Leon Hickman was an outstanding and significant figure in Midlands sports reporting, having covered numerous Olympic Games, World Cups and golf Open Championships. He was equally at home at Birchfield Harriers as he was at Birmingham City FC.
For over two decades Leon Hickman was head of sport at the Birmingham Post and Mail, from the mid-1970s all the way through to 2003.
It was a time when newspaper sales were enormous and well over half the population of the city regularly read his work. On joining in 1974, the Birmingham Evening Mail sold around 440,000 copies a day and queues were a regular occurrence on a Saturday evening as Brummies flocked for their copy of the Sports Argus.
Leon Hickman was my father and leaves behind his wife Andrea, to whom he was married for nearly 40 years and another son Andrew.
He was naturally very modest about his talents and would have squirmed at the thought of me saying this, but he was one of the finest reporters in the land. Just ask any of those he ever worked with.
Many of them are also now sadly gone, but just one example was The Sun’s former boxing writer Colin Hart, a giant in the world of pugilism and athletics. Colin was terrific company and great fun to be around, but he did not shower praise lightly. On finding out I was his son, Colin remarked to me in that familiar London voice “Ere, bloody great reporter your old man. And I mean bloody great”. Colin, who passed away earlier this year, wasn’t the only one who felt the same way.
From metallurgy to news agency
Leon Hickman was born in Wolverhampton to my grandfather Alan and grandmother Violet. He initially grew up in Codsall, where he remembered the Second World War ending, then moved to Aldersley as a teenager. After leaving Wolverhampton Grammar School at 16 he secured a highly desirable apprenticeship at a local metallurgy firm. He hated it. For six months he carried his spanners and hammers to work every morning, while secretly having already started as a trainee journalist at a Wolverhampton news agency. When his mother found out, let’s just say she was not impressed.
During his formative years as a journalist he reported on Wolves regularly, the last to do so from their magnificent 1950s era of domination. His favourite was always Peter Broadbent and in his weekly chats with manager Stan Cullis he learnt so much about the game.
Leon Hickman then moved around the country, extending his journalistic knowledge at York, Bradford, Bromley, Worcester and east London, before he made the final switch to Birmingham in 1974.
He flourished at the Birmingham Post and Mail and so did the newspaper. Over the years he worked at events here, there and everywhere, ranging from the Moscow Olympic Games to the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, to Aston Villa’s European Cup triumph in Rotterdam and a wet Tuesday night at Fratton Park reporting on the Blues, where he produced wonderful, uplifting copy on a night when thousands of travelling Brummies got soaked. One of my Blues pals treasured the words so much he even laminated it and put it on his bedroom wall.
Leon Hickman loved Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club down to his socks, but it never remotely affected his reporting of them or any of the other Midlands clubs. In fact, his recommendation to then-West Brom manager Ron Atkinson that he should take a look at a young winger at Leyton Orient – we stood on the terraces at Brisbane Road for his debut – was the trigger that brought a certain Laurie Cunningham to the Hawthorns.
One of his happiest days was watching Villa in Rotterdam and he genuinely rejoiced at the thought of a Midlands club winning the most prestigious tournament in European football.
He was seconded by the former Sports Minister Denis Howell MP to act as press officer for the Birmingham Olympic bid in the mid-1980s and it was Brum’s failure which really led to London’s decision to go for it.
‘Peerless’ journalist with strong sense of humour
Leon Hickman was a very fair-minded journalist who could be tough when needed. He could not stand laziness in any form and woe betide the reporter who did not pull his or her weight. But he could also be very funny and always liked a laugh. Tommy Cooper was his favourite although he was very partial to Eric Morecambe and even the old Laurel and Hardy movies, which would make him hoot.
When we holidayed as kids, usually in France under canvas, he would warn Andrew and I that any misbehaviour would be punished by an imaginary disciplinarian called “Gumshoe Tent”. I think I still believe him to this day.
So Leon Hickman had a strong sense of humour, which Wolves fans would argue is a primary requirement for supporting the team in gold and black.
As a journalist he was quite simply a natural. He gave excellent advice and I turned to him often as I sought to climb the greasy pole.
I was at Sky Sports for several years in the 1990s and their head of sport Vic Wakeling worked for Leon Hickman during his time at the Birmingham Post and Mail, as did Mark Sharman, his deputy. Both had the same opinion of him. Peerless.
Leon Hickman spent his years in retirement travelling around the world with Andrea and he loved attending both Warwickshire and Worcester County Cricket Clubs. We managed to get one last Wolves game in before he passed away on 3 August. On his final visit to Molineux he remarked that the Wolves were “good in parts, bloody rubbish in others”. Which just goes to show, if proof were needed, that some things never change.
By then he was in a wheelchair, so I pushed him out of the North Bank and up Waterloo Road past the statues of Stan Cullis and Billy Wright and I caught him glancing back at the Molineux. For the very last time.
Leon Hickman (born June 26th 1941, died August 3rd 2025).
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