Williams was born in Surrey and would spend his teenage years in Llangynog in Carmarthenshire and Croydon in south London . Williams studied at Carmarthen Grammar School and would join the '' Croydon Advertiser '' after school , becoming the sports editor of the newspaper after a few years . Williams would subsequently work join the '' Daily Mail '' as a sub-editor having been recommended by his friend , the boxing commentator Harry Carpenter . Williams was appointed by the '' Daily Mail '' as its Manchester football correspondent after his predecessor , Eric Thompson , was killed in the Munich air disaster in 1958 . In a 2011 interview , Williams would say that " It was a strange feeling for a young man from London to be sitting in the press box at Old Trafford with the new Busby Babes . ... Half the football team had been wiped out but there was almost a spirituality about it . " Williams was asked to become a tennis radio commentator by BBC executive Cliff Morgan . Williams had learned how to project his voice through his experience of amateur dramatics , his fellow commentator Dan Maskell later told him of television commentators that " A lot of the time they tell you what you have just seen ... And that is the worst thing you can do . " Jim White later wrote in a 2016 tribute article for the '' Daily Telegraph '' that " Williams 's ability to trust the audience to appreciate what was going on was one of his abiding strengths . " Williams would later say of Maskell that he remembered " ... doing a match on Centre Court in Wimbledon for the first time with Dan . I was in awe of him . He was such a lovely man . There 's never been anyone like him . He became my best friend . " Williams was particularly associated with Des Lynam , the pair presented the nightly round-up of Wimbledon coverage on BBC television for ten years . Williams introduced the singer Cliff Richard to tennis player Sue Barker , Richard would later consider marriage to Barker . Jim White described Williams and Lynam as making " an odd couple . Alongside Lynam 's smooth , telegenic ease , Williams , with his unfashionable haircut and huge glasses , looked like a chemistry teacher who had taken a wrong turn on his way to the school lab . " Williams was sympathetic to the tempestuous on-court behaviour of male tennis players in the 1980s including Jimmy Connors , John McEnroe , and Ilie Năstase , later saying in an interview that " Sometimes I 'd be doing the commentary and criticising the players for their behaviour and I felt like a complete sham . " Williams would also be admonished by McEnroe himself , who told the umpire at the 1978 Davis Cup Final between the USA and Great Britain to " tell that Brit commentator to keep his voice down . " Williams spent his retirement in Bancyfelin , near Carmarthen in West Wales
Munich air disaster
Munich air disaster
Gerald Williams (tennis commentator)