Wednesday 11th August - talkSPORT

Danny Kelly presenting Kick-Off: International Special with Matt Holland and Alvin Martin live from Wembley.

International Friendlies
England v Hungary - John Anderson and Alvin Martin
Montenegro v Northern Ireland - Ian Danter
Republic of Ireland v Argentina - David Brady
Sweden v Scotland - Mark Donaldson
Wales v Luxembourg - Nigel Pearson

Carling Cup: First Round
Cardiff v Burton - Roger Hughes

Wednesday 11th August - talkSPORT

Danny Kelly presenting Kick-Off: International Special alongside Alvin Martin (from Wembley) and Matt Holland

International Friendly Matches
England v Hungary - John Anderson and Alvin Martin, with Mike Parry on the gantry and Ian Abrahams interviewing the fans on Wembley Way
Montenegro v Northern Ireland - Ian Danter
Republic of Ireland v Argentina - David Brady
Sweden v Scotland - Mark Donaldson
Wales v Luxembourg - Nigel Pearson

Carling Cup First Round
Cardiff City v Burton Albion - Roger Hughes

BBC Radio Scotland, 11/8/10

Sweden v Scotland - David Begg and John Robertson (810MW commentary), with Chick Young pitchside

5 Live

Tuesday

Bradford v Nott Forest Conor McNamara & Kevin Radcliffe (2nd half commentary)
Chesterfield v Middlesbrough Dave Woods & Dean Kiely
Exeter v Ipswich Andy Gillies
Leeds v Lincoln Stuart Pyke
QPR v Port Vale George Riley
Yeovil v C Palace Steve May

I think there were a couple of others that I can't remember

Wednesday

England v Hungary John Murray, Phil Neville, Graham Taylor & Darren Fletcher
Montenegro v N Ireland Nigel Adderley
Sweden v Scotland Roddy Forsyth
Wales v Luxembourg Ian Brown

BBC Radio Wales

Wales V Luxembourg - Simon Davies hosting with commentary from Rob Phillips and Ian Walsh (who isn't impressed with 'fellow pundit' Jason Perry accusing Craig Bellamy of selfishness). Kevin Ratcliffe in the role of 'as an ex-professional...' (SW FM / North FM / AM)

Cardiff City V Burton Albion (Carling Cup 1st round) - Phil Steele and Nathan Blake (SE FM / Digital TV/Radio)

BBC Radio Cymru

Wales V Luxembourg - Gareth Rhys Owen with commentary from Dylan Griffiths and Meilir Owen
Cardiff City V Burton Albion - Ian Thomas (updates)

Real Radio South Wales

Wales V Luxembourg - Mark Poyser
Cardiff City V Burton Albion - Simon Kendal Williams (Western Mail)

Wish FM in Wigan (owned by the same owners as Talksport) just announcing that home & away full match commentary on Wigan Athletic games will return the station this season.

The station started doing from the ground updates on Wigan when they launched in April 1997, just before they won what was the Division Three title. The stations first commentary was on the 1998 Auto Windscreens Shield final victory against Millwall and eventually it grew to second half commentary on away games then to full match commentary on away games as Wigan progressed from Division 2 to the Premiership. Commentary continued until the end of 2006/2007 before the owners pulled the budget away. So after three seasons of no coverage at all, the commentaries return.

Graham Lovett will be the commentator on matches. He used to do Bolton commentary for sister Tower FM but has been a regular on WIsh FM since the station launched, mainly on Rugby League. He has been doing the website commentary on Latics games since Wish FM last had commentary rights in 2006/2007 though so it's not that new a role for him.

Former Wigan midfielder Neil Rimmer will be his co-commentator for the Blackpool match on Saturday with Andy Lawson hosting Wish FM Saturday Sport from 2pm.

Thanks for posting that news Andy.

Now that Wish FM have returned to Wigan Athletic commentaries, as far as I know that takes the number of UTV Radio stations doing local football commentaries up to three.

Elsewhere, The Pulse of West Yorkshire do Bradford City's home and away commentaries (and they also covered Huddersfield Town last season, not sure if they are continuing with them though) and Swansea Sound cover Swansea City home and away (on their website they say they do Swans commentary, but judging by Ian C's posts it appears as if they mostly do reports). I guess the latter's FM sister station The Wave might take updates on the Swans too.

