Sunday 29th August 2010

BBC Manchester
Bolton v Birmingham (1:30pm): Jack Dearden & Alan Gowling (Commentary to 3pm)
Sunderland v Man City (3pm): Ian Cheeseman & Fred Eyre (Commentary)

BBC Merseyside
Liverpool v West Brom (3pm): Gary Flintoff & Jimmy Case (2nd Half on AM/DAB Only)
Aston Villa v Everton (4pm): Mike Hughes & Ronnie Goodlass (1st Half on FM Only)

Radio City 96.7 & City Talk 105.9
Liverpool v West Brom (3pm): Steve Hothersall & John Aldridge (2nd Half only on City Talk 105.9)
Aston Villa v Everton (4pm): Alan Irwin & Graeme Sharp (1st Half only on Radio City 96.7)

talkSPORT

Alan Brazil and Neil Warnock presenting The Sunday Exclusive, followed by Call Collymore from Anfield.

Premier League
Aston Villa v Everton – Geoff Peters
Bolton v Birmingham – John Anderson and Alvin Martin, with Simon Humphreys pitchside (13:30 commentary)
Liverpool v West Brom – Sam Matterface and Stan Collymore, with Ian Abrahams pitchside (15:00 commentary)
Sunderland v Manchester City – Graham Courtney

Scottish Premier League
Motherwell v Celtic - Mark Donaldson

Fourth Test, Lord’s
England v Pakistan - Jack Bannister

Formula One: Belgian Grand Prix
Spa-Franco Champs - Andy Clarke

Sunday 29th August - talkSPORT

Alan Brazil presenting Sunday Exclusive alongside Neil Warnock, followed by Call Collymore from Anfield

Premier League
Bolton Wanderers v Birmingham City - John Anderson and Alvin Martin (1.30pm commentary), with Simon Humphreys at pitchside
Liverpool v West Bromwich Albion - Sam Matterface and Stan Collymore (3pm commentary), with Ian Abrahams at pitchside
Sunderland v Manchester City - Graham Courtney
Aston Villa v Everton - Geoff Peters

Scottish Premier League
Motherwell v Celtic - Mark Donaldson

Cricket: Fourth Test Match
England v Pakistan - Jack Bannister

Formula 1: Belgian Grand Prix
Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps - Andy Clarke


BBC WM

WM Sport with Daz Hale from the Reebok Stadium and Mark Regan from Villa Park

Premier League
Bolton Wanderers v Birmingham City - Richard Wilford and Daz Hale (1.30pm commentary)
Liverpool v West Bromwich Albion - Rob Gurney and Mike Taylor (3pm commentary)
Aston Villa v Everton - Phil Cartwright and Mark Regan (second half commentary from 5pm)


BRMB, Beacon (Black Country) and Gold (Birmingham)

Tom Ross presenting The Goalzone from the Reebok Stadium

Premier League
Bolton Wanderers v Birmingham City - Tom Ross and Jon McCarthy (BRMB commentary)
Liverpool v West Bromwich Albion - Mikey Burrows and Tony Brown (Beacon and Gold commentary)
Aston Villa v Everton - Steve Hermon and Pat Heard (second half commentary on Gold)


talkSPORT and WM are both due to see Bolton v Birmingham through to full-time and will join commentary on Liverpool v West Brom in progress (about 20 minutes in).

Aston Villa fans are getting a bit of a raw deal round here, as both WM and Gold are both only doing second half commentary on Villa v Everton from 5pm. Seeing as the cricket has finished early, if 5 Live are smart and are able to do this, they should put first half commentary of Villa v Everton on Sports Extra since they too are only scheduled to do second half commentary on AM.

No City commentary on Key 103/Magic 1152am so clearly they have dropped coverage this year. A shame. Andy Hinchcliffe was always entertaining to listen to.

...At least I thought that was the plan.

Instead, talkSPORT cut away from the Reebok to go to Anfield just after the 3pm kick-off for commentary, took an update-come-commentary from Bolton at 3.10pm, returned to Liverpool until 3.15pm before switching back to Bolton for commentary on the last five minutes and stoppage time.

In that time (don't highlight if you're waiting for MOTD2/Football First):



At the end of the earlier game, talkSPORT went back to Anfield for uninterrupted commentary on 27 minutes. A DAB opt-out was called upon. Meanwhile WM stayed the course at the Reebok Stadium before crossing to Anfield for commentary a minute after talkSPORT.

And in all the excitement of a very decent game at the Reebok, I missed 4-4-2's post!

I've enjoyed talkSPORT's commentary on Bolton v Birmingham this afternoon, but what a dodgy decision to cut away from the game with less than 20 minutes to go. They returned for commentary on the conclusion but IMO they should have seen the earlier game through to the end before moving to Anfield.

