People often talk about music and how it soundtracked certain times of their life… but never do people talk about the voices that guided us. One of those voices belonged to BBC sports broadcaster David Vine, who has died of a heart attack at the age of 73. Vine was a Grade A BBC sports presenter, covering absolutely everything, from Match of the Day, A Question of Sport, Grandstand, the Olympics, Wimbledon and Ski Sunday. However, he’s most fondly remembered for his snooker role, which saw Vine’s West Country burr filling houses up and down the country on a Sunday afternoon. Like no other sports presenter, Vine felt like an old buddy; an old pal who could tell you almost anything about every sport ever.

Vine celebrated his birthday on 3rd January and died after a heart attack on Sunday at home, near Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire.

Vine’s publicist Paul Madeley said since the broadcaster’s retirement he had continued working as a consultant for the BBC. “I don’t know of anybody who is regarded as he was in terms of his professionalism and dedication, whether he was presenting or commentating. He was like a member of my family. He was that close.” It certainly seems that somehow, Vine’s warmth made us all feel like we knew him. He wasn’t just a face on the screen, but more like someone actually sat in our living rooms, filling us with brilliant trivia.

Vine’s last broadcast for the BBC was as a weightlifting commentator at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, after which he retired because of a heart condition stating, “I’ve got to go some time, and now is the right time.”

Minister for Sport Gerry Sutcliffe described Vine as “one of sports broadcasting’s great all-rounders, a familiar figure on our TV screens across four decades. As the face of the BBC’s coverage of the snooker world championships from The Crucible and Ski Sunday, he helped popularise emerging and growing sports. But he could turn his hand to almost anything – the first presenter of A Question of Sport, host of Superstars, commentator on It’s a Knockout, a regular fixture at Wimbledon and the Olympics – and much more. We have lost a great enthusiast for sport and a considerable broadcasting talent.”

He leaves behind three children from his first marriage, a son from his second marriage and four grandchildren.