Keith Macklin was rugby league correspondent for The Times from 1978 to 1992. Reporting on his beloved sport formed just part of a wide-ranging journalistic and broadcasting portfolio that spanned more than 50 years. He was still commentating on rugby league for local radio until shortly before his death.

He was a well-known face and voice on BBC television and radio and ITV and commercial radio as a sports commentator and news presenter. His sporting passion and professionalism were matched by a velvety eloquence, and he came to be regarded as a doyen of broadcasting in northern England, where he always lived and worked.

Macklin’s unflappable approach, unstinting civility, charm and humour endeared him to the public, to the players he interviewed and to his fellow professionals.

He was never happier than when behind a microphone at a sports ground, and he enjoyed a remarkable longevity in his career in journalism and broadcasting that had started at the Warrington Guardian in 1951 after his National Service in the RAF.

Although he thrived on covering a variety of sports, rugby league remained his first love after he was first taken by his father to a game at St Helens. It was a source of pride that he had reported on every Challenge Cup final at Wembley since 1955, that year as rugby league reporter for the Barrow Evening Mail. He made his radio debut a year later and then moved into television, presenting the BBC’s Look North local news programme for six years from 1960.

Macklin also introduced a Saturday night Rugby League Extra programme with Eddie Waring and Stuart Hall for BBC's north region, which led to various new projects. He presented the first series of Pot Black, Rugby Special and Time Out, an outdoors adventure programme produced by the Olympic athlete Chris Brasher, all on the new BBC 2 channel. His personal favourite was A Spoonful of Sugar, a trailblazing programme in which he and Barbara MacDonald, his co-presenter, would present long-stay hospital patients with fantastic surprises.

In 1969 he succeeded Danny Blanchflower, the celebrated Ireland player, as a football commentator at Yorkshire Television, and covered the achievements of the great Leeds United team of the 1970s. He also commentated for ITV at the 1972 Olympics and 1974 World Cup, on cricket and show jumping, and was a member of the commentary team on Indoor League, the pub game programme hosted by Fred Trueman.

As well as being a Methodist lay preacher, Macklin was also involved in religious broadcasting as a presenter on Songs of Praise and came up with the idea for The Sunday Quiz, which he hosted for six series on ITV in the early 1970s and attracted audiences of up to 12 million. He later presented Border Television’s Lookaround news programme, but the constant travelling to Carlisle from his family home in Widnes led to a change of direction as head of public relations for Warrington New Town Development Corporation.

Macklin combined this role with a variety of freelance sports broadcasting activities, including his appointment in 1978 as the first recognised rugby league correspondent for The Times.

He also covered football and cricket matches for the newspaper. His radio and television output was also prolific, and in 1982 he was part of a team that launched Red Rose Radio in Preston, as head of programmes.

The inspiration for his 2007 autobiography A Two Horse Town came from a reader’s letter to The Times complaining during the Great Britain rugby league team’s tour to Australia in 1988 of his description of Gympie as “a one-horse town”, in an allusion to its goldmining past. Macklin wrote: “As Peter Wilson of the Daily Star put it: there were obviously two horses in Gympie.”

Macklin commentated on football on The Goal Rush and The Premiership for ITV from 1999 to 2003 and he was a regular feature with his radio microphone and ISDN box at rugby league matches and press conferences until not long before his death. His boyhood enthusiam for sport and broadcasting remained undimmed.

He was divorced from his wife Sheila, with whom he had two daughters. The younger died from a lifelong degenerative condition in 2005. He is survived by his partner, Kate, and his elder daughter.

Keith Macklin, journalist and broadcaster, was born on January 19, 1931. He died on August 1, 2009, aged 78