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CAREER As a youngster Ray Warren was amazed by the talent of horse commentator Ken Howard: he was amazed by the caller's ability to paint the perfect picture of the race track. He could not believe how Howard could tell the horses apart - before he learned that they were identified by the jockeys' colours. As a child, Ray Warren used to roll marbles down a wooden slope and call them as horses. He eventually followed in the footsteps of his brother and joined the police force. It was during his brief stint in uniform he got a phone call as a result of all the door-knocking he had done at various radio stations as a teenager. Ray took the job offered to him in Young, New South Wales as a rugby league commentator - a move which started his career in broadcasting. In 1980, .1 Over the next six years, Warren travelled many miles to call horse races, but his luck changed when the Nine Network recruited him as part of its team to broadcast swimming at the 1990 Commonwealth Games with Norman May. The television rights for rugby league were bought by Nine two years later and after a year or two calling as Mossop's offsider, he has been calling the game for them ever since. Warren has since overcome his fear of flying, and has travelled to the United Kingdom , Hong Kong , Yokohama , Fukuoka and Montreal for the network's swimming coverage. Ray Warren is known for his passionate commentary, and has often been parodied by The Twelfth Man . His deep, bass voice has become synonymous with rugby league in Australia, and he is renowned for his proficient ability to switch between forceful play-calling and (sometimes) eloquent commentary. Warren is also famous for his use of jocular??? phrases, seemingly verbose words and clichés. For instance, he at times refers to Newcastle Knights players and supporters as "Novocastrians" (correction: which is not jocular but is totally correct because "Novocastrian" means "dwellers of Newcastle", Novo meaning New and Castrian meaning Castle!), the first 20 minutes of a half of football as an "opening stanza", and hometown fans as being "in the ascendancy" when simply cheering for their side. Occasionally, Warren has been criticised for getting carried away - for example his use of the terms "Big Willie" and "Little Willie" ("willie" being a slang term for Penis ) to describe Canterbury Bulldogs players Willie Mason (115kg/253lbs) and Willie Tonga (92kg/203lbs) respectively (He calls them "Willie" because that's their names!). He also received flak for muddling the name of Queensland fullback Karmichael Hunt and referring to him as "Kunt" in a 2007 State Of Origin game. Later in the same match, he claimed that the Queensland side had "really bent the New South Wales team over", and was rebuked by journalists and viewers alike for his use of such a crude sexual euphamism. PERSONAL LIFE Ray Warren lives in the Sydney suburb of Castle Hill with his wife, Cher, and daughter, Holly. Ray's first son, Chris Warren, is a rugby league presenter for Sky Sports in England . Interestingly, Ray was once the chief commentator in a match that Chris participated in while he was a player for the Western Suburbs Magpies in the early 1990s. REFERENCES |
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