My broadcasting colleague, and friend for many years.
I am stunned; for I cannot quite believe that my good mate David Oates has died after a short illness.
Last month I literally bumped into Oatesy; who I’d known for many years as a colleague and a friend. I was on my way to Bloomfield Road to cover Blackpool against Fulham for talkSPORT; Oatesy was going there as a fan to support his beloved Tangerines. From our years together at Radio 5 it was drummed into me that it was tangerine, not orange, and indeed it was David and another former colleague Roy Calley that I was thinking of during the commentary when I mentioned this on air in what I hoped was a jocular way.
We arranged to meet after the match; and did so in a pub in Blackpool; where along with a mate of his from schooldays we put the world to rights, discussed our mutual love of malt whisky, and his new adventure as a freelance. As we walked back through the snowy streets – he to his parents house, me to my hotel – we said we must meet up again. He was my landlord in London when I did half a week presenting the sport on the Radio 1 breakfast show; and I stayed in his house for a few nights a week for a long period of time.
We actually hadn’t seen each other for a while, but his was a friendship that could easily be renewed as if the intervening months had passed by in a flash.
David was a consummate broadcaster, a true professional, who came up like so many of us of a certain age, through local radio and into national broadcasting. He was excellent on both football and rugby league, and was always a pleasure to listen to. David left 5 Live last year, and I remember clearly from the pub in Blackpool his delight when he said that he was returning to the network for the first time since becoming a freelance later that week, for Leicester against Middlesbrough.
It was huge shock to hear of David’s death; and my heart goes out to his wife Lottie and their children at this tragic time.
