Sorry to be pedantic, but technically I don't think Danter "worked" for RTE this Sunday. I believe they just take talkSPORT's match reports occasionally for their sports coverage, as it is cheaper than sending out their own reporters. A similar kind of situation to the one many stations (including RTE) have with IRN's Premiership match reporters.

I certainly agree with you on your opinions of Pearson and Danter - two great West Midlands radio talent who certainly deserve to be on a national stage. And both are excelling now that they've been given a chance to present - it may be of interest to you that it looks like Danter will be talkSPORT's regular presenter on Friday night's Evening Kick-Off alongside Alvin Martin now that former Friday presenter Rhodri Williams has accepted a job to present Rugby Union on that day for Setanta Sports TV.

One more thing on this subject, with Nigel Pearson having moved to the main studio role on Saturdays, Jeff Owen having not appeared on the station for years and now seemingly become a match reporter for Beacon Radio, Ian Danter often being busy with other commitments (except on Saturdays) and the other West Midlands reporters they ocassionally use - Mark Tompkins and Jack Woodard - often being tied up with work on Chelsea TV and The Villian respectively, I think it would be a good move for talkSPORT to bring in another West Midlands match reporter for use on a Saturday afternoon and on Midweek match evenings?

Ian Danter can only do one match per day, and quite often more than one of the big West Midlands clubs will be playing at home on a Saturday. Sure, they could (and often do) use talkSPORT's East Midlands correspondant Geoff Peters to do these games, but surely he should be used at The Walkers Stadium or Pride Park instead. If it's not him, then they will often have to use one of their regular match reporters who are based from miles away. So, I think it would be a good idea for them to bring in another West Midlands based football reporter to cover these matches.

So who could this be? Well the first name that instantly springs from off the top of my head is Richard Wilford. He covered the 5 major West Midlands teams for 10 seasons as both a commentator and reporter with BBC Radio WM, before leaving their coverage midway through last season in order to take the drivetime job on BBC Radio Hereford & Woucester. However, I don't believe he's involved in H&W's Saturday sports coverage - which is surprising - and therefore would be available (I don't think the fact he works for the BBC during the week would be a problem - as talkSPORT have used people who work for the BBC in other areas on their sports coverage before). I think he'd make an excellent addition to talkSPORT's match reporting team.

Yes agreed. But do Talk Sport want to cover that many games involving the Midlands teams? After all there is only Villa in the Premiership out of the West and East Midlands.
Sad state of affairs when they nearly all used to be there.
Not degrading the Championship of course but the Premiership is probably there main priority for match reports, and their probably a bit Sothern biased as well!

One possible name in the West Midlands could be Frank Pritchard who used to report when ITV did its Saturday afternoon 'Goal Rush' programme.

Or Mike Jones who used to work with Nigel Pearson, normally covering Shrewsbury.
Mind you he normaly works on Sky Soccer Saturday now.

. . . and indeed is covering Rugby Union for Sky Sports News at Worcester this afternoon.

Well firstly I wouldn't say that talkSPORT are "Southern biased" at all. I would consider their team of match reporters to be the best set of sports reporters on the radio, and I feel that team is very representative of the whole country, moreso than, say, the IRN bunch or the set that Five Live use. They regularly use reporters based in the Westcountry, on the South Coast, in South Wales, in Yorkshire, Newcastle, East Anglia and other far flung parts of the UK.

On the main point - talkSPORT usually cover matches featuring the "Big 4" West Midlands teams, and used to do reports from more than a few Walsall matches when we were in Division 1 as well. talkSPORT provide match reports from every game in The Premiership and most games in The Championship, and therefore they will have reporters at just about every game involving Aston Villa, Birmingham City, West Bromwich Albion and Wolves, not to mention Derby County and Leicester City in the East Midlands as well. So, considering they have have only 2 reporters who are usually free on a Saturday afternoon from the Midlands as a whole (now that Nigel Pearson has moved to a studio role) - I would say they could do with at least one additional Midland-based reporter.


