Charles ‘Charlie’ Smith

Posted: October 17th, 2020

Charles ‘Charlie’ Smith, a former sports editor of the Daily Record, died in the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow in September [2020].

He was sports editor at the Record when the Daily Mirror and the Record took the decision to create a back page sports page. Before that, sport was a premier news page. Charlie had a successful run as sports editor with a top team of production journalists and writers in all areas of sport, but especially football. Sport, then as now, had its own separate battleground in circulation rivalry with the Express and then The Sun.

AMP committee man Malcolm Speed said: “Charlie led the Record’s sports desk with an understated style and a dry, near super-brut sense of humour. He was widely respected by everyone on the editorial floor. Condolences to his wife Ann, children and grandchildren.”