Sunday 30th August - talkSPORT

Mark Saggers presented Sunday Exclusive from St Mary's Stadium, followed by Call Collymore from St Mary's Stadium

Premier League
Southampton v Norwich City - Jim Proudfoot and Stan Collymore (1.30pm commentary), with James Dodd producing
Swansea City v Manchester United - Laurence Mora

Athletics: IAAF World Championships 2015
Beijing National Stadium - Lisa O'Sullivan (also sports newsreader)

It looks like Laurence Mora is now a regular member of talkSPORT's reporting team. I stumbled upon his Twitter account recently, where he tweeted that the FA Community Shield was his last match for IRN as a member of Sky News Radio's staff and that Cardiff City v Fulham on 8th August was the start of a "new era" for him on talkSPORT. His beat appears to be South Wales, given that he's mostly covered Cardiff and Swansea games this term.


talkSPORT Live

Premier League
Southampton v Norwich City - Alex Crook and Jason Euell
Swansea City v Manchester United - Phil Blacker and Chris Perry

Bundesliga
Borussia Dortmund v Hertha Berlin - Ian Williams
Werder Bremen v Borussia Monchengladbach - Kevin Hatchard


Newstalk 106-108FM

Adrian Barry presented Off The Ball alongside Richie McCormack

Premier League
Southampton v Norwich City - Connor Morris and Stephen Hunt (1.30pm commentary)
Swansea City v Manchester United - Nathan Murphy and Alan McLoughlin (4pm commentary)

Gaelic Football: GAA All-Ireland Senior Championship Semi-Final
Dublin v Mayo - James Horan

Thought I heard Mark Saggers on Talksport say that they would have live commentary on
San Marino v England match this coming Saturday
and updates on England v Switzerland the following Tuesday
Would that be correct?

Yes.

They also appear to have commentary of Georgia v Scotland and Faroe Islands v Northern Ireland on Friday.

talkSPORT are also doing Cyprus v Wales on Thursday.

5Live are doing those games too, even interrupting Drive on Friday, I'm sure that will go down well! (I agree with the decision btw!)

It seems Kelly Cates is going to be presenting 5Live sport on midweeks along with Mark Chapman, decent decision IMO, good presenter and another female voice which is needed.

I'll try and get this weekend's details for 5Live tomorrow night (so tomorrow morning/lunchtime in the UK)

Monday 31st August 2015 - BBC Radio Devon (1400-1800)

Alan Richardson Presented Devon Sport from the Silverlake Stadium

National League

Eastleigh v Torquay United - Alan Richardson & Dave Thomas (3pm Commmentary on FM, DAB, BBC Sports Website & Gulls Player)

4-4-2 has beaten me in posting the games they will be doing commentary on, but to surmise the contract situation talkSPORT will be doing all of this week's first round of Euro 2016 qualifiers involving the UK nations - which they are able to do as all four countries are playing away from home, so will have been able to pick up rights to each of the four fixtures on a game-by-game basis from the national associations of the teams they are playing.

They'll just be doing reports only coverage of next week's second round of qualifiers though, given that all of the home nations are at home - their contract with The FA enables them to do commentary on all of England's friendlies but not their home qualifiers, while they don't have any commentary deals with the FAW, SFA or IFA.

Nonetheless, hearing commentary on Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland away qualifiers is a notable break from the norm and a very welcome move on talkSPORT's part. Usually they provide updates on all competitive matches involving the home nations (and the Republic of Ireland), but it's rare that they provide commentaries on them outside of occasions when they qualify for major international tournaments.

Indeed - and I would be happy to be proven wrong on this - I believe this will be the first time they have ever provided full commentary on a Wales or Northern Ireland international. The qualifying campaigns when both nations met England in the recent past took place at a time when talkSPORT didn't have FA rights and weren't doing regular commentaries on England, so they missed out on those occasions.

As for Scotland, as with the Republic of Ireland talkSPORT obviously did commentary on their home and away friendlies against England as per their FA contract, but I think the Emirates Stadium-based friendly v Brazil in 2011 has been the only other time they've covered them live since the Euro 2000 play-off when the station was still Talk Radio.

Hopefully this development will be repeated for future away qualifiers, perhaps including the away legs of any potential play-off the Celtic nations are involved in.

Monday 31st August - BBC Coventry & Warwickshire

Stuart Linnell presenting The Sky Blues Live from the Ricoh Arena

League One
Coventry City v Southend United - Clive Eakin and Claus Jorgensen (7.45pm commentary, also on Sky Blues Player)


BBC Essex

Ben Fryer presenting Football Extra from the studio

League One
Coventry City v Southend United - Nick Alliker and Paul Clark (7.45pm commentary on 95.3FM and DAB, also on Blues Player)

Paul Clark made a guest punditry appearance during BBC Coventry & Warwickshire's build-up - whenever I listen to The Sky Blues Live, they always have the summariser from the BBC Local Radio station covering their opponents as a guest prior to kick-off.

QUOTE
Hopefully this development will be repeated for future away qualifiers, perhaps including the away legs of any potential play-off the Celtic nations are involved in. UNQUOTE

As an Englishman I can't share the above comment with you,I want to go to France in the summer of 2016
Subject to England qualifying along with hopefully Wales and Northern Ireland and maybe either Scotland and ROI or both.

As a football follower watching football live, who ever it is,in my opinion, will always be more important than who has done the commentating.

Jon Champion will be covering Rugby for ITV in September - so Absolute Radio will be bringing in Barry Davies for two weeks.

Presumably that's the Barry Davies?

Seems a very random choice, although I suppose Saturday 3pm is the busiest time of the week for commentators so the usual freelance pool might well be bare.