In actual fact, I've heard Mike Jones report for talkSPORT once before. It was on that Thursday night back at the end of 2002-03 when Shrewsbury Town were relegated. It was a rare lower league game that talkSPORT covered due to it's huge significance. However, I can't see him working on talkSPORT again in the future (other than a similar a one-off occasion) because:

1) as you say, he usually does games for Sky Sports Soccer Saturday/Special on big matchdays/matchnights; and

2) talkSPORT rarely cover lower league/non-league games, and as Mike Jones usually does Shrewsbury Town, Hereford United and AFC Telford matches as opposed to those of other teams, that would rule him out.

Just to tidy this one up, Grant Coleman's official job title now is 'deputy head of sport, BBC English regions'.

Don't ask me what that means, but I think he has some sort of responsibility for overseeing BBC local radio coverage across the country.

He also covers England's matches for BBC local radio.

Not being able to get to The Memorial Ground today, and with Walsall 2-0 up and cruising early on in the day, in the second half of today's football I decided to check out a few of the other local BBC stations which cover football that I can recieve in my region.

Firstly, I tried BBC Radio Coventry & Warwickshire. Crystal Palace vs Coventry was the featured game, and Geoff Foster & Clive Eakin were the commentary team as per usual (I see Dave Phillips, who used to do the odd co-commentary on the Sky Blues last term, profile is not on the C&W website this season), with Eakin anchoring the post match phone as well.

Not a fan of the two laymen (no ex-pro) commentary format, but I think these two are two of the best at it of those I've heard, partially due to their five years of experience working together. That said, I can see why Cov fans would like to have Rob Gurney back on C&W - from listening to him regularly on WM for the past five years, I know that he's a top quality broadcaster, and would be good alongside either Foster or Eakin in the commentary box, in either role.

It's not as if WM really need him anyway, as in Mark Regan, Mike Taylor and James Mountford they have three other commentators on their books which is more than enough for the amount of football they cover. C&W also had reports on Nuneaton Borough, which I liked as we don't get reports on local non-league teams often on WM.

My next port of call was BBC Radio Leicester. Again, it was another "laymen" commentary pairing, with Jon Barber & John Sinclair on the commentary. And I have to say, they were absolutely dreadful. To be fair, Leicester-Colchester didn't sound the best game, but even so, there was no "oomph" or enthusiasm whatsoever, they didn't sound like they wanted to be there, and mostly they just chatted amongst themselves banally .

Also, I couldn't tell which one of them was meant to be the commentator and who was meant to be the summerisier, which just tells you how disjointed the commentary was. Unless there is a Leicester game that I am desperate to listen to which isn't on BBC Five Live, Sports Extra or another local station, I can't see myself tuning in to BBC Radio Leicester Sportstime again any time soon.

Finally, I headed over to medium wave to check out a bit of BBC Radio Derby, who I continue to be impressed with on the few occasions I listen to their sports coverage, having heard a bit of their commentary of extra-time/penalties of Derby's Wednesday night Carling Cup defeat to Doncaster. We got more of the same today, another exciting game in Sheffield Wednesday-Derby and a commentary befitting the game. I've long thought that Ross Fletcher is amongst the best BBC local radio commentators that I've personally heard, and I was genuinely surprised when Five Live brought in Darren Fletcher from Century 106FM (at the time he was the most dreadful stereotype of a biased commercial radio commentator you could ever hope to hear, although to be fair he has improved noteably since joining Five Live) to be their new East Midlands voice a few years back, as he wasn't even the best commentator in that region with the surname Fletcher!

Since I last listened though (well, before Wednesday night that is), it seems as if they have found a decent co-commentator to call the games alongside him on a regular basis, in Derby hero of the 80's Ted McMinn. Wonderfully Scottish, he knows his stuff and isn't afraid to voice his opinions. Fletcher & McMinn make a great commentary team, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear either of them on BBC Radio Five Live in the future. Elsewhere in the coverage, they have a competant enough presenter in Colin Gibson, an enthusiastic Burton Albion reporter called Charles Collins, and provide an awful lot of after-match interviews, at the expense of a post-match phone-in.

