Having taken the decision not to include the UEFA Under-21 Championship in with the rest of these numbers (although I will revisit these once the 3-5 games England will play in that tournament have taken place), here are the presenting, commentary and reporting statistics from talkSPORT's live football coverage during 2014/15.
Between the end of the World Cup and the latest round of international matches, talkSPORT provided live commentaries on 147 matches this season - a five game increase on last season. The number of fixtures they covered from each of the competitions they have access to breaks down as follows:
Premier League - 67 games (27 on Saturdays at 5.30pm, 35 on Sundays before 4pm and 5 on Wednesdays)
FA Cup - 29
UEFA Champions League - 24
Capital One Cup - 9
UEFA Europa League - 7
International Friendlies - 4
UEFA Euro 2016 Qualifiers - 3
Football League Play-Off Finals - 2
FA Community Shield - 1
La Liga - 1
To clarify the above, I'm including matches that were billed as being full live commentaries yet weren't carried in full due to overlaps with other games - which accounts for two fixtures, the Arsenal v Middlesbrough FA Cup Fifth Round tie which was joined in-progress after 21 minutes following the conclusion of the Bradford City v Sunderland upset, and the Manchester City v West Ham United Premier League game which was left after 75 minutes in order for them to carry the FA Cup Semi-Final between Aston Villa and Liverpool in its entirety. However, there were three games that talkSPORT carried extended spells of commentary on yet were primarily reports-only games which I've not included in the figures above: Liverpool v Middlesbrough from the Capital One Cup Third Round, where Graham Beecroft did solo commentary on the whole of a lengthy penalty shootout; Chelsea v Bradford City on FA Cup Fourth Round Saturday at 3pm, which reporting team Ian Abrahams and Ray Parlour provided uninterrupted commentary on from the 82nd minute onwards; and the Reading v Arsenal FA Cup Semi-Final, which saw Andrew McKenna do solo commentary on much of the extra-time period from the 97th minute after Chelsea v Manchester United, a Premier League fixture directly opposite it which they were doing full commentary on, had concluded.
With that cleared up, here goes with this season's list…
Presenters:
Mark Saggers - 94 games
Adrian Durham - 31
Ian Danter - 17
Danny Kelly - 2
Sam Matterface - 2
Georgie Bingham - 1
Commentators:
Sam Matterface - 82
Jim Proudfoot - 45
Nigel Adderley - 10
Andrew McKenna - 9
Nigel Pearson - 1
Co-commentators:
Stan Collymore - 67
Ray Houghton - 15
Michael Gray - 13 + 1 game as an in-game analyst
Alvin Martin - 11
Clive Allen - 10
Danny Higginbotham - 8
Danny Murphy - 7
Matt Holland - 5
Ray Parlour - 4
Stuart Pearce - 4
Micky Quinn - 2
Ray Wilkins - 2
Eagle-eyed mathematicians among you might have noticed the total co-commentator count adds up to 148, not including Michael Gray's in-game analyst role during the FA Community Shield. This is because talkSPORT used two co-commentators on the FA Cup Final, with Stan Collymore and Stuart Pearce both joining Jim Proudfoot.
Moving onto the live match reporting role, in the past I have described this category as being for pitchside reporters yet this season an increasing number of talkSPORT's personnel at live matches in addition to the presenting and commentary team didn't make in-game contributions and were only heard on-air conducting post-match interviews. I'm not going to do a breakdown of who did provided touchline news in addition to their interviews, so here's a more general tally of the reporters used on live games.
Reporters:
Ian Abrahams - 13
Graham Beecroft - 12
Mike Bovill - 5
Dom McGuinness - 5
Tony Incenzo - 4
Graham Courtney - 3
Dave Rowe - 3
Ian Danter - 2
Geoff Peters - 2
Warren Haughton - 1
The reporter total comes up to 50 games, only a slight reduction (two) on the number used last season, again amounting to around a third of their commentaries. But as explained above the significant change is that on many occasions the reporters are not being heard in-game to update touchline activity. Personnel-wise, Graham Courtney was as prolific in this capacity as Ian Abrahams (who continues to be their main pitchside man at Wembley fixtures) last season, yet this season he has swapped places with Graham Beecroft - perhaps there has been substantially more live commentaries from Merseyside than from the North-East?
Here's my usual disclaimer - presenters who hosted more than one game within the same programme have been counted as anchoring the number of live games they fronted that day.
There's clearly a 1-2-3 in terms of appearances and seniority in their presenting pecking order. Mark Saggers hosts the majority of their Sunday and midweek live coverage programmes, so gets the largest number of games; then Adrian Durham is their regular Matchday Live presenter on Saturdays; with Ian Danter being the regular substitute for both. Yet the big domestic showpieces were shared up equitably between Saggers and Durham - the former getting the Capital One Cup Final (after anchoring all of their live games from that competition) and the FA Cup Final, the latter hosting their live coverage of the final day of the Premier League season and Championship Play-Off Final commentary, as is appropriate for their regular Saturday afternoon host. The two live matches their main commentator Sam Matterface hosted were the FA Community Shield and the UEFA Champions League Final.
