Harold Wolfe

Oct 30 2007 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

HE TYPED one of the great documents of military history, this angular figure with the kind eyes and wide smile, who was proud to be a man of facts.

It was as a journalist rather than a soldier that he established his reputation, gaining the respect of thousands of readers.

Other sports’ writers indulged in flights of fancy and whimsy and dressed their ignorance in adjectives, but Harold Wolfe knew his stuff.

Sometimes after the matches, when the players were gabbing about old triumphs at the pavilion bar, someone would recall making 47, having gone in at number six.

“It was 45 and you went in at number seven,” Harold would say. He had a fine mind for statistics in all games, but his knowledge of local cricket was encyclopaedic.

Wearing a dark sports jacket, a white shirt and tie, he would stride to the score-box at the various grounds to examine the book and write down all the figures in shorthand, often licking the tip of his pencil before beginning.

So for years he compiled the Liverpool Competition table, match reports and scorecards for the Daily Post, a task which required flair as well as immense administrative dedication. He also prepared the fixture lists.

Harold’s father, John, had been a journalist who rose to chief sub-editor on the Liverpool Courier and then the Daily Post.

After an education at Liscard High School, Wallasey, Harold worked briefly at the Liverpool Echo/Daily Post reference library, before taking a job as a cub reporter on the Birkenhead News.

He joined the Echo sports department in 1937. For the next 43 years, he was a cricket reporter and sub-editor, best known for his It’s A Fact column, which answered readers’ questions, thereby settling many festering pub squabbles.

His journalism was interrupted by war service, during which he became a staff sergeant major with the operations’ branch of Field Marshal Montgomery’s Army Group headquarters. On May 4, 1945, he typed the historic order for British and Canadian troops to end all offensive operations and prepare for the following morning’s ceasefire.

On returning to journalism, Harold, married with two daughters, became an almost legendary figure, researching his Echo column until shortly before his 90th birthday.

His funeral at St Hilary’s Church, Wallasey, was attended by sportsmen and fellow journalists, all friends.

Harold Wolfe, journalist; born 1916, died October 19, 2007.