So what have I learnt from today's listening? Well, the next time there's a Derby-Leicester fixture that I want to listen to - for local radio commentary, tuning into BBC Radio Derby rather than Radio Leicester is a must!
Last edited by Walsall_Chris : 23-09-2006 at 19:20

Today's WM commentary/reporting details in the specific WM Sport thread...

On BRMB/Capital Gold in Birmingham today, BRMB did an interesting thing that enabled all three of their teams to be broadcast on one platform as a commentary match, rather than just doing 2 of the three 3pm kick-off's, meaning one set of fans miss out.

On 96.4FM, Tom Ross and Pat Hurd provided live commentary on the "Game Of The Day" between Chelsea and Aston Villa. However, by listening to BRMB on DAB or the stations' digital TV platforms, listeners were able to hear West Brom vs Leeds with Ian Rivers and Tony 'Bomber' Brown. To complete the set, on 1152am Capital Gold Birmingham, Nathan Alleyne and Kevan Broadhurst provided commentary on Blues vs Leicester.

What with Walsall playing Mansfield today, being unable to get to the game, I decided to check out a bit of BBC Radio Nottingham. Robin Chipperfield presented the action from The City Ground, with the commentary teams on their featured matches being: -

Nottingham Forest vs Swansea City - Colin Fray & John McGovern (match live on BBC Radio Nottingham on FM)
Torquay United vs Notts County - Colin Slater & Dean Yates (match live on BBC Radio Nottingham on DAB)
Walsall vs Mansfield - David Jackson & ? (match live on BBC Radio Nottingham on AM).

Good to see that all three teams in the Nottinghamshire region get live radio coverage in some form as well, not as good as today's result for the Saddlers though!

Not much that I can add to Walsall_Chris's post as I was in Nottingham for the weekend and picked up BBC Radio Nottingham and BBC Radio Derby (Ross Fletcher, Ted McMinn and Colin Gibson commentating on Derby County's match). I didn't hear who David Jackson's co-commentator was unfortunately. BBC Radio Nottingham will cover Mansfield v Notts County (with David Jackson and Colin Slater) next Saturday lunchtime.

The commentary team on BBC London 94.9FM tonight for Watford v Fulham is Emma Jones (host), Nick Godwin (commentator) and Clive Walker (analyst). I can't pick up BBC Three Counties Radio tonight but I assume that Simon Oxley is commentating. Conor MacNamara and Simon Brotherton are commentating on BBC Radio Five Live with Mark Bright summarising whilst Alistair Bruce-Ball is the touchline reporter.

Do you know if David Jackson and Colin Slater are teaming up to do the commentary as a pairing (as two 'laymen' as they regularly use on other BBC local stations like WM, Coventry & Warks and Radio Leicester), if one of them is hosting and one is doing 90 minute commentary, or if both of them are doing commentary along with a pundit whose played for both sides in a Five Live three man commentary team style?

As for last night's match, in addition to what you've written, John Norman was talkSPORT's match reporter. Don't know who IRN were using, if anybody (so far this season I've not heard an IRN reporter from the 5.15pm Saturday kick-off, let alone a midweek fixture!)

BBC Radio Nottingham announce that both were commentating on the match at Field Mill. I shall try to confirm on Saturday.

I do not know why but LBC (here in London) have stopped using reports from the grounds (which, in my opinion, is indicative of LBC's decline as a news and sports station) so finding IRN's reporters is proving more difficult. I use BRMB Radio One or Real Radio Wales to find out IRN's commentators.

They stopped subscribing to IRN - its not just the sport they stopped taking.

Some of today's commentators:

BBC London:
Millwall at Cardiff - Nick Godwin and Scott Minto
Brentford v Bristol City - Jonathan Beck

BBC Radio Lincolnshire:
Scunthorpe at Nottingham Forest - David Burns, George Kerr and Matt Dean as a reporter.

