Masters of the Microphone
18 BBC 'Match Of The Day' Commentators Past And Present

1. Simon Brotherton (1999 - present)
2. Jon Champion (1995 - 2001)
3. David Coleman (1964 - 1981)
4. Barry Davies (1969 - 2004)
5. Tony Gubba (early-70's - present)
6. Stuart Hall (late-60's)
7. Click to continue reading...

Admit it. It may not have been Revs commentators Greg Lalas or Brade Feldman, but you've wanted to do this at least 213 times to some announcer at one time or other. For me it was always Marv Albert; the perv is the reason I never got into basketball. Click to continue reading...

If you like your football full of passion, great skills, end to end excitement, two sets of pumped up fans, a full stadium and a Semi Final prize up for grabs you'd have loved the Adelaide United Kashima Antlers clash at Hindmarsh Stadium last night.

The Reds won 1-0 and made history becoming the first Aussie side into the Continents major football tournaments Semi Final. Click to continue reading...

Cavalieri
Degen Agger Hyypia Insua
Pennant Lucas Plessis El Zhar
Ngog Babel

Subs:
Torres for Ngog 66'
Carragher for Degen 73'
Keane for El Zhar 87'

Goals:
Agger 15'
O'Conner 25'
Lucas 58'

This is a placeholder; for the first time in recent memory, there weren't even any streams, just radio commentary. Click to continue reading...

Ebi Smolarek can't find his form from Euro 2008 qualifiers. He posed no threat whatsoever in his debut game for Bolton Wanderers. The Premiership, at least in the first match, proved too fast and competetive for him. The other Polish highlight of the weekend was Tomasz Kuszczak's involvement in Super Sunday game against Chelsea.

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Jamie Oliver would not have been happy with Arsenal tonight in Kiev as we resembled his least favourite food.

It was far from vintage Arsenal tonight and you have to say based on the performance a point from the game was a good one.

Arsenal could have had the game wrapped up though in the first half and missed some clear cut chances that really cost us. Click to continue reading...

Newcastle midfielder Danny Guthrie's vicious scythe on Hull's Craig Fagan on Saturday had many commentators and pundits saying the Tigers striker was lucky to escape without serious injury. Well, it turns out he didn't. Despite jumping straight up to remonstrate with Guthrie, it has now emerged that Fagan broke his leg in the incident and [. Click to continue reading...

Sorry I didn't get to post yesterday. One of those days where my feet didn't touch the ground (or my fingers the keyboard!).

Of course there has only been one real football story the last couple of days. The Croatia v England match tonight.

It makes me laugh really. Being a girl still fairly new to football I listen to as many commentators as I can to improve my knowledge and understanding. Click to continue reading...

Former Newcastle United player Ray Hudson, one of the most colorful English language commentators around, is the guest on the latest episode of the Major League Soccer Talk Podcast. Interviewed by Kartik Krishnaiyer, Hudson discusses what he thinks of the England team and the Premier League, which league he finds most entertaining to watch, as well [. Click to continue reading...

Thus far during the debates on this site I have vigorously defended Arsene Wenger's transfer dealings this summer. The club is certainly in a far better state than many, if not all, external commentators give us credit for. However, in full honesty there are question marks and my position is rather closer to that of [. Click to continue reading...

For anyone that hates Barry Davies as much as ST and I do, there's an interesting piece on the Guardian website (you may notice both ST and I amongst the angry commentators arguing that the original piece was poppycock.)

Heh heh heh.

International Predictions Time! Woot!

Andorra 0-3 England
Austria 0-2 France
Belgium 2-1 Estonia
FYR Macedonia 1-1 Scotland
Georgia 1-0 Rep of Ireland
Montenegro 1-1 Bulgaria
Norway 2-0 Iceland
Poland 2-0 Slovenia
Slovakia 3-0 Northern Ireland
Wales 1-1 Azerbaijan

Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside

Brighton 2-1 Scunthorpe
Morecambe 1-2 Shrewsbury
Weymouth 2-0 Histon Click to continue reading...

Sky Blue Thinking Like the promise of a meteor shower on a clear night or (less so in recent times) the results filtering through of a General Election, transfer deadline day is one of those things you promise yourself is worth staying up for, but often falls short of the wild speculation. In past seasons the summer window hasn't ‘slammed shut', as many commentators put it, but rather creaked to a close with no major shocks other than the odd DaMarcus Beasley joining Charlton on loan. Click to continue reading...

Soccer commentators love to talk about "six pointers" -- a match in which a win not only gives the victor 3 much needed points in the standings, but prevents their opponent from pulling 3 points away from them in the table. While technically every match in the league does exactly this, it's never so evident as when two teams struggling for the last playoff position square off. Click to continue reading...

The story of the Bundesliga's second week must be the fact that a village team now heads the top league in Germany.
Hoffenheim defeated fellow promoted side Borussia Moenchengladbach 1-0 to go top of the table as the only team with maximum points after two matches. This could change if Wolfsburg beat Bochum by a large margin in one of the Sunday games but as David Bowie once said, "Hoffenheim can be heroes. Click to continue reading...

Lovely Craven Cottage. The name conjures images of a county hamlet where you might retire after an afternoon of fox hunting and lawn bowling. Hardly the Gates of Hell for a club like Arsenal who have only conceded defeat to Fulham twice since 1966, a factoid repeated ad nauseam by commentators and [. Click to continue reading...

Under Bob Bradley the USMNT has become reliant on set pieces for scoring and quite possibly more dependent on its center backs than any top 50 national team/photo from US Soccer For all the criticisms of Bob Bradley's tactics by commentators including myself, the continued success rate the United States enjoys on set pieces is remarkable. Click to continue reading...

