management the club became one of the largest sports and conference centres in Europe, even attracting international teams to its training facilities. Rugby Football Union Yarranton was president of the Rugby Football Union from 1991 to 1992. He had already served a game about which he was passionate in almost every capacity, from international player to club secretary, and had been public relations adviser to the RFU for a decade. Many fans were also familiar with his voice from his broadcasts for the BBC, or had relished his breezy observations over the tannoy in the Middlesex Sevens tournament at Twickenham in the 1960s and 1970s. Behind the scenes he had also helped to set in motion the rebuilding of the national stadium, and it was fitting that Yarranton's term of office should coincide with England reaching the final of the Rugby World Cup that year at rugby's headquarters. Sports Council Yarranton became chairman of the Sports Council, the quango charged with disbursing public money to sport, in 1989 – a difficult moment in its history. The Conservative government was steadily reducing its annual grant, while in the press criticism was being made of Britain's continued failings in international competitions, as well as of the council's own unwieldy internal structure and its propensity for in-fighting. These problems Yarranton met in his customary cheerful fashion, although, through little fault of his own, he was unable to solve many of them. Though no visionary, he was not a stick-in-the-mud either, being a capable, articulate man, well versed in the ways of committees and practised in the art of keeping an open mind. While he was most at home encouraging athletes in the dressing room and on the big sporting occasions, he was not afraid to stand up to his political masters, criticising their lack of funding for sport in the inner cities and their policy of selling off playing fields. He was an early and enthusiastic advocate of a national lottery whose profits could be channelled into sport. Retirement Following his retirement from the Sports Council and from Lensbury at the age of 70, Yarranton concentrated on his many other responsibilities. Among his numerous other positions, he was a governor of the London Marathon Trust; patron of the Royal Canoe Club Trust; chairman of the Sport Supports St John Ambulance Committee; and, in 2001, Master of the Worshipful Company of Gold and Silver