Some of today's reporters and commentators:

BBC Radio Five Live
Wigan v Man Utd - Conor Macnamara, Ian Brown and Jimmy Armfield (commentary)
Arsenal v Watford - Alistair Bruce-Ball (Darren Fletcher and Don Goodman commentated on Five Live Sports Extra)
Aston Villa v Tottenham - Pat Murphy
Liverpool v Blackburn - Juliette Ferrington
Man City v Sheffield United - Stuart Hall
Middlesbro v Everton - Peter Slater
Portsmouth v West Ham - John Murray and Graham Taylor (commentary)
Reading v Chelsea - commentary on 5LSE by Ron Jones and David Armstrong (Mike Sewell reporting on Five Live)
Crystal Palace v Cardiff - Jacqui Oatley
Ipswich v WBA - John Southall
Luton v Birmingham - Rob Nothman
Gillingham v Forest - Richard Connelly
Walsall v Wycombe - Ross Fletcher (presumably on his way from Derby to Plymouth)
Whitley Bay v Blyth Spartans - Mark Clemett
Dundee United v Celtic - Andy Gillies
Rangers v Inverness CT - Roddy Forsyth

IRN
Wigan- Tom Parker (ex-Red Rose Radio at Preston)
Arsenal - Russell Hargreaves
Aston Villa - Simon Watts
Liverpool - Simon Hoversal
Man City - Pete Smith
Middlesbrough - Jonathan Breeze
Portsmouth - Jamie Hill
Reading - Paul Ashton

Today FM
Wigan - Steve Roberts
Arsenal - Nigel Bidmead
Aston Villa - Alan Tolley
Liverpool - Tom Tyrrell and Ronnie Whelan (commentary)
Man City - Jake Katborg
Middlesbrough - Gordon Cox
Portsmouth - Graham Miller
Reading - Ian Beech

BBC London 94.9FM
Arsenal v Watford - Jonathan Beck
Tottenham at Villa - NickGodwin (DAB commentary)
West Ham at Portsmouth - Phil Parry and Billy Bonds (FM commentary)
Crystal Palace v Cardiff - Dave Victor
QPR v Norwich - Dave Victor
Millwall v Bournemouth - Andrea Tennant
Leyton Orient at Oldham - Mark Taylor
Brentford at Rotherham - Clive Edwards
Barnet v Lincoln - Barry Swain

Real Radio Wales
Cardiff at Palace - Sam Fleet
Swansea at Chesterfield - Mark Poisa (?)

Hallam FM
Sheffield Wed v Barnsley - Matt Zolanyk
Sheffield United at Man City - Ian Fenton
Rotherham v Brentford - Dave Eggleston
Doncaster at Cheltenham - Ed Dawes

Radio Aire (Leeds) seems to have given up on sport
Last edited by IanFergus : 14-10-2006 at 18:00

I noticed that, for today's featured Lower League games, Five Live used two promising up-and-comers from their BBC Local Radio stations.

BBC Radio Lancashire's Blackburn Rovers correspondant Richard Connelly did a good job at the Priestfield, whilst it was excellent to hear them take a rare trip to the Bescot, and send BBC Radio Derby's excellent young commentator Ross Fletcher there - who is one of the best sports broadcasters I have heard on the BBC local network, and someone who I tipped to do a good job on Five Live not two weeks ago!

Nice to see I was proven right, as you probably would guess I had a vested interest in the game he was covering, and he did a good job in my opinion. I hope Five Live use him again when Derby aren't playing - maybe as a commentator on Five Live Sports Extra, where they occasionally use BBC Local Radio commentators on Saturday matches, which I think would be a good move.

