SFWA mourns the loss of Martin Frizell

THE Association is deeply saddened to report that one of our founder members and former president Martin Frizell has passed away.

The News of the World stalwart, who was 86, suffered a heart attack on April 11.

Martin, who spent over 25 years with the paper after originally starting with the old Daily Herald, had moved to live with his son Stewart in Durham only a few weeks earlier.

He had been checked during the day and seemed in good shape when he suffered cardiac arrest.

Sadly, as a result of the coronavirus lockdown, only a very small family funeral will be able to be held.

However, when this madness is over a special memorial will be held in his honour and all members will be informed of what will be a celebration of his life.

Martin, who was SFWA president between 1984 and 1987, covered all of the great Scottish footballing achievements and agonies for four decades.

Allan Herron, now the last surviving original SFWA member, said: “I have known Martin since we both covered Junior football in the 1950s and of course we were both founder members of the association.

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“Martin was a very clever man and he had a great memory. He could always remember every place we ever travelled to and he had great recall which was so important for a journalist.

“We were Sunday colleagues for many years – and he was a very good colleague too as well as a highly competent football writer.”

Kenny MacDonald got to know Martin extremely well when joining the News of the World nearly 30 years ago and considers him a great mentor.

He said: “When I started in 1991 Martin was the paper’s venerable and greatly-respected Scottish bureau chief.  As he often said, this title gave the three-man operation (which I swelled to four) considerably more gravitas than it merited.

“He would remain in position until he retired in 1995 but had long before then established a reputation for scrupulous fairness and even-handedness among the key people in the Scottish game.

“Martin was responsible for recommending me for the job as the News of the World’s second sports reporter and lobbied the paper’s Londoneditor, the Fleet Street veteran Bill Bateson, to hire me.

“Similarly, when Martin retired in 1995, he - along with me - recommended Graeme Bryce to the new sports editor Mike Dunn to join the team.

“Both Graeme’s and my career in journalism would have been vastly different without Martin‘s astute patronage and, in my case, support.

“He was a terrific work colleague, generous and helpful throughout our time together, and after he retired I was always happy to see him at SFWA dinners.

“I last spoke to him a couple of months ago - by which time he was living in sheltered housing following the death of his beloved wife Leigh - and was pleased that he sounded so bright and cheerful.

“I am personally deeply saddened by his passing and the SFWA’s ranks are considerably diminished.”