I know having two overlapping games meant they had a difficult balance to strike and that Liverpool are the bigger draw with a wider fanbase, but as someone who was more interested in the Birmingham game it was quite annoying.

I have criticised 5 Live when they have done this sort of thing in the past so I'm not going to be a hypocrite, it was a really poor decision by talkSPORT IMO.

On a positive note, John Anderson made a really good talkSPORT commentary debut and, as ever, it was great to hear Alvin Martin on co-commentary duty.

No presenter for the sports program on BBC Manchester, let the commentators present. Cheap coverage.

Jack Dearden normally hosts Sunday Sport which is normally Rugby League. I reckon he'll be travelling back to Manchester from Bolton to do the phone in from 5pm.

Oldham v Yeovil 95:5 Chris Spittles and Ed hadwin

rovers v Saints 1548 Ali durdain Keith Brookman

Ipswich v City 94:9 DAB 104:6 and 1566
richard hoskin and Adam baker

forest green v Bath city ON LINE

adam kerslake and Andy howard not sure why BBC Bristol could not have put Bath City on 104:6

Any one know if BBC Gloster put forest green
on 1413 or 104:7

I think you're being overly harsh here, Col.

BBC Radio Manchester aren't the only station in this boat - particularly when it comes to games played on Sunday afternoons when sport doesn't always air on many local radio stations.

I know round here, on Orion's football coverage their main commentator Tom Ross presents virtually every live game (to the point of pre-recording intros on occasions such as today when games clash and he is commentating on one of the earlier matches), while over on WM generally the presenters double up as the co-commentators too.

We're continually told that local radio budgets are tight, so if you're giving my local station the choice of having a separate stadium/studio based host (and so perhaps the need for an extra engineer too) on their Sunday coverage, or having reporters across all of their teams games on the Saturday, I know which option I'd prefer them to go with.

It's not just local radio who let the commentators present their live football coverage. Capital Gold (when they nationally networked England coverage) and talkSPORT have done this in the past, and with Colin Murray presenting MOTD2 we've heard 5 Live's commentators present sections of their Sunday afternoon coverage in recent weeks. And with that last example, I think I'd prefer to listen to the likes of John Murray presenting rather than his namesake!

It's better for the coverage to be hosted by the commentator, because commentators sometimes receive information before matches which they can communicate more quickly if they're hosting, and have a better incite into the clubs. The Radio Leeds way of doing things, with commentators taking it in turns to host during the build-up works well and that's how hosting should be done on other local stations imo.

5 Live

With Colin Murray and then Alistair Bruce-Ball

Bolton v Birmingham Conor McNamara
Sunderland v Man City Ian Dennis, Colin Cooper & John Murray
Aston Villa v Everton Alan Green & Graham Taylor

Motherwell v Celtic Roddy Forsyth

Seemingly didn't have anyone at Liverpool. Very odd. I only started listening during Sunderland v Man City and Ian Dennis just mentioned the goal during his commentary and there was seemingly no half time or full time report.

If it was jusy a case of the planned reporter not being able to attend surely they could have taken a halftime/fulltime report from local radio,

A bit odd that no one is at Anfield, unless there were technical issues

I may have over reacted about BBC Manchester

I heard my first Sam Matterface commentary at the weekend, gotta say, the boy's pretty good

I know quite a few of you will be new to talkSPORT's football commentaries this season, so I was wondering what you have made of their use of pitchside reporters during live games?

This is not something that is new to talkSPORT, as they have been using pitchside reporters on live games for a few seasons now. I believe they began this practice in 2007/08, the first season under the old contract, when they started doing Premier League commentaries at 3pm on Saturday afternoons.

I think the reason that they started employing pitchside reporters is linked to how their match reporters are organised. I have heard their reporters are assigned to matches at the start of each month, however with the 3pm Premier League commentaries only being chosen 10 days in advance, it meant their commentary teams were assigned much later. So rather than having to cancel a reporter a week in advance, which is not going to have a great affect on team morale, they found an alternative role for those originally scheduled to do updates on the live match at pitchside.

Clearly this practice was deemed successful as they extended it to home Champions League games and are continuing it now they know their Premier League commentaries months in advance.

It's easy to see why they are continuing it - the pitchside guys seem to be quite helpful to the commentators, as say when a substitution is being made, rather than having to scrabble around through their notes or crane their necks to see the fourth officials board (should their press box be in an unfavourable position), they can simply cut to a guy on the touchline to give them the information they need. He can then not only fill them in on injuries, substitutions etc but can also tell them what the managers are doing and how the benches are reacting to the action.

Personally, I think having a pitchside reporter sets them apart from the rest and, dare I say it, gives them a bit of an edge over other stations.