Speaking of which, here is a few more details from today's football on the radio:

BBC Radio Five Live Sports Extra had two two-person commentary teams for their live matches, both anchored by Alison Mitchell:

Arsenal-Watford - Darren Fletcher & Don Goodman
Reading-Chelsea - Ron Jones & David Armstrong

talkSPORT's Football First:

In the week it was announced that talkSPORT had won the rights to second-choice Saturday 3pm games from The Premier League, meaning that Football First as we know it will be no longer as of next season , it's worth noting who they used today :-

Nigel Pearson hosted the show as usual, with Alvin Martin (Arsenal-Watford) and Gary Stevens (Liverpool-Blackburn) watching Premiership games on their monitors. No Rodney Marsh at a ground, as he's on holiday, and here is the list of reporters they used:

Wigan v Man Utd - Tim White
Arsenal v Watford - Andy Clarke
Aston Villa v Tottenham - Grahame Lloyd
Liverpool v Blackburn - Chris Cooper
Man City v Sheff Utd - Dom McGuinness
Middlesbrough v Everton - John Temple
Portsmouth v West Ham - Andrew McKenna
Reading v Chelsea - Mike Bovill

Crystal Palace v Cardiff - John Norman
Ipswich v West Brom - Kev Lawrence
Luton v Birmingham - Ian Abrahams
Preston v Sunderland - Eamonn Watson
QPR v Norwich - Paul McDowell

BBC WM/BRMB/Capital Gold Birmingham details in the WM Football coverage thread, if you're interested and haven't seen them already.
Last edited by Walsall_Chris : 14-10-2006 at 21:17

The normally excellent John Murray made a rare mistake on Sunday. During his 5 Live commentary on Newcastle v Bolton he identified Anelka as the first goalscorer, rather than Hadj Djiouf, and proceeded to describe him celebrating in front of the Newcastle fans. To make matters worse, the commentary was then replayed on 6-0-6.

BBC Radio Five Commentators for Man City v Wigan are Nigel Adderley, Darren Fletcher and Chris Waddle

Commentary on Chelsea v Portsmouth by John Murray and Steve Claridge.
Reporters include:
Everton v Sheffield United - Peter Slater
Charlton v Watford - John Southall

Today FM's commentators and reporters are:
Wigan v Man City - Tom Tyrrell
Chelsea v Portsmouth - Ron Jones and Mick Martin (commentary)
Charlton v Watford - Ian Beech
Everton v Sheffield United - Steve Roberts
Last edited by IanFergus : 21-10-2006 at 14:26

Ian, is it safe to say that you're not a fan of talkSPORT's Football First service, seeing as you seem to list all the commentators/reporters used by every other national radio Saturday football show except for that one?

Anyway, here is the list of match reporters talkSPORT are using today:

Nigel Pearson anchoring things in the studio, alongside Alvin Martin (whose watching Chelsea-Portsmouth on his monitor) and Gary Stevens (watching Everton-Sheffield United). The around the grounds are as follows:

Wigan v Man City - Tim White
Charlton v Watford - Mike Bovill
Chelsea v Portsmouth - Andy Clarke
Everton v Sheff Utd - Eamonn Watson
Aston Villa v Fulham - Ian Danter

Derby v Birmingham - Dominic McGuinness
Leicester v Crystal Palace - Geoff Peters
Luton v Leeds - Ian Abrahams
Norwich v Cardiff - Dave Roe (making his talkSPORT reporting debut)
Preston v Hull - Grahame Lloyd
Sheff Wed v QPR - Nick Johnson (taken from Sky's Soccer Saturday
Southampton v Stoke - Paul McDowell
Southend v Ipswich - Tony Incenzo
Sunderland v Barnsley - John Temple
Plus Jack Bannister reporting on the cricket.

Other details from today:

BBC Radio Wales:

Steve James presenting on MW, Cardiff commentary on South-East FM and Wrexham commentary on Northern FM.

Norwich v Cardiff - Rob Phillips & Roger Gibbins
Mansfield v Wrexham - Roger Hughes & Colin Addison
Chelsea v Portsmouth - Malcolm Allen
Everton v Sheff Utd - Kevin Ratcliffe
Rhyl v Haverfordwest - Mike Davies (not that one).

Capital Gold/IRN:

Wigan v Man City - Peter Smith
Charlton v Watford - Jamie Hill
Chelsea v Portsmouth - James Gibson
Everton v Sheff Utd - Liam Blyth
England Cricket - Nigel Bidmead

Russell Hargreaves in the Capital Gold London studios, Tom Ross & Kevan Broadhurst doing Derby-Birmingham for BRMB.

