Waring was never a noted rugby league player; he was more proficient at football, and had trials with Nottingham Forest and Barnsley. He began work as a typewriter salesman in his home town of Dewsbury, but he gave up that career to join a local newspaper and report on rugby league matches. Alongside his fledgling journalism career he ran the local Dewsbury Boys Rugby League Club, renaming them the Black Knights. During the Second World War Waring managed Dewsbury RLFC as he was exempted from armed service with an ear condition. Recruiting men from a nearby military camp, he led the club to its second Challenge Cup victory in 1943 - the club's last ever success in the competition. Waring travelled on with the Great Britain national rugby league team on the first post-war tour of Australia. Returning home via the United States, he met Bob Hope, who alerted him to the success of televised sport. This is believed to have convinced him that television would be crucial for rugby league's long-term success. In the UK, he pushed this case harder with the BBC, having written to them as far back as 1931. After several rejections, he was given a chance as a broadcaster when the BBC began to cover the sport.
Broadcasting style
Waring's commentary polarised opinion over the next decades. For some viewers he would be "Uncle Eddie," the warm and friendly voice of the north, but others believed that his voice simply reinforced stereotypes. During the 1960s, his eccentric mode of speech and his northern accent began to be widely impersonated, largely due to impersonations by Mike Yarwood. Students formed the Eddie Waring Society in his honour. In the badly rain-affected 1968 Challenge Cup Final at Wembley, Waring described Wakefield Trinity player Don Fox with the line "He's a poor lad!" after Fox missed a last minute kick from in front of the posts against Leeds. The miss handed the cup to his opponents. His commentary on the game was widely praised; The Guardian said in 2007 that the game was "seared into the public consciousness" in part because of it. Many of his lines became catchphrases in the game, including, "It's an up and under" and "He's goin' for an early bath". The Times in March 2006 published a list of 25 favourite sporting quotes and one of Waring's appeared there.
The split in opinion regarding his contribution to the game, plus illness, led to a decline in Waring's popularity. A petition was organised by some hardcore supporters asking the BBC to remove him from commentary as he was perceived to be portraying a poor image of the game and its northern roots. The BBC stuck with him as their main commentator, though in the late 1970s they also brought in former Great Britain halfback Alex Murphy to work alongside him. Illness affected him over the next few years, and he commentated on his last Challenge Cup Final in 1981. After his retirement, former dual rugby international Ray French became the BBC's chief rugby league commentator.
Death
Waring's overall health declined very quickly after his retirement from the commentary box. He was diagnosed with dementia and died at High Royds Hospital in Menston, West Yorkshire in 1986.
