Mike Dickson: A voice of effortless authority

It was another busy day for British players at the Australian Open, and yet the forehands and backhands failed to occupy one’s attention in the way that they usually do.

The explanation was simple. Everyone at this tournament is still reeling from the most tragic news: the passing of the Daily Mail’s tennis correspondent Mike Dickson, who collapsed and died in the small hours of Wednesday morning. He was a week short of his 60th birthday.

For the most part, journalists are a tangential part of a giant operation such as the Australian Open. We ask a few questions and scribble a few lines. Players and administrators view us as a minor irritant, like room tax or athlete’s foot.

And yet, once in a while, a reporter transcends the restrictions of the press room and becomes something akin to the conscience of a sport. In the 1960s, you had Brian Glanville (Sunday Times) in football and EW Swanton (Daily Telegraph) in cricket; in the 1970s, Bud Collins (The Boston Globe) in tennis.

Today, a fragmented media landscape makes it harder to achieve such iconic status. But Mike was the nearest modern equivalent. When he chose to tackle a substantial topic, his words had a tablets-of-stone quality. His was a voice of effortless authority.

His passing has stunned and saddened every member of the tennis bubble. As soon as his Daily Mail colleagues were informed on Wednesday night (Australian time), our phones began to light up with messages. Condolences, expressions of shock, desperate hopes that the news might be fake. A host of major champions – including Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King and Coco Gauff – expressed their sorrow on social media. The hierarchy of Tennis Australia discussed possible tributes. A tweet sent by his family, confirming the tragedy, clocked almost three million views.

Mike had friends everywhere, even among those he wrote about – which is an almost impossible feat to pull off. During the recent Davis Cup finals in Malaga, he spent a couple of evenings in the company of Dan Evans, who had ripped a calf but still came out to support the British team. Last year, he helped Cameron Norrie’s parents, David and Helen, as they house-hunted for a place in south-west London. Andy Murray never failed to stop for a handshake and a chat on his way through the player lounge.

And yet, all these players knew they could expect no soft-pedalling, no punch-pulling, in Mike’s reports. Underperformance, poor preparation, petulance on the court: he would write it how he saw it. “I trusted him and knew he would always be fair,” Sue Barker said in a tribute published by the Mail. “That is all you could ask really.”

That was Mike Dickson, the tennis guru. But what of the private man? The lover of William Boyd’s novels and Joe Jackson’s records? The devoted husband and father who spent so many weekends watching his eldest son play for Wimbledon CC? The generous mentor who offered up-and-coming reporters advice, contacts, and even free lodging?

Suffice to say, I feel privileged to have known him. Mike was old-school in many ways: upright in his bearing, more formally dressed than the rest of us scruffy hacks, conservative in his political views. But his X-factor was the way that he undercut these traditional values with a mischievous sense of humour and a complete lack of pomposity or ego. It was a rare and winning combination.

When I think of Mike, I will think of him sitting at his desk, turning to look over his shoulder (stiffly, for he was a martyr to sciatica), and delivering a wry one-liner, accompanied by his distinctive, infectious chuckle. It is hard to believe that I will never hear that laugh again.

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