Kevin Tutty - Photo supplied.One of Canterbury’s best known and most respected sports journalists has died.

Kevin Tutty, 70, passed away in Christchurch on Tuesday, after a short illness.

Tutty started his career as a cadet at The Press in 1968, finally retiring in July 2012 after 44 years and six months with the newspaper.

Swimming and hockey were the main sports Tutty covered, where he gained great respect, trust and admiration from the players, competitors and administrators in the codes.

Tutty covered his first national hockey tournament in 1971 and reported the Hockey World Cup in Bombay (now Mumbai) a decade later, sharing a hotel room with radio commentator Bryan Waddle.

“I lost a few kilos there, mainly because I was too scared to eat. In a lot of cases the team had a lot of those two-minute noodles, we pretty much lived on those for a week and a half,” Tutty told senior sports reporter Tony Smith in his farewell interview in The Press.

He covered a women’s World Cup in 1982 and a New Zealand men’s tour on secondment to the New Zealand Press Association.

He derived great satisfaction from covering the triumphant return of New Zealand’s gold medal-winning hockey team from the 1976 Olympics. He’d played hockey at Ashburton College with team member Paul Ackerley.

Tutty covered six Commonwealth Games, starting with the 1974 event in Christchurch.

He told Smith, one of his most vivid Commonwealth Games memories was the 1986 boxing heavyweight final between Aucklander Jimmy Peau and Scotland’s Dougie Young.

“The crowd was basically all Scots, they all had their blue and white scarves on,” Tutty recalled.

“The crowd was screaming ‘Scotland, Scotland’, they had their scarves going left and right with Young well ahead on points in the third round. I had a look up at the clock above the ring. There were 30 seconds to go, I said to myself, ‘looks like you’ve had it, Jimmy’.”

“But Young, instead of just walking backward, kept going in after Jimmy. He got Jimmy on the ropes and went in a bit low and Jimmy just saw an opening. His punch travelled maybe nine inches, the guy was gone. I looked at the clock and I think it was 15 seconds to go.

The place went dead silent.

“I saw the Scottish guy in the foyer three-quarters of an hour later and he still looked groggy.”

Tutty always had a burning ambition to be a sports reporter. But he was told he had to cut his teeth in The Press’ Ashburton office, where he covered mainly general news.

“They told me I’d have to do a year or two in Ashburton first to learn the trade. There were no journalism schools then. It was sink or swim. Reporters learned from observing and aping experienced colleagues.”

Tutty had to teach himself the most basic journalism skill.

“I had no typing experience, it wasn’t like you had computers at home in those days. So I went to the school commercial room where they were throwing out a pile of text books and asked for one which showed you how to touch-type.

“The Press gave me an old typewriter from the Ashburton office and I spent a bit of time over the holidays learning how to type.”

In March 1970, Tutty got the call to go to Christchurch. He joined a sports department led by legendary sports editor Dick Brittenden who was assisted by the equally erudite John Brooks. The sports staff included Kevin McMenamin, John Coffey, Rod Dew and Ray Cairns. Bob Schumacher joined soon after, and Tim Dunbar and David Leggat came aboard in the mid-70s.

A strong esprit de corps prevailed. Sport was almost exclusively confined to Saturdays, so The Press crew found time on Sundays to play social soccer or cricket, including annual clashes with their Christchurch Star counterparts.

“Often, it was just an excuse to run around for an hour or two and then have a few beers,” Tutty quipped.

In retirement, Tutty continued to devote himself to his family. 

© Star News - 1 May 2020