I just wonder if her dad, because he has obviously been the most influential person in her life, did say to her when she was 12, 13, 14 maybe: “Listen, you are never going to be, you know, a looker. You are never going to be somebody like a Sharapova, you’re never going to be 5ft 11in, you’re never going to be somebody with long legs, so you have to compensate for that. You are going to have to be the most dogged, determined fighter anyone has ever seen on the tennis court if you are going to make it,” and she kind of is. By 1953, Coleman was putting in regular scriptwriting shifts in the BBC northern region's Manchester newsroom, and the following year joined its staff in Birmingham, concentrating on sport in the Midlands. At once came the opportunity of which ambitious juniors dream. That dispute revealed a hard-headed side to the man whose affability is one of the ingredients which make the Coleman-chaired A Question of Sport, with its Pringle pullovers and pub repartee, a cosy long-running success. Brendan Foster, Olympic 10,000m bronze medallist: "David Coleman was the greatest sports broadcaster that ever lived. He was a giant of sports broadcasting. It was a privilege to know him and it was a privilege to have him commentating on races during my career." A professional perfectionist, he could be a hard man to work with. Coleman could reduce insecure minions to tears, and often did. He liked cold-eyed, no-nonsense journalists around him, not television's regular vaudevilleans. He had always – and with good reason – a fine conceit of his own value.

When you've got a mountain to climb you may as well throw everything into the kitchen sink straight away. Undeservedly or not, it is the lot of the British sports commentator to suffer the barbs and carping of his or her public. Some of them, and Coleman was certainly one, are as much a part of the national picture as the sportsmen whose acts of valour they describe. Private Eye's Colemanballs is the distillation of that. That the sports blooper column should be named after him has never remotely undermined Coleman's position as the undisputed founding father of modern British sports broadcasting, the commentator who moved the hearts other commentators cannot reach. Working from scant information and a closed circuit TV monitor, he held together the coverage of the unfolding horrors in Munich as Palestinian gunmen held hostage, and then killed, a group of Israeli athletes. Bayern will have the added advantage of playing in their own stadium – that’s like a home game for them. Everyone’s got tough games coming up. Manchester United have got Arsenal, Arsenal have got Manchester United and Leeds have got Leeds.”Coleman's vast sporting knowledge made him the ideal host for Question of Sport, which became British television's longest-running quiz show. Bill Beaumont, Coleman & Ian Botham on a Question of Sport

It was perhaps because of this that Coleman was never frog-marched off to the minority sports - badminton or bowls, fencing or volleyball - where his sense of drama would have been misplaced. His legal wrangle with the BBC in the mid-1970s, which kept him off the screen for a year, centred on his complaint that he was used too parsimoniously and did not have enough editorial involvement. He was offered the job, with his first screen appearance coming on Sportsview on 6 May 1954. Coleman interviewed golfer Roberto de Vicenzo external-link as the production team tried to find Roger Bannister, who had broken the four-minute mile earlier in the day. Fantoni, Barry; Larry (1996). Private Eye's Colemanballs: No. 8. Private Eye Productions. ISBN 978-0-552-14521-3.

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By the age of 22 he was editing a local newspaper in Cheshire, with hopes of developing his running career. Fantoni, Barry; Larry (1984). Private Eye's Colemanballs: No. 2. André Deutsch. ISBN 978-0-233-97700-3. Jonathan Edwards, Olympic gold medal triple jumper: "David was one of that rare breed who had the ability to say just a word and you knew who he was, like Sean Connery in acting and Bill McLaren in rugby."

Fantoni, Barry; Larry (2002). Private Eye's Colemanballs: No. 11. Private Eye Productions. ISBN 978-1-901784-30-5. On demobilisation, he joined Kemsley newspapers in Manchester before becoming a youthful editor of the weekly Cheshire County Press. He was a gifted amateur runner and in 1949 won the annual Manchester Mile, at the time, he would insist, the only non-international ever to have done so. After injuries prevented him from entering trials for the 1952 British Olympic team, he wrote to the BBC.

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Fantoni, Barry; Larry (2000). Private Eye's Colemanballs: No. 10. Private Eye Productions. ISBN 978-1-901784-19-0. Fantoni, Barry; Larry (1986). Private Eye's Colemanballs: No. 3. André Deutsch. ISBN 978-0-233-97985-4.