Sandy Roberts shines after Adelaide launch to national TV sports calls – Olympics, AFL – but famed for one little slip
South Australia's Sandy Roberts commentated on more than 700 Australian Football League matches for the Seven television network.
Sandy Roberts’ national television sports commentary and hosting career, starting in Adelaide in the 1970s, was distinguished by covering many Olympic games and hundreds of Australian Football League games – yet often remembered for a gaffe involving just two letters.
Born on a Lucindale sheep farm in South Australia’s southeast in 1950, Roberts' media career started at Perth radio station 6PM, after a short time as a copyboy for The News Adelaide afternoon tabloid newspaper. Roberts then travelled extensively throughout Europe for two years, before returning to Australia, where he joined Radio 3CS in Colac, Victoria, as an announcer.
In 1971, he switched to television station BCV8-TV in Bendigo as a news presenter before joining the Seven television network in Adelaide in 1973 as a general announcer and presenter. In 1980, Roberts was asked to be a commentator for the Moscow Olympics telecast, before moving to Melbourne with Seven.
His range of sports commentary for the Seven network included more than 700 Australian Football league (AFL) games, National Basketball League, Australian Open tennis, the spring racing carnival and many major golf tournaments. He also covered summer Olympic games from 1980 to Beijing 2008, including Sydney 2000, and winter Olympics. Roberts hosted the Seven Network's Bathurst 1000 coverage in 1991,1993 and 1994.
In 2005, Roberts joined Seven News Melbourne after Beverley O’Connor resigned. He also contributed to Seven's telecast of the Good Friday Appeal and hosted gameshows It’s Academic and The $1,000,00 Chance of a Lifetime. In 2013, Roberts left the Seven Network, after 40 years in Melbourne and Adelaide, to work at Fox Sports Australia and Crocmedia radio. He retired from television in 2018.
A famed moment from Roberts’ sports commentary was his description – “There’s a pig at full forward” – during an AFL match between Sydney and St Kilda in 1993, when a Sydney supporter released a pig onto the ground with No.4 and the nickname "Pluga" spraypainted onto it (referring to then-St Kilda player Tony Lockett). But a more often remembered moment – and receiving international media exposure – was his gaffe in introducing the 1981 Miss Australia, Leanne Dick, as "Leanne Cock" during a Mount Gambier Cup race meeting. (Ironically, Dick's surname after marriage was Cockerill).