Former Independent tennis correspondent John Roberts dies aged 84

John Roberts, The Independent’s former tennis correspondent for 20 years, has died aged 84.

Born in Stockport in 1941, he joined The Independent at its launch in 1986 and remained its tennis correspondent through to his retirement in 2006, with a spell as football correspondent in 1990 before returning to tennis shortly after.

Roberts began his career with the Stockport Express and also wrote for national newspapers, including the Daily Express, The Guardian and the Daily Mail, covering football and tennis.

While working as the Express’s sports correspondent in Northern Ireland from 1965 to 1968, Roberts got to know George Best and became the ghostwriter for the Manchester United star’s weekly column. He later played a part in arranging a civic reception in his honour at Belfast City Hall after United won the European Cup and Best was named European Footballer of the Year in 1968.

He also authored several books, including former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly’s autobiography, while ghosting Kevin Keegan’s first book and penning others on Best (Sod This, I’m Off to Marbella), Manchester United’s Busby Babes (The Team That Wouldn’t Die) and Everton (The Official Centenary History).

Everton paid tribute to his work capturing the club’s history, hailing his book as “a classic”.

Roberts was known as a great wordsmith, too, with excellent lines that lived long in the memory; in a piece on Kevin Keegan, he described the former England international, noting that “Keegan wasn’t fit to lace George Best’s drinks.” Legendary commentator Barry Davies repeated one of Roberts’s lines when describing Paul Gascoigne and his struggles with injury, referring to him as “the abdominal showman”.

Tributes have been paid across British journalism.

Paul Newman, who succeeded Roberts as The Independent’s tennis correspondent, said: “As one of the original team at The Independent, alongside colleagues like Ken Jones, Martin Johnson and Paddy Barclay, John was one of the journalists who put the newspaper at the forefront of sports journalism.

“It was a delight to read John’s work. He was a terrific writer. He was wonderfully helpful to colleagues of his own newspaper and others, with advice and contacts. He was a fantastic colleague.”

Roberts established a fine reputation in the industry, with Matthew Engel famously writing in the British Journalism Review: “I suspect posh-paper sports writing changed forever the day John Roberts left the Daily Express to join The Guardian in the late 1970s, was handed a piece of routine agency copy and picked up a telephone to start asking questions.”

Former colleague Nick Harris paid tribute to Roberts, whom he held as a mentor, stating: “John was a brilliant, meticulous writer, refusing to file a piece containing an imperfect sentence. Which is why we called him ‘the late John Roberts’ decades ago. He was a fine journalist, but, more than that, he was a lovely, funny, kind and gentle man.”

John is survived by his wife Phyllis, children Chris, Leanne and Gerard, and grandchildren Noah, Jack, Mai and Hassie.