'In Dubai, it's Abu Dhabi, or as we say in Perth, Abu Derby'— RIP Dennis Cometti
Dennis Cometti has died. Overseas readers won't know him, but for Australians he was our Red Barber, our Jim Nantz, our Peter Drury.
He was a tall man with a voice that was made for the airwaves. It had such clarity, such astonishing baritone, that you might have thought he was Australia’s answer to Casey Kasem rather than a sports commentator. Then you found out that he actually was a Top 40 radio on Perth’s 6KY in 1968. Of course he was. I can imagine him back announcing The Easybeats or The Shadows or the Stones even though I never heard him do it, inserting witticisms, allowing that honeyed voice to flow, cuing forth the Summer of Love.
At the same time he was a serious footballer. Cometti never spoke much about it during his decades behind the microphone, but in 1968 he booted 63 goals for West Perth in the WAFL as a 19 year old. He’d never hit the same heights again, but coach Polly Farmer wrote ‘Dennis had just turned 19 and was well over 6 foot with the ability and agility of a co-ordinated rover. We thought we had a champion.’1
It wasn’t to be. He tried out at Footscray, but landed just four reserves games. He’d return to West Perth to coach. In the end, the temptation to pair that voice with a sport he’d played to a high level was irresistible, and Cometti made the progression from Perth sports radio to syndicated national calls to national television front liner to national treasure.
He was a broadcasting natural who thrived on preparation. There are no other football commentators who have ever inserted pre-prepared quips with such aplomb, and we had him on our Triple R Breakfasters show in 2006 when he was releasing his book, ‘Centimetre Perfect’ in 2004. He talked about the extent his gags were extemporised versus pre-prepared.
For football fans, the classics are timeless:
"Barlow to Bateman. The Hawks are attacking alphabetically ..."
”Gaspar — the unfriendly post”
"Remember the name: Y-Z-E—terrific young player; bad Scrabble hand."
(After a player was poked in the eye): "Liberatore went into that last pack optimistically and came out misty optically."
Cometti himself named this as his favourite:
Maybe one where I was able to combine my two art forms, and use a line from the Rolling Stones.
Crows champion) Andrew McLeod was involved in a skirmish, and the umpires had come in to say to the players to break it up, which allowed me to go with, ‘Hey, you, get off McLeod’.
I thought at the time, ‘how good is that’?
And no one said a word!2
There is a great short speech from Cometti on YouTube, and I’ll add it to Speakola. It’s from the Australian Football Media Awards in 2002, when Cometti received the Most Outstanding Caller (Television) gong.
What’s notable, apart from the trademark fluency, is that rather than flapping a shopping list of thank yous, Cometti dedicates most of his speech to a joke. And it’s a decent joke too, told quickly and skillfully and it works because broadcasters don’t usually tell set em up knock em down punchline gags at events like this, so the element of surprise that most jokes need is working for him.
It’s terrible news that we’ve lost him. It was a thrill to meet Dennis a few times, and to write an AFL Finals promo he voiced just after his retirement.
He has his place in the sports media pantheon.
I’ll copy the AFMA speech transcript below.
Best wishes
Tony
Dennis Cometti: ‘Do you know about the tradition of the two envelopes?’, AFMA, Melbourne, 2002
Thank you to CUB and the Association
Thank you to everybody at Channel 9, I’ve called football for something like 30 years and i can’t remember a more enjoyable season. I’d like to say congratulations to Cos Cardone who put the project together for Channel9 , and also thank Eddie McGuire. He is like the Red Adair of football in this town —starts fires, puts them out but I’ve got to say he’s never kissed me.3
it’s been a thrill working on the AFL this season and as i say i can’t remember a better season, but things changed very quickly in football, and in broadcasting. i’m reminded of just a short story—
i remember when i took over as coach of West Perth in the WAFL and I got a call from Graham Campbell who was the outgoing coach. He said, ‘Do you know about the tradition of the two envelopes? I said, ‘No I don’t.” He said, “It’s self-explanatory I’ll be straight over.’
He arrived at my doorstep with two envelopes. Written on one was “to be opened when things go bad”. Written on the other was “to be opened when things get even worse”.
First season was okay, halfway through the second season we lost about four in a row and I decided to check inside the first envelope. It said, “blame your predecessors”.
Well of course that is the first fallback position of anyone in football. A failed coach, that’s what you do automatically.
Unfortunately, we lost a few more games, probably another five straight as I recall, I decided well it’s getting bleak, there’s almost rebellion in the camp, I better have a look at the second of the envelopes to be opened when things get even worse was written on that one
And inside when I looked it said, ‘prepare two envelopes’.
Thank you very much.
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Cometti, Dennis (2004). Centimetre Perfect: The Classic Commentary. Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1-86508-966-4.
https://www.afl.com.au/news/440630/hall-of-famer-cometti-reveals-favourite-piece-of-commentary