Pitchside reporters I like, reading out Tweets and texts I don't like really (though can live with it). Going way back when BBC Radio always had pitchside reporters at the old Wembley as the commentary point was so high up the commentators couldn't see who was warming up etc.

BBC Radio Scotland have used pitchside reporters at bigger games for years.

Indeed, for the biggest games (Scotland internationals, Scottish Cup Final) they've been known to use two - generally, one for each dugout.

Message to The Difference, did TS have anyone at Gleneagles over the weekend? I’ve had such a busy weekend I didn’t get chance to check anything out other than the second half of the Man Utd game

Andy Hinchcliffe did the Sky Sports 3D commentary for Blackburn vs Arsenal.

BBC Radio Wales

Steffan Garerro hosting

AFC Wimbledon V Newport County - Grahame Lloyd and Iwan Roberts (SE FM / Digital TV/Radio / Online)
Bath City V Wrexham - Gareth Blainey and Jason Perry (North FM / Online)
(Sussex V Glamorgan County Championship Division 2 Cricket - Edward Bevan)

According to Steffan, Wales and Scotland are both starting their World Cup qualifying matches this Friday

BBC Bristol / Somerset

Bath City V Wrexham - Rob Scanlon and Andrew Kerslake (Online)

No, I don't think they did.

BBC Radio York
host: Sharon Shortle
Fleetwood Town verses York City
commentator: Barry Parker
summariser: Malcolm Huntington (who hasn't said much)
Stalybridge verses Harrogate Town
commentator: Rob Wilson


BBC Radio Humberside
host: David Burns
Grimsby Town verses Histon
host: David Burns
commentators: Matt Dean and David Burns
summariser: Mark Leaver

I was going to ask about this, they did indeed have no reports from Anfield during the match at all, Dennis and Murray simply recapped the score at regular intervals, then said it was 1-0. Then at the end, they played five seconds of commentary on the goal, presumably from Radio Merseyside.

So I don't know what the hell happened there. At Liverpool of all places!

When it comes to presenting, BBC Newcastle uses the commentators as presenters. Although on a Saturday they do have someone in their studios whom both commentary teams will join pre match for a preview/rundown of all the 3pm games (and usually the goals from the early kick off using 5 live's commentary), as well as at half-time for the latest scores. They rejoin him at full-time and he hosts the post match phone-in.

Real Radio nowadays have the legends phone-in on a Saturday (as well as weeknights), and their actual match build up doesn't start till about 2.40pm.

They seemed to start doing a Saturday phone-in around the time Justin Lockwood started doing the commentaries again, he can't do really radio presenting pre-match as he works pitchside at St James' announcing the line-ups and doing various other things (he can also sometimes be heard over the tannoy's at Durham CCC), which may be they have the phone-in on. He also presents the half-time penalty crossbar challenge, so I don't know who they have on the radio at half-time (as I'm in the ground, not listening to the radio).

This wasn't an issue when Justin previously did the Metro/Magic commentaries as his didn't work for the club at the time.

That's the thing - stations like Radio Scotland, 5 Live, WM and BRMB only wheel out pitchside reporters for matches deemed to be "big games" such as cup finals, derbies, internationals etc.

With talkSPORT it's the norm for almost every game they cover, no matter how routine. Perhaps this initially only came about due to necessity, but I like it and think having someone at pitchside really enhances their commentaries.

I wonder if we will eventually get to a point where the other national stations and some of the bigger local ones decide to have pitchside reporters at every commentary game they cover. Personally I think it is one of those good ideas that will eventually become commonplace.


Rupert Bell was reporting from Gleneagles during the final hour of Call Collymore on Sunday, with him specifically being called upon to bring us news of the European Ryder Cup squad. He hadn't been doing reports on the Johnny Walker Championship for them earlier, although I imagine he would have been covering the event for someone else.

I was going to ask Shaun about where Alistair Bruce-Ball presented the second half of 5 Live Sport from yesterday. With him not being involved in 5 Live's football coverage on Sunday, I'm guessing he was doubling up as a reporter from Gleneagles.


I'm not looking for a conspiracy theory here, but is it any coincidence that Liverpool v West Bromwich Albion was a talkSPORT commentary game yesterday?

Far-fetched I know, but I'm throwing this out there because last Sunday talkSPORT didn't have anyone at Middlesbrough v Sheffield United, which was 5 Live's commentary game while they were doing commentary on Newcastle United v Aston Villa. And 5 Live had to re-route Ian Brown to St James' Park for that game, meaning John Murray did the full 90 minutes at the Riverside. We weren't told whether another reporter was originally scheduled to be at Newcastle.

All just a big string of coincidences or perhaps something more concerted so as not to remind listeners about other games that were being broadcast elsewhere?