Stan Collymore has confirmed on Twitter that today's match is indeed talkSPORT's 64th (and presumably final) Premier League commentary of the season.


Call Collymore will be on at the usual time of 4-6pm today, and thus will be interspersed by updates from the four 4pm Premier League matches as well as the late Play-Off game and Premiership Semi-Final in the rugby union (that or it will be an Around the Grounds show interrupted by phone-calls, depending on your perspective).

If I was drawing up the talkSPORT schedule, I'd have scheduled Football First on Sunday in either it's old 4-7/8pm timeslot or have something along those lines between 4-6pm, before Call Collymore (coming from the closest UTV Radio station studio - perhaps Pulse FM in West Yorkshire?) picks up the baton between 6-8pm. But they've gone with Call Collymore as usual, so it'll be interesting to see how that will work.

Sunday 15th May - talkSPORT

Alan Brazil presenting Sunday Exclusive alongside Ray Houghton, followed by Call Collymore from Stamford Bridge

Premier League
Chelsea v Newcastle United - Sam Matterface and Stan Collymore (1.30pm commentary), with Andrew McKenna at pitchside
Arsenal v Aston Villa - Mike Bovill
Birmingham City v Fulham - Ian Abrahams
Liverpool v Tottenham Hotspur - Graham Beecroft
Wigan Athletic v West Ham United - Dave Rowe

League One Play-Off Semi-Final First Leg
Milton Keynes Dons v Peterborough United - Tony Incenzo

League Two Play-Off Semi-Final First Leg
Stevenage v Accrington Stanley - Dom McGuinness

Scottish Premier League
Celtic v Motherwell - Graham Courtney
Kilmarnock v Rangers - Geoff Peters

Rugby Union: Premiership Semi-Final
Saracens v Gloucester - Simon Ward

Sunday 15th May - BBC WM

Daz Hale presenting WM Sport from St Andrew's

Premier League
Arsenal v Aston Villa - Andrew Dawkins
Birmingham City v Fulham - Rob Gurney and Daz Hale (4pm commentary)


BRMB and Gold (Birmingham)

Tom Ross presenting The Goalzone from St Andrew's

Premier League
Arsenal v Aston Villa - Mikey Burrows and Pat Heard (4pm Gold commentary)
Birmingham City v Fulham - Tom Ross and Jon McCarthy (4pm BRMB commentary)

I'm getting updates from Simon Ward too this afternoon on TD1 Radio.

Also on TD1 Radio/Sky News Feed Live reports I am getting through are as follows:

Chelsea v Newcastle - Russell Hargreaves
Liverpool v Spurs - Shane Pinnington
Birmingham v Liverpool - Clive Edwards
Arsenal v Villa - Nigel Bidmead
Wigan v West Ham - Peter Smith

Wigan vs West Ham - Alistair Bruce Ball, Jason Roberts and Ian Dennis
Birmingham vs Fulham - Pat Murphy
Liverpool vs Spurs - Darren Fletcher on 5Live, ? and Matt Jackson on SE
Arsenal vs Fulham - Mike Sewell

Great idea to have Jason Roberts on IMO given his involvement with Blackburn and his past with Wigan

BBC London Sport
Arsenal v Aston Villa Emma Jones
Chelsea v Newcastle Jamie Hill
Birmingham v Fulham Ankur Desai
Liverpool v Tottenham Phil Parry and Bradley Allen (DAB and DSAT commentary)
Wigan v West Ham Nick Godwin (also host) and Clive Walker (FM commentary)
R/U: Saracens v Gloucester Andy Rowley

Ian Brown at Anfield for Sports Extra

Commentary of the season (so far) from the 5Live team at Wigan today. Brilliant stuff especially from Ian Dennis, Jason Roberts was impressive too

Having listened to Call Collymore from around 4pm today until just after Football First started, I would like to compliment them on their excellent coverage, I rarely listen to Talksport, but on the rare occasions that I have this season, their coverage has been outstanding.

Passing through Telford area about 3pm ish time on Sunday BBC Shropshire

Telford v Guisley

James Bond host/link/pitchside

Nick Southall commentator
chris hudson summeriser

and Shaun Parish former telford player? chipping in with odd comments

Sorry if any of the names are incorrect

I didn't listen to much radio this afternoon but from the bits of Call Collymore I caught, I felt Stan did very well juggling the calls and the updates, with the latter taking priority. From what I heard it worked far better than I expected it would.

Oh, and if you were wondering why I suggested Stan could do the show from 6pm from Pulse FM, I had got a bit confused and thought today's early game was taking place at St James's Park. Of course, it took place at Stamford Bridge, so had they gone with my plan of having Around the Grounds 4-6pm and Call Collymore 6-8pm, Stan could easily have gotten back to talkSPORT Towers to present from there.

Forgive me for being really picky - it'd be Sean Parrish, the former Shrewsbury and Telford player who was once caretaker manager of AFC Telford too.

