Ewart Bryon Butler was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 writer and broadcaster, best known as the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

's football

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

 correspondent from 1968 to 1991.

He was born in Taunton

Taunton

Taunton is the county town of Somerset, England. The town, including its suburbs, had an estimated population of 61,400 in 2001. It is the largest town in the shire county of Somerset....

, Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

 and educated at Taunton School

Taunton School

Taunton School is a co-educational independent school in the county town of Taunton in Somerset in South West England. It serves boarding and day-school pupils from the ages of 13 to 18....

. After working for a number of regional newspaper

Newspaper

A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

s, he joined the News Chronicle

News Chronicle

The News Chronicle was a British daily newspaper. It ceased publication on 17 October 1960, being absorbed into the Daily Mail. Its offices were in Bouverie Street, off Fleet Street, London, EC4Y 8DP, England.-Daily Chronicle:...

 shortly before its closure in 1960, soon moving to The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

. Around this time, he also started reporting football matches for the BBC, and in 1968 became a radio commentator and the Corporation's football correspondent. He was well-known for his crisp, eloquent, precise style, with a distinctive West Country

West Country

The West Country is an informal term for the area of south western England roughly corresponding to the modern South West England government region. It is often defined to encompass the historic counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset and the City of Bristol, while the counties of...

 undertone to his voice. Although he often did not actually commentate on the very big occasions, frequently taking a side role as summariser (in earlier years) or presenter or reporter (in later years), he commentated on a number of World Cup finals, as well as the famous quarter-final between England

England national football team

The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...

 and Argentina

Argentina national football team

The Argentina national football team represents Argentina in association football and is controlled by the Argentine Football Association , the governing body for football in Argentina. Argentina's home stadium is Estadio Monumental Antonio Vespucio Liberti and their head coach is Alejandro...

 in 1986. He frequently worked alongside Maurice Edelston

Maurice Edelston

Maurice Edelston was a British footballer, who later became a sports commentator. Born in Hull, England, he was son of the Hull City footballer Joe Edelston, who was his manager at Reading for a while. At the age of 18, he played in the football tournament in the 1936 Berlin Olympics for Great...

, Peter Jones

Peter Jones (broadcaster)

Peter Jones was a Welsh-born broadcaster, best known as a sports commentator on BBC radio in the United Kingdom, although many of his commentaries were also broadcast internationally on the BBC World Service...

, Alan Parry

Alan Parry

Alan Parry is a British sports commentator, born and raised in Garston, Liverpool, concentrating on football and athletics. He has commentated for all three main broadcasters of football in the UK - the BBC, ITV and Sky TV, as well as for both BBC and commercial radio.Starting his career at BBC...

 and, latterly, Alan Green and Mike Ingham

Mike Ingham

Mike Ingham, MBE is a British football commentator and broadcaster.-Early life:He grew up in Duffield and Quarndon , and attended The Herbert Strutt School in Belper, then a grammar school...

.

Alongside his football writing, Butler also wrote for the Daily Telegraph on cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

. He wrote or co-wrote a number of football books, and in 1991 he retired as the BBC's football correspondent to concentrate on his writing career. He also gave up commentary around this time, but continued to report matches for BBC Radio 5 Live

BBC Radio 5 Live

BBC Radio 5 Live is the BBC's national radio service that specialises in live BBC News, phone-ins, and sports commentaries...

 until 1997. He also presented Sport on 4

Sport on Four

Sport on Four was a long running sports programme aired on BBC Radio 4 between 1977 and 1998 on Saturday mornings. It featured many well known BBC sports journalists and was presented for over 10 years by Cliff Morgan. Other presenters/ reporters on the programme included Bryon Butler. Its theme...

on BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...

. On his death in 2001, he was widely mourned as a representative of a bygone era of sports broadcasting, arguably less brash and more eloquent than the present.