Saturday's 3pm match on 5 Live is QPR v Sheffield Wednesday, Steve Wilson has tweeted that he will be doing the commentary.

Tower are definetly back with Bolton. Peter Farries & Gary Henshaw the commentary team at Burnley on Saturday.

Who has got what in the North East these days?

Thinking about stations like Metro? Real? TFM? The BBC locals?

tro and TFM are now 1 station, no football for them real isnt interested in football either. BBC Newcastle has Sunderland til 2017, it also has full commentary on Newcastle with Gateshead games on-line. i am guessing bbc Tees has Hartlepool and Boro, mind you Star Radio who have the legends show have anounced that Bernie Slaven is going to do a 90 minute phone in show after every Boro game on a Saturday starting at 5 pm, i spoke to Bernie about this and he said it is to give the Boro fans some choice as all the would have is the BBC phone in.

From @BBCLeeds on Twitter:

BBC Radio Leeds will no longer broadcast commentary of Bradford City games. A deal has been rejected by the Club's management

The BBC says the offer was in line with what is being offered to other League One clubs & says it is "extremely disappointed". (2/2)

That makes the which team get which frequency argument a bit easier to juggle, I guess.

Interesting to see Steve Wilson on 5 Live. Wonder if it's as a replacement for someone or just because it's a bit of a strange time at the start of the season with holidays etc. Given they've lost Fletcher (largely) and Green and Ingham might be stepping down soon etc. I think looking to use Wilson and Pearce etc. where possible is a good move - the likes of Brotherton and Motson combine both after all!

It means I don't have to use my Roberts radio.

I wonder why Bradford City have made this decision? They had very good relationships with local and national media last season. The club is on a high having received promotion.

Still nothing on the Pulse website or Twitter accounts about Pulse Sport. Their Bradford City commentaries have been the best since Derm Tanner left Radio Leeds.

I think the club have an agenda in terms of media relations - a few years ago they didn't let anybody do commentary on home matches in a misguided attempt to increase attendance at matches.

And Steve Bower doing Derby v Blackburn on Sunday, suggesting as you say most of the regulars are still on holiday.

Having said that Steve Wilson said on twitter he would like to do more for 5 Live.

If Green + Ingham were to retire after the World Cup and having lost Fletcher I wonder if 5 Live might try and tempt someone like Wilson (or indeed Pearce) back to join John Murray as the main voice of the football coverage with both being behind Guy Mowbray on MOTD.

5 Live would offer a similar level of domestic matches plus Champions League and perhaps most importantly the chance to commentate on big finals.

I don't think you'd ever expect Green/Ingham on this weekend. John Murray returns next Tuesday on Carling Cup commentary.

Alistair Bruce Ball has been doing cricket/golf so he might be on holiday. Conor McNamara did the golf too so it might be another couple of weeks before you hear him

THIS and the top of the Facebook page suggests they have commentary.

When listening to BBC WM in the evening, I heard football commentator Steve Hermon reading their 7pm news bulletin. It turns out that he's moved to BBC WM after spending five years at their local commercial rivals Free Radio 80s. It turns out he started on WM on July 1st as a news reader/reporter, which was his other job on FR80s on top of covering games for The Goalzone. I rate him as a commentator and I hope we get to hear him on WM Sport in the new season, I would like to hear him covering Walsall again as for a while he was the commentator on the club website's Saddlers Player service.

Not the busiest night of football coverage on the radio - I was hoping BBC WM were going to provide commentary on Walsall's 125th anniversary game against Aston Villa (in previous pre-seasons they have often covered annual Walsall v other West Midland higher division club friendlies) but they didn't opt-out of the Mark Forrest show, while talkSPORT didn't have updates on Celtic v Elfsborg in the Champions League. On that, did BBC Radio 5 Live cover that game, or indeed the Women's Euro 2013 Final on Sunday?

Rob Gurney was there but no commentary very odd at the weekend they did cover some football

Saturday 27th July

Pre Season Friendlies
Mike Taylor and Adam Bridge: Blues v Hull
Rob Gurney: Derby v West Brom
Richard Wilford: Wolves v Real Bites

Adam Bridge Presented Summer Saturday live at St Andrews

one thing Adam said was Rob Gurney was there man with the baggies all season so I guess that the 4 main members of the bbc wm sport team have been given 4 clubs to follow if its true Richard Wilford would follow Wolves

thanks everyone for posting the details so far-- always interesting to read of any changes before the season gets going. I won't be posting much if at all for the first few months of the season as I'm having an operation at the end of August. the stations I post details on are well covered by other posters though.

