Horse-racing journalist, failed bookmaker and perhaps England’s greatest living misogynist, John McCririck, has fallen. From his reputation as a professional rent-a-gob, it may be hard to believe that McCririck was originally a highly respected writer – Harrow-educated, he revolutionised the way track data was broadcast to the BBC in the 1970s and was even named Investigative Journalist of the Year in 1979 for his work with the Sporting Life, as part of a series of articles on animal abuse.
But it’s as the deerstalker hat-wearing nightmare housemate in Celebrity Big Brother – where he wandered around in his underpants screaming out for diet cola – or Celebrity Wife Swap – where he briefly made the nation feel sorry for Edwina Currie – that he will be remembered for. Even up until last year, if there was a TV show that needed someone to come on and denigrate the fairer sex, McCririck was there for just his expenses and a chance to insult his long-suffering wife, Booby. He explained that he named her after the bird that is “stupid and pathetically easy to catch”.
John himself turned out to be “pathetically easy to catch” for this year’s deadpoolers: a series of interviews last 2018 showed he was on the way out and he becomes the fourth name to fall from this year’s Drop 40. His death shakes up the chasing pack in the DDP, but we’ll update you on that in a future roundup…
John McCririck
17 April 1940 – 5 July 2019
Died aged 79 (57 picks, six jokers)