1985, at the Heysel Stadium disaster, he wrote the front and back page leads with precision and understanding.
Ten days ago, Simon Barnes, whose elliptical style so effectively offset David’s journalism on The Times, recalled reading those pieces at home and thinking: “I could not have done that”.
His interest in the Olympics increased over the years, and he was the author of ‘The Official History of the Olympic Games and the IOC’, a monumental piece of work.
David will be much missed by me and many other people.
If you are interested in sharing your memories of David via publication on the SJA website, please email us – we welcome your contributions.
Further reading…
David Miller obituary: sportswriter and editor (The Times)
David Miller, sports journalist who covered Olympic Games and World Cups for the Telegraph
David Miller 1935-2026 (FWA)
British Olympic Association saddened by the passing of Olympic journalist David Miller (TeamGB.com)
Sports writer and Olympic historian Miller dies (World Athletics)
David Miller story archive (SJA)
FWA Q&A with David Miller (Football Writers’ Association, 2013)
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