David Vine, who has died of a heart attack at the age of 73, was one of those sports broadcasters who seemed like he had been there forever and always would be.

As Frank Bough, the former Grandstand presenter, attempting to measure his own longevity, once said, “I've been around so long, I remember when David Vine was a grape.”

He was on our screens for 40 years, 25 of them as the patron saint of televised snooker. He brought to the sitting room a Devonian burr, a comforting smile and a pair of reassuringly unfashionable glasses. Less querulous than David Coleman, less smooth than Des Lynam, he was the homely enthusiast, engaged but never alienating, ready to arch an eyebrow.

As the first host of A Question Of Sport, he flew the flag for men's relaxed knitwear, to the extent that, even today, there are people who believe the V in V-neck pullover stands for Vine. He also did his bit for weekend outerwear that kept him cosy on Alpine slopes through years of Ski Sunday.

People sometimes forget his versatility. To travel from the Horse of the Year Show to Miss World may not be too much of a leap, but remember that this was also the man who fronted the first colour broadcasts from Wimbledon, carved a small but sweaty niche for himself in Olympic weightlifting (it was the last thing he covered before retiring in 2000) and who was commentating when Abba won the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton in 1974.

Few were better qualified to stand astride the boundary where sport melted into light entertainment. Starshot, a bold attempt to introduce clay target skeet shooting on BBC Two, missed, but It's A Knockout did not. Vine provided a bemused gloss as teams found ingenious ways to pelt each other with flour and water.

Eventually it led him to The Superstars, permanently linking the Vine legend with an entire catalogue of deathless television moments.

In 2008 Superstars was revived on Five. It wasn't the same. It brought back the concept of the show, it brought back the events, and it brought back the theme tune. But it couldn't re-create Vine.

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