Of course it was Chris Mitchell. Where did I conjure up Williams from? I put it down to th heavy cold/virus I seem to have acquired.

BBC Radio WM

Wycombe v Birmingham City

Tony Butler (Host / Phone in)

Daz Hale & Mike Taylor

BBC Radio Scotland

Richard Gordon presenting from the Sportsound studio.

Alba Challenge Cup 2nd Round

East Fife v Airdrie Utd - Paul Mitchell and Allan Preston (commentary)
East Stirling v Morton - Charlie Mann* with Stevie Frail

*So confirmation that he is back with Radio Scotland, with this following on from his presence at Morton v St Johnstone at the weekend.

BBC Radio 5 Live - 5 live Sport:

FC Twente vs. Arsenal [UEFA Champions League Third Qualifying Round] - Ian Dennis, Darren Fletcher and Ray Parlour (Commentary Game)
Standard Liege vs. Liverpool [UEFA Champions League Third Qualifying Round] - Peter Slater (updates)
Wycombe Wanderers vs. Birmingham City [Carling Cup] - Simon Mann (updates)

I was thinking earlier about 5 Live's weekend of football, and what will happen with the commentators and reporters for games, what with Jon Murray and Alan Green being over in Beijing. I'm guessing that there's Dave Woods, Darren Fletcher, Ian Dennis, Ian Brown, Mike Ingham and Conor MacNamara available for the live games, but who will do updates for Saturday's games? Also, some of the reporters that they use are also in Beijing, such as Vasos Alexander.

and Julliette Ferrington. Spose they'll still have Stuart Hall, Clem and co. Might phone Tony Adamson and see if he fancies a run out, maybe Motty??

They'll also have David Oates, Mike Sewell, Ali Bruce-Ball, Peter Slater, possibly Arlo White or Simon Mann if they're not at the FP Trophy cricket final and maybe Nigel Adderley? Thought he might have been at the Olympics but I havent heard him.

Thursday 14th August

7:00pm-10:00pm: Kick-Off with Stan Collymore & Alvin Martin

Manchester City v FC Midtjlland - Dominic McGuinness
FH Hafnarfjördur v Aston Villa (7:00pm) - Nigel Pearson

Just my opinion, but I think it's a bit of a shame that Stan Collymore joined talkSPORT, because I thought he was very good at doing punditry during the live matches on 5 Live. Will Stan be doing the 3pm games on talkSPORT this season? It would be a waste if he isn't. Also, does anybody know what talkSPORT's first commentary of the season is on Saturday?

Standard Leige v Liverpool (Wednesday)
Radio City/City Talk 105.9: Steve Hothersall & Tony Barrett
BBC Merseyside: Mike Hughes

Man City v FC Midtjylland
BBC Manchester: Ian Cheeseman & Nigel Gleghorn
Magic 1152: Hugh Ferris & Andy Hinchcliffe

BBC Radio Five Live (Dan Walker hosting)

FH v Aston Villa John Southall
Man City v Midtjylland Alistair Yeomans
Queen of the South v Nordtjylland Roddie Forsyth (at Airdrie)

York City V Wrexham (Blue Square Premier)

BBC Radio York - Alistair Ross and Chris Jones (AM FM and Online)
BBC Radio Wales - Graham Lloyd and Dixie McNeill (North FM and Online)

.....and as I type Radio York having a little dig at Graham mispronouncing some of York's Names!
Last edited by Ian Cleverly : 14-08-2008 at 20:03

I think that Alistair Ross is the new commentator on BBC Radio Tork this season.

Yep, just heard CJ refer to him at 'Al', so was just off to Radio York's Website to do a quickie search on variants of that Name.

Radio Tork?

BBC Radio Scotland

Queen of the South v FC Nordsjaelland - Liam McLeod, Murdo MacLeod and Billy Dodds (commentary)

York's Press Pox must be tiny, as I can hear the Clubcall Guy, and commentary in Chinese/Mandarin!

Yes, it's obviously Tork Sport.

Who is Dan Walker? (5Live)

Dan Walker used to be IRN's man in Manchester. He has been reporting for the last couple of seasons or so for BBC's Score Interactive.

I haven't got talkSPORT's reporters and commentators in advance this week but I'll listen out for them tomorrow for the run-down. The only one I definitely know is that Nigel Pearson is with Stan Collymore for commentary of Everton v Blackburn.

Thanks 4-4-2. I shall be in Paris tomorrow so shall not be able to monitor the games in the London area. Given the spread of contributors we have to this thread, I am hoping that we can cover BBC Radio Five Live, Talk Sport, IRN and local radio in Wales/West, North-West, Midlands and the North-East (as well as, of course, Scotland). Good luck to the teams you support tomorrow.

Time was, 15 years ago, when 5 Live only had 6 regular football commentators. Back in 1993-94, it was Green, Ingham, Ron Jones, Rob Hawthorne, Jon Champion and Jonathan Legard - with Miles Harrison doing a handful of commentaries. A quality line-up of commentators, with several going on to bigger and better things, but not much room for maneouvre. I'd imagine that the workload was a lot bigger back then. Nowadays, you're looking at

Green
Ingham
Murray
Brown
Brotherton
Motson
Dennis
Fletcher
McNamara
Oates
Woods
Sewell
Bruce-Ball
Adderley

et al....

So there's plenty of room for football commentators covering other sports, taking holidays, etc. I'm not sure quantity equals quality. The standard of commentary on 5 Live isn't as good as it once was and there's a blandness and sameness in many of the voices. However Green, Ingham and Murray continue to be excellent.

I'll be in Airdrie tomorrow, but will listen out for Radio Scotland as usual on my phone's radio. And my TM-less username means I can now post them whilst sitting waiting for kick off!

I'll record Five Live on my PVR just in case no-one else manages to listen in.

Oatley

. . . and suddenly, the door opened and who should be standing there but QPRKeithJ. Footygirl also arrived and a conversation ensued.

Unfortunately, at that point, I woke up.

mikey1980 - of course, there were many fewer commentaries in 93/94 than now - Saturday lunchtime and teatime kick-offs happened perhaps once or twice a season if that, there were fewer matches played on Sundays, Thursday night European ties hadn't happened yet (they started in 94/95) and obviously there was no Sports Extra. There were still relatively few commentators, of course (especially because Jon Champion was confined to the studio to host Monday night's Premiership match and Jonathan Legard had a similar role hosting Tuesday night's coverage) but there were still more than there were when it was basically Peter Jones, Bryon Butler, Alan Parry and perhaps John Helm and Jim Rosenthal, just as the number of commentaries in 93/94 seemed very large for the time, seeing how it was only a few years after the Radio 2 MW, pre-Prem era when you basically just had Saturday afternoons and only big matches in midweek or on Sundays.

These days, I think it would be justifiable to only have one commentator and one summariser for less important matches. The general insistence on two commentators seems increasingly outmoded.