As for UTV Radio's other local UK-based stations, Signal 1 and 2 covers Stoke, Port Vale and Crewe with updates as does The Wolf for Wolves. Do Tower FM still cover Bolton? Judging by the post above this one it doesn't sound like they do commentaries on them anymore.

As was discussed on here around Play-Off Final time, Radio Wave does not cover Blackpool at all (not even when they get to Wembley!), Wire FM is in rugby league territory and Peak FM doesn't have any Premier League or Championship clubs in its North Derbyshire catchment area.

Central Radio did Preston North End commentaries and Imagine FM did Stockport County games home and away before UTV Radio sold both stations off, and before it closed Talk 107 FM in Edinburgh covered Scottish football, which was notable for bringing Mark Donaldson to the attention of talkSPORT.

Does anyone have any further information about any UTV Radio station's coverage of football? Specifically it would be good to know if Signal or The Wolf still send reporters to their team's grounds or if they just do updates from the vidiprinter on Saturday afternoons.

Seeing as they can call upon talkSPORT's resources and that Blackpool, Bolton, Stoke and Wolves are all Premier League clubs (meaning all of their league games and most of their cup games will be covered by TS reporters), to me it would make sense if Radio Wave, Tower FM, Signal and The Wolf took updates from the talkSPORT reporters at their team's games - either live or on a delayed basis after the updates air on talkSPORT.

When talkSPORT used to do Saturday 3pm commentaries on 1089am in London between 2001 and 2004, their reporters would provide separate updates for Football First nationally and for those opt-out commentaries, so I'm pretty sure reporting into both Matchday Live and a UTV local station would be feasible.

My view is that Wigan Athletic need Wish FM and vice versa. Especially with the rugby club in the town bucking up this year they need the extensive coverage that Wish FM used to provide to get their message across. As we discussed last week in this thread the club is an after thought on BBC Radio Manchester. So I suspect the club were perhaps the instigators of the deal rather than the station.

The commentaries had definetly been missed in the town. It's the first time they've allowed full match home games though. Last time they were doing home games with adverts included during commentary.

Central Radio said that "PNE have changed the commercial arrangements for their media rights with regard to full match commentary and we can no longer afford to carry it." in regards to Preston coverage. They are still doing broadcasts from outside the ground apparently between 2:30 and 3pm and 5pm to 5:30pm.

I don't think Tower FM cover Bolton at all anymore apart from using IRN updates.

Stockport commentaries switched to "Pure Radio" when Imagine FM (were forced to) ditch them. The "Pure County" show is still airing home & aay commentary every Saturday afternoon with the commentator (Jon Keighren) that used to do the games on Imagine.

In regards to Blackpool I think its less worthy for Radio Wave to do commentary than it is for Wish FM or Tower FM because BBC Radio Lancashire provide commentary on every away match, which isn't the case with Wigan and Bolton on Wish FM.

It'll be interesting to see how Radio Lancs get round the fact Blackpool's game has switched away from home meaning Blackpool, Preston and Burnley are all away this Saturday. I know the station has provided three commentaries before but I'm not sure they can all fit onto FM. We shall see.

Re: UTV station Peak FM.

Last year, they re-introduced commentary on all Chesterfield matches home and away after a gap of a few seasons, and the website suggests this is continuing this season.

Thanks for all the additional information about the North-Western stations Andy and thanks to JamSir for giving us the heads up about Peak FM covering Chesterfield - that brings the total number of UTV local radio stations doing football commentaries this season up to four.

Do you know who commentates on the Spirites for Peak? A Google search tells me that Naz Premji (now a BBC Final Score and occasional 5 Live reporter) was part of their commentary team during their previous spell covering the club.

As for Central Radio and Imagine FM - I guess the reason why they pulled out of doing commentary on Preston and Stockport respectively will be because UTV Radio funded their initial coverage and once the stations were sold into independent hands the new owners either couldn't afford to or didn't think it was worthwhile to renew their contracts with the clubs.