The latest audience figures are out so lets take a look at how our sports radio stations have done:


Richard Keys has tweeted:

Mike Bovill has also tweeted:

I can also tell you that figures for the Alan Brazil Sports Breakfast read as 1,436,000 listeners a week - up from 1,331,000 a year ago.


As for BBC Radio 5 Live - they stand at 6,040,000 listeners a week - down 1.8% year on year and 3.9% quarter on quarter.

The Pulse and Pulse 2 have announced this morning, in the last 15 minutes, that Pulse 2 will be the new home of Bradford City. The station will have exclusive commentary on every Bradford City match on 1278 and 1530 AM, DAB and Bantoms Player.

I'm curious as to why Pulse Sport has been moved to Pulse 2. One possibility is Bradford City wants to increase subscriptions to the Bradford City player.

The closure of Yorkshire Radio means Leeds United are the only team in West Yorkshire whose matches won't be on DAB. Huddersfield Town were previously the only West Yorkshire team whose matches weren't on DAB.

Sportsound covered Celtic last night, and is on at 6-30 till 2200 hours tonight online on digital and on 810 MW covering STJohnston and Motherwell in Europa League Action. is Swansea Sound doing commentary on Swansea City games? what stations cover the London Clubs?

I'll fill in the BBC Radio Scotland details from last night when I get home and listen to my recording.

Jim Spens and Roddy Grant doing the STJ game.

Thanks for the extra information from last night and the Summer Saturday information from the weekend Connor. The news that BBC WM's "big four" commentators have been given individual teams to follow this season is very interesting, if true. It would seem to indicate that Sports Editor Mark Regan will not be returning to his role as their lead commentator on Saturday 3pm kick-offs that are live on 95.6FM on a weekly basis, as has been the case pretty much upon him joining the station from BRMB a decade ago.

Going by who they've covered in pre-season, I'd imagine we'd be looking at the following commentary line-up:

Mark Regan - Aston Villa
Rob Gurney - West Bromwich Albion
Mike Taylor - Birmingham City
Richard Wilford - Wolverhampton Wanderers

I'd imagine Paul Franks will continue as the host of WM Sport on Saturdays (including the post-match phone-in) and co-commentator on the FM Saturday 3pm games, with Daz Hale being the secondary presenter/co-commentator when required on Saturdays when there is an early/late game involving one of WMs clubs. The main four commentators should still see plenty of the regions other clubs, as Regan, Taylor, Gurney and Wilford typically host and provide co-commentaries on Sunday or midweek matches due to Franksy and Hale's presenting commitments in the week.

It'll be interesting to see how much coverage Walsall receive. I'm hoping they'll do a similar 10-match deal with WM covering this season as they did in 2012/13, which should cover all of their standalone matches that take place when the other four clubs aren't playing. Seeing as they are in the same division as Wolves, all things being equal they should receive the same level of coverage as their local rivals at least initially, but in reality I think we all know that Wolves will be the subject to their usual share of live commentary matches.

As for who will cover Walsall, I imagine it will be split between those commentators/reporters left over:

Andrew Dawkins (who rarely commentates but always tends to report on Walsall games when all five of WM's league clubs are playing on the same day)
John Collins
Steve Hermon - he'd be a good choice for the Saddlers given his connections with the club as mentioned in my previous post.

I imagine Adam Bridge will be resuming his commentary commitments on talkSPORT Live's international service once the Premier League season begins, meaning we won't hear much of him on WM Sport once the county cricket season is over.

Over on Free Radio 80s, Steve Hermon's departure may mean that Nathan Alleyne will get the opportunity to rejoin their commentary team on a more regular basis last season. Tom Ross, Chris Coles and (when Sky Sports News Radio commitments permit it) Mikey Burrows should continue as their main three commentators - but on days when all five of their clubs are in action, they'll need a fifth commentator. Perhaps they could simulcast AVTV's audio commentaries on Villa games with Jack Woodward (something I'd like to hear as Jack is a really entertaining broadcaster) or maybe we might hear a return for Joe Holt to The Goalzone a mere eight months after he decided to stop commentating for them?

