Originally Posted by IanFergus:
“I fully agree with you. I can't remember (but will check tonight) whether Century 106FM in the East Midlands commentated on Nottingham Forest in 2004-2005 (with the excellent Darren Fletcher as chief commentator, and, I think, Nick Wilson reporting on Derby County).”
I can tell you for certain that Century106FM dropped all their commentary rights to Nottingham Forest (and I think they might have had some rights to Derby and Leicester too) in the Summer of 2004, as did most of the stations in the group.
I'm not sure if I can agree with you in your appraisal of Darren Fletcher as being 'excellent' though, at least during his time at Century FM. From my selective listening to his commentaries on local radio, he was anything but!
I used to tune in from time to time on the numberous Walsall-Forest games over this period (we are there bogey team!

), and I know local commercial commentators tend to be biased in favour of the 'home' team, but he really took the biscuit.
Commentators like Tom Ross, Jim Proudfoot and Ian Danter carry off the local radio passion and fervour towards the local team really well, but I thought Fletcher overdid it even by the Capital Group's standards - often being uneccesarily rude and unpleasent about the away teams and their players.
I remember listening to him doing one game where he laid into the then-Walsall goalkeeper Jimmy Walker for being "too small to be a goalie", by rubbishing him and poking fun at him in a overfamiliar manner, that even lead co-commentator Garry Birtles (now with Sky Sports) to tell Fletch to steady on and cut Wacker some slack.
Happily, these jibes came to bite Fletcher on the backside, as that evening Walker played a blinder, and shut Forest out heroically to keep a clean sheet as Walsall fought to a good win.
Thankfully, now not shackled with this seeming need to have a strong local radio bias, Fletcher has grown immensley over his past two years on BBC Radio Five Live - and sounds all the better for it.
Originally Posted by Whymark:
“Mr Fletcher joined Five Live in 2004 - so I'd imagine that's when they ditched it.”
That's right, in actual fact his last gig with the Capital Radio Group was in covering England at Euro 2004 in Portugal for their networked coverage. He was the main commentator, alongside Tony Gale (now of Sky Sports) - with Century 105.4FM's Gary Weaver anchoring the coverage. A nice send-off for him.
He joined BBC Radio Five Live after the first few weeks of the 2004-05 season, after a reported tug of war for his services between themselves and talkSPORT, with the latter even having his name in the schedule for their first 1089am game of the season (in the end he never appeared once on Talk).
Which brings me on nicely to...
Originally Posted by RichardRees:
“Certainly in London, part of the problem was before Pearce left, when TalkSport bought up rights to 3 of the clubs (Chelsea, Spurs and Fulham I think), and Capital were left with just Arsenal, West Ham and Charlton. West Ham then got relegated, and as a result, quite often Capital did not have a commentary on some big nights, and didn't have the Premiership some Saturdays.
Ironically, Talksport seem to have stopped their regional commentaries, so, in London at least, there is now very little radio coverage. I don't think Arsenal, for example, have a local radio station broadcasting their games.”
That's right Richard, talkSPORT secured a three-season deal to air all domestic matches of Chelsea, Tottenham and newly-promoted Fulham in the Premiership on their 1089am frequency in the London/South-East area just before the start of the 2001-02 season, having missed out on full national rights earlier that year.
I believe their deal with Fulham later became a joint one with BBC Radio London - after it became clear that most weeks, they would be overlooked for commentary if they played at 3pm on a Saturday and so did one of the other two clubs.
Capital Gold London continued with Arsenal, Charlton and West Ham, with similar three-season deals, but as you say, once these expired at the end of 2003-04, The Capital Radio Group by and large pulled out of the market (although in the case of BRMB/Capital Gold Birmingham, it was for only one season, and I dare say that helped push the price of commentary rights down, so was a good thing for them in the long run).
Just to clear up talkSPORT's position in the local radio commentary market up, this season is the first season since 01-02 in which they have not had local radio commentary rights at all, although they still have the ability to broadcast them should they want to. But with national rights coming in 07-08, I'm not sure if they will ever go back in the future.
Following on from their deals with the three clubs expiring in 2004-05, talkSPORT decided to renew their deal with Chelsea for another season, plus sign up rights to cover Arsenal and later newly-promoted Crystal Palace for that season only. All three deals seemed to have been done at the last minute, when it became clear that Capital Gold weren't going to return to the market, and no 'new' stations were going to enter it either.
In January 2005, after TWG (as was) had enquired about acquiring the ability to broadcast opt-out programming on 1089am in the North-West of England, talkSPORT purchased rights to broadcast Blackburn Rovers, Everton and Manchester City to this area for the remainder of the season. I believe talkSPORT also secured the ability to broadcast opt-out programming the West Midlands at this time, with them said to be looking at purchasing local radio rights to Aston Villa (nothing came of this in the end).
In 2005-06, talkSPORT renewed their deal with Arsenal and Chelsea (although not relegated Palace or the three Northern clubs), but this time only for Premier League games. At this point, Smooth FM came into the market - and had joint rights to Chelsea in a similar way to how BBC Radio London shared local rights with Talk to Fulham a few seasons earlier.
Under the management of UTV Radio, talkSPORT have not purchased rights to any local 1089am coverage of any Premiership clubs this season - although I do believe they still have the ability to broadcast opt-out local programming (and, should they have the rights, live football as well) on 1089am in London and the South-East, the North-West, the West Midlands and throughout Scotland too.
Sorry for such a long account on this, I just thought some of you might be interested to read full details on this, seeing as Richard didn't seem to be sure what the situation currently is.
Originally Posted by Whymark:
“One of the big problems was the ludicrous amount of money they'd agreed to pay West Ham....and didn't have a relegation clause in the deal. A bit like Radio Aire with Leeds.
Some of the deals that were done back then were just silly...”
Interesting Whymark, tell me more...
Last edited by Walsall_Chris : 24-11-2006 at 17:46