Interesting to hear that Tower FM takes the IRN (or technically now Sky News Radio) updates on Bolton. On the face of it, it would seem more sensible for them to take talkSPORT's updates on these games, but then again the IRN service is designed for this kind of thing. Out of interest, do UTV Radio's local stations still take the Sky News Radio updates or are news bulletins all done in-house like how talkSPORT do them now?

I wonder if Signal or The Wolf do the same thing as Tower when it comes to IRN. The Signal 2 website, when referring to their Saturday football coverage, says: "We'll also update you nationally with the resources of our sister station talkSPORT," so this may not be the case.

It's worth pointing out that quite a few football commentators and reporters have progressed to talkSPORT from their local radio sister stations down the years, both during the UTV Radio and The Wireless Group ownership eras.

The most notable of these was Chris Cooper, who had been a Bradford City and Huddersfield Town commentator on The Pulse of West Yorkshire before moving to London to present on talkSPORT in 2002 and later becoming their lead football commentator between 2004 and 2006.

You also have Mark Donaldson who was brought in from Talk 107 FM in Edinburgh, Simon Humphreys who commentated/reported on Stoke City for Signal and Dave Rowe who was a presenter and commentator on Wolves games for The Wolf before they lost rights to Beacon.

And on afternoons when Stockport County are not playing, Jon Keighren (the aforementioned former Imagine and now Pure FM Stockport commentator) will occasionally pop up reporting on games from the North-West.

BBC Radio Leicester had a special edition of The Football Forum this evening to discuss the takeover of Leicester City. Presented by Martin Ballard with Ian Stringer between 18:00-19:00.


He was reporting on a game for Sky Sports News' Soccer Special either Tuesday or Wednesday this week.

That's a decent shout La Rhumba - talkSPORT haven't had a devoted Yorkshire football correspondent since Tim White largely stopped reporting for them a few seasons ago, so if Phil Blacker was able to report on games from that part of the world (perhaps not all that unlikely, seeing as last season he did some commentaries on games in the North-West for Key 103 and Magic) he's be a very useful addition to their team.

At the moment, games played in Yorkshire tend to be shared out between John Temple, their secondary North-Eastern reporter after Graham Courtney, Grahame Lloyd, who is generally based in Humberside or East Anglia but covers various areas and the likes of Graham Beecroft, Dom McGuinness and Simon Humphreys who usually cover games played in the North-West. Bringing in a specific Yorkshire correspondent wouldn't be a bad move.

In contrast, talkSPORT have plenty of football reporters who are based in London - there have contracted guys like Ian Abrahams, Andrew McKenna and Mike Bovill, plus freelancers like Andy Clarke, Pete Abbott, Dan Freeman and Tony Incenzo. They also have Antony D'Angelo and Jon Norman, who although primarily producers have done some match reporting in the past. So it's not as if they need another London-based reporter.


There's a clip of Mike Bovill taking about Ian Abrahams on that talkSPORT audio documentary they did a while back, where he says: "I went off to do the Rugby World Cup at the end of 2003 and he was just a football reporter. When I came back suddenly he'd taken over!"

I think Ian joined talkSPORT from LBC at the beginning of the 2003/04 football season. I remember one of his first reports being about the delayed construction of the new Wembley for Hawksbee & Jacobs, with Paul and Andy thinking he must be the Sky Sports cricket correspondent Tim Abraham!

But Boves was right - he did have a bit of meteoric rise at talkSPORT. He covered for Andrew McKenna on the afternoon sports bulletins for three or four months while Macca was in Sri Lanka and the West Indies for talkSPORT at the Test and shortly after Macca returned to the UK he started reading the news on the Sports Breakfast and mid-mornings after a previous newsreader left. They later moved him back to doing sport bulletins after they brought in Rachel Brookes for Pete Abbott in the mornings. So he's been quite prominent on talkSPORT since those first reports - there's no mistaking him now!

Are any lower non-league teams given extensive commentary around the country by non-BBC stations?

The ones I know of around the North West are:

High Peak Radio (FM in West Derbyshire) : Coverage and occasional commentaries (derbies, fa vase big games etc) of Glossop North End, New Mills and Buxton

Warrington Radio : Online only : Full match commentary on most Warrington Town home games

Lancaster City are covered home and sometimes away by the local University radio station Bailrigg FM on 88.7FM

Jackland games are commentaries. There's no point having a reporter being at a Jackland game for The Wave, since the game is being covered by a station owned by the same group. There might be a few mentions on The Wave about Jackland games beforehand being 'on our AM/sister station'.
Last edited by Ian Cleverly : 12-08-2010 at 20:56

Yes they will be doing three commentaries on Saturday and Fleetwood will now be featuring regularly, so Radio Lancs will now be following seven teams.

