Originally Posted by The Difference:
“I agree with you, provided they have the right reporter to chip in with those things it adds a lot to the commentary without being too intrusive. For example, Geoff Peters did a very good job of providing the kind of information you mention yesterday at Stoke and the commentators and coverage benefited for it.”
A few years back, around 2002, Five Live did a couple of lower league matches - normally Monday night games on Sky - which were billed as Access All Areas, where the usual commentators were accompanied by umpteen reporters, behind the goals, in the dugouts, with the fans and so forth, who they would go to throughout the game. I remember they did one at Loftus Road, I think they only did one more, if that, it was just an experiment really.
They used to experiment a bit on Five Live back then, there was a Liverpool match - I think away to Charlton, where Kevin Lisbie got a hat trick - where they had a former referee, I think Dermot Gallagher, in the commentary box, chipping in throughout. And those evenings of lower league games when they didn't have commentary, just all the reporters with their mics constantly open, immediately butting in when goals were scored. One of those was on Sports Extra alone, as it was the day before the Gulf War started, and must have had all of about three listeners.
And then a bit later, in 2007, there was that Arsenal vs Man U game where on Sports Extra they did a special commentary to celebrate 75 years of football on the radio, with John Murray, Bob Wilson, David Gray and James Alexander Gordon calling out the squares.
What other experimental ways of covering football have stations done?