The big question mark going into the season was how would commentary games be shared out between the returning Jim Proudfoot, coming back as their number one commentator at the World Cup after four seasons at Absolute Radio, and Sam Matterface, who'd taken the number one mantle from him in 2010 yet had covered Brazil 2014 for ITV. Going by the numbers alone, Matterface looks to have remained their undisputed number one, yet the numbers don't tell the full story. Clearly Matterface has remained as talkSPORT's regular Premier League commentator - he called 60 of their 67 live top flight fixtures, the ones he missed being part of double or triple headers - but when it comes to other competitions there was a far more of an even distribution between them.
I mentioned a few times on the thread during the course of the season that I had noticed a significantly equal division of FA Cup commentaries between the two; in the end it turns out that both Jim and Sam got 12 live matches from that competition each. JP did the final and two sixth round ties, SM did the Aston Villa v Liverpool semi-final, two sixth round ties and a sixth round replay; with Andrew McKenna getting the non-live Reading v Arsenal semi-final and Nigel Adderley the other sixth round replay. Indeed Proudfoot got to commentate on four of the biggest showpiece matches of the season, the finals of the FA Cup, Capital One Cup and UEFA Champions League plus the Community Shield, although Matterface hosted coverage of the latter two games and also commentated on both of the Play-Off Finals they had live commentary on.
I don't think there's much between Nigel Adderley and Andrew McKenna when it comes to who talkSPORT see as their number three football commentator, indeed both would be dead level on 10 live games each had I included that semi-final which Macca did extra time commentary on. Five of McKenna's live games were from the UEFA Europa League (played when he'd normally be reading sports news bulletins), while Adderley commentated on talkSPORT's only live La Liga fixture this season - one of two all-Spanish ties (the other being the second leg of the Madrid derby in the Champions League quarter-finals) that Danny Kelly hosted this term. Notably, while Macca's total remained roughly the same as last term (down one if you'd don't include the semi-final), Adderley was the big loser from Proudfoot's return to the station, shedding 17 commentaries from his total last season. The only other commentator used in 2014/15 was talkSPORT veteran Nigel Pearson, himself a late replacement for his namesake on West Bromwich Albion v West Ham United in the FA Cup Fifth Round after Adderley got stuck in traffic.
There's no discussion about who talkSPORT's number one co-commentator is - although Stan Collymore saw a six-game drop on his total from last season, one less than Sam Matterface fell in his main category and one less than Mark Saggers increased his presenting total by this term. Elsewhere, Danny Murphy and Ray Wilkins were new co-commentary additions this season, while the biggest movers in this capacity were the two Rays. Despite being the regular weekly pundit on Matchday Live, Ray Parlour saw his co-commentary total fall by 10, while Ray Houghton jumps up to the second most prominent co-commentator on the station - which I must admit came as a surprise to me when compiling the stats, given his illness during the World Cup and the breadth of his work with other broadcasters including RTE, Sky Sports, Absolute Radio, Today FM, Newstalk and Radio City. Likewise Clive Allen got into double figures while also making numerous appearances on Radio 5 Live and Absolute.
In conclusion, here is how talkSPORT covered the numerous finals they did commentaries on this season:
FA Community Shield - Sam Matterface presented from Wembley Stadium alongside Michael Gray, Jim Proudfoot and Ray Houghton commentated with Gray providing in-game analysis and Ian Abrahams at pitchside.
Capital One Cup Final - Mark Saggers presented from Wembley Stadium, Jim Proudfoot and Stan Collymore commentated with Ian Abrahams at pitchside and reporting from Wembley Way in the build-up.
League Two Play-Off Final - Ian Danter presented from the studio, Sam Matterface and Alvin Martin commentated with Ian Abrahams at pitchside.
Championship Play-Off Final - Adrian Durham and Michael Gray presented from Wembley Stadium, Sam Matterface and Stan Collymore commentated with Ian Abrahams at pitchside.
FA Cup Final - Mark Saggers presented from Wembley Stadium, Jim Proudfoot, Stan Collymore and Stuart Pearce commentated with Ian Danter at pitchside and on Wembley Way in the build-up.
UEFA Champions League Final - Sam Matterface presented from Dublin, Jim Proudfoot and Stuart Pearce commentated.
Andrew McKenna reported on the League One Play-Off Final and the UEFA Europa League Final, Ian Abrahams reported on the Johnstone's Paint Trophy Final and Graham Courtney reported on the Conference Play-Off Final. talkSPORT didn't have reporters covering the UEFA Super Cup, Scottish League Cup Final or the Scottish Cup Final, although they had Graham Beecroft reporting on the second leg of the Scottish Premiership Play-Off Final.