I tend to tune into Talk Sport later than the remainder of the stations.

BBC London reporters and (c) commentators:
Charlton v Watford - Steve Houghton (c, FM)
Chelsea v Portsmouth - Emma Jones
Crystal Palace at Leicester - Phil Parry (c, DAB/Sky)
QPR at Sheffield Wednesday - Mark Taylor
Brentford v Gillingham - Kevin Hand
Leyton Orient v Cheltenham - Dave Victor
Barnet at Darlington - Barry Swain

Real Radio Wales has Mark Poiser (?) with Cardiff at Norwich

Hallam FM have Matt Zolanyk (as usual) covering Sheffield Wednesday, Peter Jenkins with Sheffield United at Everton, Simon Owen with barnsley at Sunderland, Ed Dawes with Rotherham at Bournemouth and Ian Fenton at Doncaster v Chesterfield.

Fair enough Ian. Just interested.

Anyway, as it hasn't been done in full - here's who Five Live used today:

Wigan v Man City - Nigel Adderley, Darren Fletcher & Chris Waddle (commentary)
Charlton v Watford - John Southall
Chelsea v Portsmouth - John Murray & Steve Claridge (commentary)
Everton v Sheff Utd - Peter Slater
Aston Villa v Fulham - Pat Murphy

Derby v Birmingham - Jacqui Oatley
Norwich v Cardiff - Chris Dennis
Preston v Hull - Stuart Hall
Sunderland v Derby - Juliet Ferrington
Nottingham Forest v Bristol City - Alistair Yeomans
Bristol Rovers v Macclesfield Town - Rob Nothman (who just did the Lower League round-up on Sports Report, rather than the usual correspondant Mark Clemmit)
Celtic v Motherwell - Ian Turner
Hearts v Kilmarnock - Andy Gillies

On the late games between Villa-Fulham, Mike Sewell & Steve Froggatt are commentating for Five Live Sports Extra (Bob Ballard presenting the coverage), and we have Pat Murphy (Five Live), Ian Danter (talkSPORT) and Allan Tolley (Today FM) all reporting. I don't know who GCap's/IRN's man is, although it would make sense if they are using BRMB's Nathan Alleyne, who is reporting on the game for the Birmingham station as they don't have commentary rights.

By the way Ian, how do you know which reporters IRN use on the late game? I never hear any mention of them, let alone their reports, on either Capital Gold London or Ireland's Red FM (who also take IRN reports)?
Last edited by Walsall_Chris : 21-10-2006 at 18:07

No name was given at Villa Park but it sounded like Paul Ashton. The BRMB signal was very poor from the grounds today.

Some of today's commentators and reporters.
BBC Radio Five Live
Blackburn v Bolton - Ian Brown, Conor MacNamara and Kevin Gallagher (full commentary)
Manchester United v Liverpool - Alan Green, Mike Ingham and Jimmy Armfield (full commentary)
Middlesborough v Newcastle - Peter Slater
Reading v Arsenal - Nigel Adderley and Leroy Rosenior (second-half commentary)
Tottenham v West Ham - Rob Nothman

BBC Five Live Sports Extra
Tottenham v West Ham - Alistair Bruce-Ball and Malky MacKay (full commentary)

Talk Sport
Dom McGuinness (Man Utd), Tim White (Blackburn), John Temple (M'boro), Andrew McKenna (Reading) and Ian Abrahams (Tottenham)

BBC London 94.9FM and BBC Essex (765AM)
Tottenham v West Ham - Nick Godwin and Scott Minto (full commentary)

BBC Radio Lanacashire
Blackburn v Bolton - Andy Bayes was the commentator

BBC Radio Manchester
Stewart Gardener reported from Old Trafford, whilst Jack Dearden and Alan Gowling commentated on Bolton at Blackburn.

Alan Tolley used to be a BBC WM sports reporter didn"t he?