Aside from him, that'd be BBC Radio Shropshire's usual AFC Telford commentary team - Chris Hudson is also the Bucks correspondent in the Shropshire Star - with James Bond (no, not that one) being their usual Saturday Sport and Extra Time host.

Thanks for posting those details and congratulations to the Bucks on their promotion this afternoon.

What a game at the DW, an absolute joke that it was televised.

Here's how it sounded on Wigan's 102.4 Wish FM with Graham Lovett and Neill Rimmer - http://www.wishfm.net/blog?id=11372

I have a sneaking feeling that 'not' should have been there somewhere.

It was the chances of scheduling in advance that Sky picked the two unimportant games.

Indeed lol. Ten minutes will not do that game justice on Match of the Day later.

I would like to echo praise for Ian Dennis and Jason Roberts in their commentary this afternoon. If you consider the job of a commentator to communicate the excitement and tension of the day then they did very well. Ian I suspect needs a good gargle.

On another matter, the way that the Radio Contracts are awarded needs to be looked at for the last game of the season. Because next Sunday the start time is 4.00PM it appears that under the agreement Radio 5 has exclusive rights for commentary. Granted they will have two outlets to broadcast from that still leaves other matches wirh no commentary.

Isn't a better idea for the last game of the season for Radio 5, Talksport and Absolute to draw lots for which game or games they commentate on.

It seems that some fans will be short changed.

I hasten to add I would feel the same way if the kick offs were before 3 and they all went to Talksport.

Sorry Phil, I don't wish to be rude but I think drawing lots to pick final day games is a terrible idea!

The situation as I understand it is this: the final round of Premier League matches, in radio terms, counts as a set of Saturday 3pm fixtures.

As such, BBC Radio 5 Live will have the first pick and Absolute Radio will have the second pick, as per the terms of their respective Saturday 3pm contracts. talkSPORT, presuming they aren't given a bonus 65th game (they have now broadcast 64 PL games exactly this season - the number they are contracted to do), will be doing an Around the Grounds show. I think there is a good chance that Radio 5 Live Sports Extra will be allowed to do a third pick commentary.

I actually think the above situation works pretty well - it has worked well in previous seasons when talkSPORT had the second pick and I think with two or three commentaries plus an Around the Grounds show, national radio listeners will be even better served on the final day this season.

The one criticism there has been in past seasons - notably at the end of the 2008/09 season, when 5 Live picked Hull City v Manchester United beforehand only for Aston Villa v Newcastle United, talkSPORT's choice, to prove the day's biggest game - is that the "ten-day rule" (both stations covering Saturday 3pm games have to name their live game in that slot ten days in advance for organisational reasons) has been in effect on that matchday, but that aside there hasn't been any complaints as far as I can remember about how commentaries on the final day of the season are arranged.

The big question is which matches will be on which stations? Spoilered for those waiting for MOTD2 or "the other" Football First:

5Live at OT
Absolute at Spurs
Sports Extra at Stoke

Just my guesses

Delete Wrong Thread

I'd go with this. Does anyone know if 5 Live can switch commentaries during the afternoon, e.g if they went with Man Utd-Blackpool and United get 2 or 3 nil up in the 1st half (thus relegating Blackpool), could they then cross to a reporter and summariser at Wolves-Blackburn for example if that suddenly became crucial, or switch the 5 Live/Sports Extra commentaries round?

I'd also like to echo the praise for Ian Dennis today. I only caught the last 5 minutes or so, but he was sounding hoarse by the end of it.

If there's a game on Sports Extra, I'm pretty certain 5 Live could cut to it and take commentary from it should their first pick game prove to be one-sided.

However, I don't think they could have a commentary team stationed at a third game to cross to judging by what has happened on the last day over the past three seasons when talkSPORT had second pick rights. They certainly couldn't just opt to start taking commentary from whichever game is live on Absolute Radio, that's for sure.

On the final day of the 2007/08 season (the first season under the last set of contracts), I remember talkSPORT having Ian Danter and Gary Stevens stationed at a game key to the relegation battle - sort of a 'fourth pick' match as the title was still to be decided, leaders Manchester United were on 5 Live, second place Chelsea were on talkSPORT and 5 Live Sports Extra were carrying a clash at the foot of the table.

On that occasion, both Manchester United and Chelsea took commanding leads fairly early on, so both stations switched to commentary on their other game. Such a situation hasn't reoccurred since, but given the nature of the relegation battle it could be something that happens this year.

It'd be interesting to see if Absolute Radio could have a commentary pairing at another game to cross to as and when necessary, and if so, which secondary commentator would they call upon seeing as Jim Proudfoot has done every one of their live games this season.

I think that was the best commentary I have heard for YEARS. I am not a fan of either team but I nearly burnt the dinner as I was hooked!!

Absolute Radio have confirmed they'll broadcast Tottenham v Birmingham on Sunday at 16:00.

And the commentary page on the 5 Live website has Sports Extra doing a Rugby League match on Sunday afternoon so just Absolute and 5 Live for Premier League commentary.