Between the end of the World Cup and the latest round of international matches, talkSPORT provided live commentaries on 147 matches this season - a five game increase on last season. The number of fixtures they covered from each of the competitions they have access to breaks down as follows:
Premier League - 67 games (27 on Saturdays at 5.30pm, 35 on Sundays before 4pm and 5 on Wednesdays)
FA Cup - 29
UEFA Champions League - 24
Capital One Cup - 9
UEFA Europa League - 7
International Friendlies - 4
UEFA Euro 2016 Qualifiers - 3
Football League Play-Off Finals - 2
FA Community Shield - 1
La Liga - 1
To clarify the above, I'm including matches that were billed as being full live commentaries yet weren't carried in full due to overlaps with other games - which accounts for two fixtures, the Arsenal v Middlesbrough FA Cup Fifth Round tie which was joined in-progress after 21 minutes following the conclusion of the Bradford City v Sunderland upset, and the Manchester City v West Ham United Premier League game which was left after 75 minutes in order for them to carry the FA Cup Semi-Final between Aston Villa and Liverpool in its entirety. However, there were three games that talkSPORT carried extended spells of commentary on yet were primarily reports-only games which I've not included in the figures above: Liverpool v Middlesbrough from the Capital One Cup Third Round, where Graham Beecroft did solo commentary on the whole of a lengthy penalty shootout; Chelsea v Bradford City on FA Cup Fourth Round Saturday at 3pm, which reporting team Ian Abrahams and Ray Parlour provided uninterrupted commentary on from the 82nd minute onwards; and the Reading v Arsenal FA Cup Semi-Final, which saw Andrew McKenna do solo commentary on much of the extra-time period from the 97th minute after Chelsea v Manchester United, a Premier League fixture directly opposite it which they were doing full commentary on, had concluded.
With that cleared up, here goes with this season's list…
Presenters:
Mark Saggers - 94 games
Adrian Durham - 31
Ian Danter - 17
Danny Kelly - 2
Sam Matterface - 2
Georgie Bingham - 1
Commentators:
Sam Matterface - 82
Jim Proudfoot - 45
Nigel Adderley - 10
Andrew McKenna - 9
Nigel Pearson - 1
Co-commentators:
Stan Collymore - 67
Ray Houghton - 15
Michael Gray - 13 + 1 game as an in-game analyst
Alvin Martin - 11
Clive Allen - 10
Danny Higginbotham - 8
Danny Murphy - 7
Matt Holland - 5
Ray Parlour - 4
Stuart Pearce - 4
Micky Quinn - 2
Ray Wilkins - 2
Eagle-eyed mathematicians among you might have noticed the total co-commentator count adds up to 148, not including Michael Gray's in-game analyst role during the FA Community Shield. This is because talkSPORT used two co-commentators on the FA Cup Final, with Stan Collymore and Stuart Pearce both joining Jim Proudfoot.
Moving onto the live match reporting role, in the past I have described this category as being for pitchside reporters yet this season an increasing number of talkSPORT's personnel at live matches in addition to the presenting and commentary team didn't make in-game contributions and were only heard on-air conducting post-match interviews. I'm not going to do a breakdown of who did provided touchline news in addition to their interviews, so here's a more general tally of the reporters used on live games.
Reporters:
Ian Abrahams - 13
Graham Beecroft - 12
Mike Bovill - 5
Dom McGuinness - 5
Tony Incenzo - 4
Graham Courtney - 3
Dave Rowe - 3
Ian Danter - 2
Geoff Peters - 2
Warren Haughton - 1
The reporter total comes up to 50 games, only a slight reduction (two) on the number used last season, again amounting to around a third of their commentaries. But as explained above the significant change is that on many occasions the reporters are not being heard in-game to update touchline activity. Personnel-wise, Graham Courtney was as prolific in this capacity as Ian Abrahams (who continues to be their main pitchside man at Wembley fixtures) last season, yet this season he has swapped places with Graham Beecroft - perhaps there has been substantially more live commentaries from Merseyside than from the North-East?
Here's my usual disclaimer - presenters who hosted more than one game within the same programme have been counted as anchoring the number of live games they fronted that day.
There's clearly a 1-2-3 in terms of appearances and seniority in their presenting pecking order. Mark Saggers hosts the majority of their Sunday and midweek live coverage programmes, so gets the largest number of games; then Adrian Durham is their regular Matchday Live presenter on Saturdays; with Ian Danter being the regular substitute for both. Yet the big domestic showpieces were shared up equitably between Saggers and Durham - the former getting the Capital One Cup Final (after anchoring all of their live games from that competition) and the FA Cup Final, the latter hosting their live coverage of the final day of the Premier League season and Championship Play-Off Final commentary, as is appropriate for their regular Saturday afternoon host. The two live matches their main commentator Sam Matterface hosted were the FA Community Shield and the UEFA Champions League Final.