Should have said Barry Davies MBE

Blimey, Barry, as far as I know, hasn’t done radio commentary since the 1960’s??

Oh, don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree with you - I want as many of the British and Irish nations to qualify as possible, and if they can bypass the play-off stage and get through automatically, great. I was just making the point that if any of the Celtic nations are required to make it through the play-offs, then hopefully in those circumstances talkSPORT would look to pick up commentary rights to their away legs.


This is an inspired signing by Absolute Radio that is sure to bring them plenty of publicity, not to mention a few new listeners, if only people like us who are interested in sports broadcasting and its history.

Given what's happened with sports coverage on Bauer-owned local radio stations recently, I had been a little pessimistic as to whether Absolute Radio would be looking to renew their Premier League commentary deal when it expires at the end of the season, but moves like this (and the signing of Jon Champion at the start of last season) are really encouraging. Bringing in Barry Davies for a few weeks suggests the station's management take Rock 'N' Roll Football Live seriously and are not just waiting for their rights to expire since the change of ownership.

Tuesday 1st September - talkSPORT

Drive Time with Adrian Durham and Darren Gough, followed by Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off alongside Clive Allen and Mark Langdon from the Racing Post

Transfer Deadline Day Updates
London and the South - Ian Abrahams
Manchester and the North-West - Dom McGuinness
Merseyside - Graham Beecroft
Midlands - Ian Danter
North-East - Graham Courtney

Tennis: US Open
Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, New York - Bob Ballard

Andrew McKenna is on afternoon/early evening sports newsreading duty as usual. I've not heard talkSPORT's "transfer guru" Warren Haughton, it's the first time he's not been heavy involved on deadline day for a few years.

Tuesday 1st September - BBC WM

Richard Wilford presenting BBC WM 95.6 Sport from the Globe Arena

Johnstone's Paint Trophy Northern Section First Round
Morecambe v Walsall - Chris Coles and Richard Wilford (7.45pm commentary)

BBC WM
On Transfer Deadline Day duty (on air anyway) it was Steve Hermon in the morning and Mikey Burrows in the afternoon. I guess one of the other main 3 WM reports (Mike Taylor, Rob Gurney & Mark Regan) was doing TDD or off as it's still the school holidays much means that Chris Coles is used as their main commentator for the first time.

BBC Radio Sheffield:-
All Johnstone's Paints Trophy Matches:-
Main Game (19:00 kick off), Hartlepool v Sheffield United. Rob Staton and Keith Edwards Summerising
Fill in Game and Reports (19:45), Scunthorpe v Barnsley. Adam Oxley
Reporting Doncaster v Burton, Mike Miney

Radio Devon are not covering the JPT, but the Argyle Media team have been stuck on the M3, and a stand in team are providing comms on Argyle Player last minute with Woody on the twitter feed

BBC Radio Wales

Newport County v Swindon Town (Johnstone's Paint Trophy 1st round South Section - West or something like that) - Mark Poyser (updates)

Rob Phillips and Kevin Ratcliffe are at a 'generic hotel' near Heathrow Airport to discuss Deadline day and Cyprus v Wales.

BBC Somerset

Richard Hoskin (studio host)

Yeovil Town v Barnet (JPT 1st round) - Chris Spittles and Tom Seymour (95.5FM)

That'll be Bastille drummer Chris Wood, who did at least one Plymouth Argyle co-commentary for BBC Radio Devon last season and going by the club's Twitter, was due to be involved in their coverage anyway.

Sorry for stealing Connor's thunder on posting the Morecambe v Walsall details from BBC WM - as it is a JPT game, I wasn't sure if it'd be on his radar! Dale Moon and Mick Kearns are covering the game for Saddlers Player, with Mick due to be on WM at half-time and full-time: he was late arriving at the ground so wasn't with them pre-match.

EURO 2016 Qualifiers - BBC 5Live

Thursday 3 September
Cyprus v Wales - Ian Brown & Robbie Savage

Friday 4 September
Georgia v Scotland - Conor McNamara & Pat Nevin
Faroe Islands v Northern Ireland - Alistair Bruce-Ball & Danny Wilson

Saturday 5 September
San Marino v England - John Murray, Ian Dennis & Jemaine Jenas

Sunday 6 September
Wales v Israel - Ian Brown, Robbie Savage & John Hartson

Thursday 3rd September - talkSPORT

Mark Saggers presenting Kick Off: International Special

UEFA Euro 2016 Qualifying Group B
Cyprus v Wales - Andrew McKenna and Jack Collison (7.45pm commentary)

Cricket: First One-Day International
England v Australia - Jon Norman

Tennis: US Open
Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, New York - Bob Ballard

Jon Norman also reported on the T20 International between England and Australia on Monday. Kate Partridge is sitting in for Andrew McKenna on talkSPORT's afternoon sports news bulletins today.

Tomorrow, Nigel Adderley and Chris Iwelumo will be commentating on Georgia v Scotland with talkSPORT Live regulars Richard Connelly and Paul McVeigh commentating on the Faroe Islands v Northern Ireland. I think it's Connelly's first appearance on talkSPORT UK since he commentated on the Ivory Coast v Japan game from the 2014 World Cup group stage (which was the game that took place at 2am our time on a Sunday morning).

On Saturday, Jim Proudfoot and Stan Collymore will be commentating on San Marino v England. Ian Danter will be hosting International Matchday Live and has been reporting from the England camp today.

BBC Radio Lancashire - Thursday 3rd September 2015.

Andy Bayes presenting Matchnight Live from Deepdale.

International Match:
England Under 21 v USA Under 23 - Andy Bayes and David Dunn (commentary at 7:45pm on all frequencies)

Will Perry reported on England U21's for 5Live

Eleanor Oldroyd presented and commentators were as above