Express FM have taken up the reigns from The Quay in providing home and away commercial radio commentaries on Portsmouth this season.

The commentary team on Pompey Live thus far (for Coventry City v Portsmouth in the Championship on Saturday and Stevenage v Portsmouth in the League Cup on Monday) has been former Quay commentator Chris Wise and ex-Pompey player John Durnin.

There is a separate DS thread discussing Express FM's coverage here.


Thanks Ian.

I should have been a bit more clear in my wording in the post that you quoted. While obviously coverage will chiefly be on Swansea Sound, it would not surprise me if The Wave take pre-recorded pre-match/half-time/full-time reports from the Swans commentator on their news bulletins etc, as opposed to them having a separate reporter doing live updates. By the same token, I could see Pulse 2 taking similar reports from Pulse FM's coverage of Bradford City.

Sam Matterface officially announced as talkSPORT's new lead-commentator: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010...ll-commentator
[LIST][*]QPR manager Neil Warnock also confirmed as a pundit for the station's new Sunday afternoon show hosted by Alan Brazil. Warnock will be a pundit on a new show, Sunday Exclusive, to air between 12:00-16:00, showcasing the station's new Sunday lunchtime kickoff.[/LIST]

Confirmation in the Guardian today that Sam Matterface is becoming talkSPORT's Premier League commentator and that he and QPR manager Neil Warnock will be working with Alan Brazil on the station's new Sunday Exclusive programme: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010...ll-commentator

The article (and another one elsewhere on the Guardian's site) seems to suggest that Sam Matterface is leaving Sky Sports News to join talkSPORT, which appears to have been backed up by the man himself on Twitter:


The Guardian's main article says that he will be commentating on all of talkSPORT's 64 live Premier League commentaries this season, but says nothing about the station's (yet to be confirmed) Champions League coverage.

If he's signed a contract, as opposed to working for them freelance, I wonder if this puts him in a position ahead of the likes of Ian Danter and John Rawling to do those games as well?

Too slow, again!

You narrowly beat me to the crux of the matter but I've added a bit more info.

Well this is a strange one. Sorry to say it but Matterface's previous efforts as a radio commentator were horribly shrieky, shouty and amateurish. And yet he will be doing all 64 PL games on Talk! Thank the Lord I have Sky Sports.

He was doing extremely well on SSN, obviously highly thought of there and doing an excellent job, yet he obviously feels his future is in commentary. I could certainly never imagine him as a TV commentator and I guess Sky couldn't either otherwise they would surely have given him a go on Football First or Champions League.

It suggests to me that Talk are moving in a totally different direction and I wonder if this decision was taken before Jim Proudfoot's move to Absolute?

Are you sure that Sam has never done a Football First/Champions League commentary for Sky Sports? It would be good if someone who keeps records from the TV side of the kind thing we post in this thread can confirm this.

I must say I'd be slightly surprised if they've never ever given Sam the chance to do a football commentary, given his experience in radio, during his three seasons with Sky.

I know Nigel Pearson, who is a contracted speedway and darts commentator for Sky, has done a handful of Football First commentaries for them (all of which I think were on non-televised Sunday games that had been moved due to UEFA Cup/Europa League games, so they never interfered with his talkSPORT commitments on Saturdays), so if they were willing to give him a try-out then I'm not sure why it'd be any different with Sam.

Then again, with Sam often commentating for Premier League Radio on Saturdays and Sundays, and with his Sky Sports News presenting opportunities during the week, perhaps his other commitments prevented him from getting the chance to commentate on a game for Sky.


Those are interesting points.

Perhaps Moz Dee has brought in Sam in reaction to Absolute nabbing Jim Proudfoot away from them. You might remember that Sam presented Rock & Roll Football for Absolute at the back end of last season, so perhaps they were hoping to use him on their coverage regularly before/after the signing of JP?