The big question mark going into the season was how would commentary games be shared out between the returning Jim Proudfoot, coming back as their number one commentator at the World Cup after four seasons at Absolute Radio, and Sam Matterface, who'd taken the number one mantle from him in 2010 yet had covered Brazil 2014 for ITV. Going by the numbers alone, Matterface looks to have remained their undisputed number one, yet the numbers don't tell the full story. Clearly Matterface has remained as talkSPORT's regular Premier League commentator - he called 60 of their 67 live top flight fixtures, the ones he missed being part of double or triple headers - but when it comes to other competitions there was a far more of an even distribution between them.
I mentioned a few times on the thread during the course of the season that I had noticed a significantly equal division of FA Cup commentaries between the two; in the end it turns out that both Jim and Sam got 12 live matches from that competition each. JP did the final and two sixth round ties, SM did the Aston Villa v Liverpool semi-final, two sixth round ties and a sixth round replay; with Andrew McKenna getting the non-live Reading v Arsenal semi-final and Nigel Adderley the other sixth round replay. Indeed Proudfoot got to commentate on four of the biggest showpiece matches of the season, the finals of the FA Cup, Capital One Cup and UEFA Champions League plus the Community Shield, although Matterface hosted coverage of the latter two games and also commentated on both of the Play-Off Finals they had live commentary on.
I don't think there's much between Nigel Adderley and Andrew McKenna when it comes to who talkSPORT see as their number three football commentator, indeed both would be dead level on 10 live games each had I included that semi-final which Macca did extra time commentary on. Five of McKenna's live games were from the UEFA Europa League (played when he'd normally be reading sports news bulletins), while Adderley commentated on talkSPORT's only live La Liga fixture this season - one of two all-Spanish ties (the other being the second leg of the Madrid derby in the Champions League quarter-finals) that Danny Kelly hosted this term. Notably, while Macca's total remained roughly the same as last term (down one if you'd don't include the semi-final), Adderley was the big loser from Proudfoot's return to the station, shedding 17 commentaries from his total last season. The only other commentator used in 2014/15 was talkSPORT veteran Nigel Pearson, himself a late replacement for his namesake on West Bromwich Albion v West Ham United in the FA Cup Fifth Round after Adderley got stuck in traffic.
There's no discussion about who talkSPORT's number one co-commentator is - although Stan Collymore saw a six-game drop on his total from last season, one less than Sam Matterface fell in his main category and one less than Mark Saggers increased his presenting total by this term. Elsewhere, Danny Murphy and Ray Wilkins were new co-commentary additions this season, while the biggest movers in this capacity were the two Rays. Despite being the regular weekly pundit on Matchday Live, Ray Parlour saw his co-commentary total fall by 10, while Ray Houghton jumps up to the second most prominent co-commentator on the station - which I must admit came as a surprise to me when compiling the stats, given his illness during the World Cup and the breadth of his work with other broadcasters including RTE, Sky Sports, Absolute Radio, Today FM, Newstalk and Radio City. Likewise Clive Allen got into double figures while also making numerous appearances on Radio 5 Live and Absolute.
In conclusion, here is how talkSPORT covered the numerous finals they did commentaries on this season:
FA Community Shield - Sam Matterface presented from Wembley Stadium alongside Michael Gray, Jim Proudfoot and Ray Houghton commentated with Gray providing in-game analysis and Ian Abrahams at pitchside.
Capital One Cup Final - Mark Saggers presented from Wembley Stadium, Jim Proudfoot and Stan Collymore commentated with Ian Abrahams at pitchside and reporting from Wembley Way in the build-up.
League Two Play-Off Final - Ian Danter presented from the studio, Sam Matterface and Alvin Martin commentated with Ian Abrahams at pitchside.
Championship Play-Off Final - Adrian Durham and Michael Gray presented from Wembley Stadium, Sam Matterface and Stan Collymore commentated with Ian Abrahams at pitchside.
FA Cup Final - Mark Saggers presented from Wembley Stadium, Jim Proudfoot, Stan Collymore and Stuart Pearce commentated with Ian Danter at pitchside and on Wembley Way in the build-up.
UEFA Champions League Final - Sam Matterface presented from Dublin, Jim Proudfoot and Stuart Pearce commentated.
Andrew McKenna reported on the League One Play-Off Final and the UEFA Europa League Final, Ian Abrahams reported on the Johnstone's Paint Trophy Final and Graham Courtney reported on the Conference Play-Off Final. talkSPORT didn't have reporters covering the UEFA Super Cup, Scottish League Cup Final or the Scottish Cup Final, although they had Graham Beecroft reporting on the second leg of the Scottish Premiership Play-Off Final.