Thanks for the talkSPORT RAJAR figure information 4-4-2.

I expect part of the reason why they did so well will have been down to how the survey dates fell as regards the British & Irish Lions tour fixtures. The survey period for Q2 ended the day after the First Lions Test match so will have covered the first seven matches of the 10-game tour, including all bar one of the midweek games. The figures don't include last month, when I imagine they will have experienced a dip post-the Third Lions Test Match, with attention then shifting to The Ashes.

On this subject, talkSPORT's main rugby union pundit/co-commentator Brian Moore is now a fairly regular poster on the talkSPORT Chat thread - and it is him, as he has posted a link to the thread on his verified Twitter account - and yesterday he posted the following:


Again, as Brian alludes to this isn't a major surprise as the programme will have seen a major boost through leading into exclusive UK-wide radio commentary on matches from the British & Irish Lions tour.

BBC Radio Scotland, 31/7/13

Richard Gordon presenting Sportsound from Celtic Park on 810MW, with Michael Grant.

Celtic v Elfsborg (7.45pm) - Liam McLeod, Peter Houston and Murdo MacLeod (commentary) with Chris McLaughlin pitchside.

All the best with your operation Steve.

I actually had a question that I was hoping either you or Ian Cleverly could answer. I thoroughly enjoyed watching BBC One Wales' documentary Swansea City: The Rise and Fall, which was given a UK-wide airing on BBC One last night (I missed it when it first went out back in May, although I think it was only broadcast in Wales on that occasion).

I mention this here as there was a fair amount of BBC Radio Wales commentary used on the archive footage of Swans games from seasons gone by. However, I couldn't identify the commentating describing the most prominent and significant match featured - the famous Swansea City v Hull City Division Three relegation decider on the final day of the 2002/03 season. I think it might have been John Hardy calling this match, as I know it wasn't Ian Gwyn-Hughes, Rob Phillips or Roger Hughes, the four of them being Radio Wales' main football commentators at the time (indeed I remember Hardy being their main commentator on Wales internationals at the time, what with IGH and Phillips covering them for BBC Wales on TV as commentator and reporter respectively when they held the FAW's live TV rights). It wasn't Bob Symonds either, who did the television commentary for HTV Wales' Soccer Sunday and ITV's Football League Extra shows, although they will have been using HTV's footage of this game.

I did recognise Rob Phillips commentating on the post-match pitch invasion after Swansea won 1-0 at Bury to clinch promotion to League One in 2005 (we also heard a bit of Simon Davies' full-time report for BBC One Wales Final Score alternative Wales on Saturday), Simon Davies and Ian Walsh describing Leon Britton and Darren Pratley's goals in the Swansea City v Nottingham Forest Championship Play-Off Semi-Final Second Leg and Phillips and Walsh commentating on the Reading v Swansea Championship Play-Off Final, both from 2011. I think the same commentator who called the Swansea v Hull game from 2003 was heard describing the post-match celebrations from the Gillingham v Swansea game from 2008 that saw the Swans promoted to the Championship, immediately after which we heard the former Newport RFC rugby union player and BBC Scrum V pitchside reporter Phil Steele interviewing Alan Curtis for Wales on Saturday from said game. Simon Davies also conducted the interviews with the various managers, players, officials and fans used on the documentary.

The documentary was fantastic and is well worth a watch, Swans fan or not (although it probably won't be to Ian C's tastes ) - it is available on the iPlayer here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...Fall_and_Rise/

If you haven't already caught it Steve, as I know you are partially sighted (although I am unsure to what degree), I think it would be something you'd appreciate in audio form. Identifying some of the voices of those interviewed might be tricky but it was well narrated by Eiry Thomas and most of those spoken to were at least initially introduced in her narration. The documentary goes on for 40 minutes.

cheers

BBC Radio Scotland, 1/8/13

Richard Gordon presenting Sportsound from Fir Park on 810MW, with Chris Millar.

FC Minsk v St Johnstone (5pm) - Jim Spence and Roddy Grant (commentary)
Motherwell v FC Kuban (7.45pm) - John Barnes, Stephen Craigan and Craig Paterson (commentary) with Chick Young pitchside