Under Bob Bradley the USMNT has become reliant on set pieces for scoring and quite possibly more dependent on its center backs than any top 50 national team/photo from US Soccer

For all the criticisms of Bob Bradley's tactics by commentators including myself, the continued success rate the United States enjoys on set pieces is remarkable.

Click to continue reading...

Money might not be able to buy you love but it can buy you a football team.

Add the additional magic ingredient in the form of the right manager and you get - Chel$ea.

Or so it would seem if you believe the various commentators over the weekend.

Yes they did play very well together. Click to continue reading...

Kwasnik hit the bar in the first half, but it was the Roar that made the most chances across the game. Particularly, Reinaldo (on for Smeltz) - hasn't lost his touch after sitting waiting for a game that wasn't coming in Korea - ran into the box from the right, up to the six yard box and across but the Wellington defence were able to scramble away for the two Roar players waiting, and Zullo (on for Miller) who used his speed to run right to left in front of the keeper only to shoot into Moss's legs. Click to continue reading...

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Several articles of interest re football finances in general; not re QPR, specific.

Paul Wilson/Guardian Blog - first-class average but Championship isn't fourth
We are told that the Championship is the fourth biggest league in Europe, but it is not even the most popular second division

The bigger and more often-repeated the lie, the more likely it is to be believed. Click to continue reading...

I remember writing before the season started that we would probably have to win a lot of games 1-0 this year. Well it took five months and a goalkeeper change to finally do it.

I got back from a great week at Ocean City today and opted to purchase the discounted $9.95 MLSlive package, which will probably be used only to watch tonight's match and next Saturday's. Click to continue reading...

It all began on September 10th 1960.

That was the date of the first live televised match on English television, the Division One game between Blackpool and Bolton Wanderers.

It was also the occasion of the first instance of disinformation from the broadcasters to bolster their product (although it is doubtful whether ITV were aware that they were instigating a process where the greatest sport would become a media brand). Click to continue reading...

So much for free to air TV riding into football. Here they are the Olympics are on, a game Australia has every chance of winning (Serbia) and its on delay telecast. Meaning hardly any kids will get to see the match - putting free-to-air behind Foxtel for accessibility.

Three cheers for the ABC radio who have it live with their best commentators on it. Click to continue reading...

Remember on the old Match of the Days and they'd give you slow motion action replays because they only had a couple of cameras at the games?

Now imagine a whole game of slow motion football! I've only seen 45 minutes so far of Persita and Persiba but apart from the rhyming names not much has happened. Click to continue reading...

From Superliga 2008.com

Nobody that I speak with will claim that Superliga has in anyway proven that MLS is somehow on par with the FMF. The gap that exists between the two leagues is still obvious though it appears the gap may be closing quite rapidly. But what this year's Superliga has demonstrated is the sense of entitlement Mexican clubs, players and commentators have towards dominating their American counterparts.

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Plans are underway to call all Canberra W-League matches live. They will be streamed online so people from other States, nay the World can listen to Canberra's finest Commentators and Match Anlaysts.

Great experience for those interested and no pay!

I'm investigating the technical requirements and when we've got them sorted we'll be getting a team together who are interested in commentating and improving their commentary skills. Click to continue reading...

The thought occurred to me just now while watching the US take apart Canada, and the commentators were talking about Josh Childress, formerly of Stanfurd, and other players "defecting" overseas to play ball. It was not about a matter of not being able to cut it in the NBA, but the offer was just [.. Click to continue reading...

I know it's just a friendly, but it'll be interesting to see the internationals back into action, except this time, some of our new signings and our youth will be in the mix as well. This match is also a big one for Partizan, who will be receiving their league trophy for the 2007-2008 season. Reader Nicolas will be at the match, so hopefully he'll have lots of eye witness details for us.

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Or comments you won't be reading elsewhere.

HAHAHA...AWESOME! - Danang Ismartani, leader of Persija Supporters' Club

Fucking mayhem - One of the TV commentators in a private sms, not on air!

This is a good day to win! - Yusuf Andibachtiar, movie maker

I find out something when watching the game. Click to continue reading...

Well, that's fine. Got to see Huckleberry and Lima for 65, both should do well. Commentators didn't make a big deal out of it, but I thought Sealy should have done much better with his chance late in the game. But now, the moment you have all come to see... Sean disagrees with [...] Click to continue reading...

I did fancy taking i n PSMS v Persiwa yesterday but nowhere was I able to confirm the kick off. The TV station covering the League, one of the commentators covering the league, the League website, the local papers. Nowhere could I find the time.

Err, hello?

It ended, god knows when, 2-2. Click to continue reading...

I'm watching the San Jose-Colorado match and I saw two things that I you don't see every day:

- San Jose scored a goal
- Frank Yallop got sent off

First, the goal. Ryan Johnson smashed a diving header past Bouna Coundoul with about 30 minutes left in the game. Unfortunately for the 'Quakes, Conor Casey equalized about five minutes after. Click to continue reading...

Well, not quite but a few days back I did get a look behind the scenes as Dez Corkhill and PJ Roberts provided the commentary for Singapore TV of Young Lions and Gombak United.

After spending years, nay decades, moaning about commentators it was interesting to see what they really get up to behind the mic. Click to continue reading...

I spend a lot of time trashing various elements of television sportscasting, but I wanted to just take a moment to pay tribute to the best sports telecast on American TV - the Tour de France. It's true. The single best broadcast in American sports broadcasting is Versus' telecast of the Tour de France. Click to continue reading...

ESPN has finally cracked the code of how to produce soccer for the American audience. Show it in high definition, feature a strong team of commentators, promote the tournament across your networks, don't cut the national anthems, include advertising at appropriate moments, reduce the hype and include intelligent discussions during the pre-game, halftime and post-game [. Click to continue reading...