There is nothing quite as funny as a blow to the genitals. Somebody else's, of course. Unless you are the sports editor, the man who put the sad into sado-mackintosh. This is a condition involving self-harm in the rain. And this brings us to rugby league.

The humour of, erm, body blows was never better exploited than by Eddie Waring in his rugby league commentaries. Woody Allen, shamefully, ignored Hunslet v Hull Kingston Rovers. Bill Hicks could never quite grasp the eternal relevance of a man being struck in the family jewels by the knee of a rampaging psychopath. But Eddie made a substantial career out of the whack of gristle on gonad.

As a prop forward, eerily resembling a downed wildebeest, lay in the mud of T'Steamin' Hotpot Stadium, wee Eddie would remark: "He'll be all right. I saw his eyelids flicker." This cued laughter everywhere except in rugby league land. Wee Eddie made a profit but was never honoured in his own land.

He inhabited the bit of Grandstand that came after the horse-racing and the scrambling (too difficult to explain but it involved mud, leathers, and men. And was much loved by the sports editor). Eddie commentated on the rugby league match of the day. Many in the heartland of the 13-man code believed he downgraded the sport by making it laughable, a figure of fun for the south. There is more than a hint of truth in this.

There was a definite, awkward feeling surrounding the coverage of rugby league. It was a mixture of sniffy condescension and relaxed incomprehension. It seemed to be just a filler before the football results. Eddie contributed to this by his irreverent, sometimes irrelevant commentary. But he is a hero to me. And this is why. He introduced me to rugby league. Sure, I later found his commentary a bit patronising, even irritating. But the lad from Dewsbury had led me to a sport that was compelling. Rugby league does everything that rugby union does, only better. And with two players fewer.

The league players were faster, fitter and tougher than their union counterparts. They were as hard and unforgiving as a Govan moneylender with a mouth abscess and a heavy dose of the Duke of Argylls during a a credit crunch that involves the rearranging of myriad kneecaps. Poor, poor Myriad. But that is another story.

No, rugby league was and is a fantastic game. Union types may sniff. But I remember a Wigan side putting a series of union sides to the sword in the annual Very Posh Sevens Tournament Where Geraint Met Sofie over a Buffalo Burger at Twickenham.

The smart guys in union (the ones who never, ever played in a scrum) saw league was the better game and stole so much from the rival code that a mask should have been part of every union kit. Fitness regimes, defensive alignments and angles of attack were all formulated by men who had learned the oval game in the league code.

Those of us who learned about the league game through Eddie had no surprise as it became much more thrilling, more technically brilliant than its union counterpart. It still remained as hard as the stare from Gordon Brown when you ask him how much he loves Tony Blair. Or Wendy Alexander.

I remember Shaun Edwards, one of the rugby league greats, breaking his jaw. It hung like a lavvy door off its hinges. He continued, though, to charge into tackles. And chew his gum. Anyway.

Union could and did respond.

It went professional. It took players from league. It still does. It brought in rule changes to speed the game up, make it more fluent. Make it more like rugby league. It has improved. It may even now be almost as good a game as league.

But poor Eddie remains either unloved or patronised. Or both.

Yet he was the man who brought rugby league into the wider world. He was the entrepreneur who brought touring teams to the masses. He was the face and, more importantly, the voice behind a sport that has now embraced a present and a future that has no room for any condescension, however well-intended.

Poor Eddie descended into dementia and died in 1986. He left £75,000 (or "the kitty" as it is known to football players). He has been gloriously resurrected in an excellent book. The collective memory of Eddie may be fading, but rugby's debt to him should not be forgotten.

  • Being Eddie Waring by Tony Hannan is published by Mainstream at £14.99.