I have a gut feeling that part of the reason why Moz has signed up Sam Matterface, who has a pretty neutral, accent-less voice, is because he perhaps wasn't comfortable with having two West Midlands voices making up their commentary team.

talkSPORT will almost certainly receive some of their biggest ever audiences when doing exclusive commentaries this season, but many of these listeners will be people who have rarely if ever tuned in to the station before and are only doing so because it is the only place to listen to these games.

Unfortunately there is a bit of stigma about West Midlands accents, they are frequently deemed to be unpopular and there might be a feeling that having another one on top of Stan Collymore's voice might prove to be a turn-off for some of the more snobbish new listeners that come their way.

You only need to look at 5 Live - I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed the complete absence of a West Midlands accent of any sort from their roster of football presenters, commentators and summarisers (a line-up which has been partly shaped by Moz Dee down the years).

So perhaps this was part of the reason why he has gone with Sam ahead of Ian Danter and Nigel Pearson.

Another less controversial reason could simply be that Sam Matterface is a known name and face from TV, and since the UTV Radio takeover talkSPORT have always liked to sign up "names" to their station.

You mention how it looks like talkSPORT is heading in a new direction when it comes to their football coverage, well I would make you right with the caveat that they have been moving in this new direction since Moz Dee became their programme controller two years ago.

As someone who has waited patiently over the past ten years for talkSPORT to finally win exclusive Premier League commentary rights, I have to be honest and say I am slightly disappointed that it looks like their coverage team will chiefly be made up of former Sky and 5 Live broadcasters, rather than the people who attracted me to their football commentaries in the first place.

The likes of Alan Parry, Jim Proudfoot, Alvin Martin, Graham Beecroft, Ray Houghton, Chris Cooper, Gary Stevens, Nigel Pearson and Ian Danter have all left or have been marginalised by the station, which is a shame given all they have contributed over the past decade.

Saturday 14th August - BBC WM

WM Sport with Paul Franks from the Stadium of Light (2-5.15pm) and Daz Hale from Stamford Bridge (5.15-8pm)

Premier League
Aston Villa v West Ham United - Phil Cartwright, with Jane France interviewing the fans outside Villa Park
Sunderland v Birmingham City - Mark Regan and Ron Atkinson (3pm commentary on 95.6FM)
Wolverhampton Wanderers v Stoke City - Mike Taylor (3pm commentary on DAB)
Chelsea v West Bromwich Albion - Richard Wilford and Daz Hale (5.30pm commentary)

League One
Brentford v Walsall - Tom Marlow


Early details courtesy of the new BBC WM Sport Twitter account. It looks like they've stopped doing The Big Pie newsletter, which they sent out via e-mail throughout last season, and have succeeded that with this.

Mike Taylor will commentate solo on Wolves v Stoke, although on Twitter he's trying to recruit Jacqui Oatley, 5 Live's reporter at Molineux, as his summariser!

It's odd that they are not splitting their DAB platform in order to do Villa v West Ham commentary - good news for BRMB and Absolute though.

Indeed they have a bad reputation with some (though not with me; I've always rather enjoyed them) but the thing you have to remember is that people in Birmingham who listen to Lil Wayne can still speak with very strong accents, and there are places where that just doesn't happen anymore. Try the West Country for accents which have a stigma *even on their own patch*.

Some early 5 Live commentary details for the weekend, courtesy of the Sportsworld pages on the BBC World Service website.

The commentary team listed for Wigan v Blackpool on Saturday at 3.00 pm is John Murray with Jimmy Armfield as summariser. No second commentator is listed, I don't know if that is a mistake or whether 5 Live are only running with one commentator.

On Sunday, the Liverpool v Arsenal commentary team is John Murray, Darren Fletcher and summariser Pat Nevin.

The BBC World Service are promising over 50 live Saturday and Sunday afternoon commentaries this season. All of which, of course, are broadcast on 5 Live.

More interestingly, in a trail on-air today, this season the Sportsworld programmes will be broadcast online for the first time. Previously, the programme was blocked due to rights restrictions (although it could be recieved via a number of BBC re-broadcasters!)

This is which will make life a lot easier for expats and holiday makers to pick up weekend radio commentaries and is a good move by the Premier League IMO.