A career in football commentary with Peter Drury
A career in football commentary with Peter Drury
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00:00 Firstly, Peter, before we get into any of your actual career in commentary and broadcasting
00:06 and media, where does your love for football come from?
00:12 I don't know really, I guess it was just innate. I grew up with brothers kicking a ball around
00:16 in the backyard and I went to school where football was a thing and I guess my love for
00:25 it at a sort of professional level comes from having grown up locking myself in my bedroom
00:30 listening to the radio. Back in the 70s there was much less live football on the television
00:37 and I was absolutely hooked on it and my heroes were the footballers but also the people who
00:45 broadcast it, the great names of BBC Radio 40 years ago and together I've been fortunate
00:53 enough to be able to sort of twin those passions.
00:56 And so just bridging on top of that, if you enjoyed the commentary so much as a child
01:02 is that why you chose commentary to get into because of course broadcasting and media and
01:06 football there's a lot of avenues, you could go into presenting, you could go into punditry
01:10 for example, but was that why commentary was the one that you chose?
01:14 Yeah, I mean that makes it sound as though it was a plan which it never was, I didn't
01:20 expect this to happen to me but insofar as it has happened to me, yeah certainly because
01:28 truth be told and I constantly say this, the thrill of my job is being there and you know
01:35 that's the privilege that the commentator has which sometimes the presenter doesn't,
01:40 just absolutely having the ringside seat is what makes it as special as it is.
01:48 Now you've worked in both television and radio in your career so far, what is the difference
01:52 between commentating for a TV audience and commentating for a radio audience where of
01:56 course they can't see the pictures?
01:59 Yeah it's a massive difference and everybody who's done both would acknowledge that, as
02:07 you say on the radio the commentator is absolutely essential and can't stop and is required to
02:13 create the picture and the very best radio commentators do that beautifully, it's about
02:20 in football terms the geography, we need to know where the player is on the pitch when
02:24 he or she is kicking it, we need to have a sense of how hot or cold it is, we need to
02:30 be able to smell the burger through the radio if you know what I mean, that's the job of
02:34 the radio commentator and truth be told the television commentator is nowhere near as
02:39 essential, the basic rule of thumb for a television commentator is only to speak if you can add
02:47 to the picture and if you follow that to its extreme really, certainly for a big game you
02:53 barely need to speak at all so we don't follow it to its extreme, you know when it's Arsenal
02:58 against Manchester City people know who the players are on the whole and you could sit
03:04 there thinking that you're of no value at all and I frequently do but I guess if there
03:12 is a value in television commentary it is in somehow articulating the feel of the game,
03:21 having a sense of the stadium and having a sense of the rhythms of the matches they're
03:25 playing out and essentially identifying the players and feeling the moments when the moment
03:32 comes. You mentioned Arsenal versus Manchester City there, now for long periods that game
03:38 was nil-nil, is it a skill to be able to make a nil-nil draw, obviously that game didn't
03:43 end up nil-nil in the end but is it a skill to make a nil-nil draw that perhaps doesn't
03:47 have many of those moments as you mentioned in it seem exciting as a commentator? I don't
03:53 think it's your job to make it seem exciting, you know the viewing public aren't stupid
03:57 and you can't tell them that something which is not that exciting is exciting. I think
04:03 you're required on a day like that to try and find the points of interest such as they
04:08 are and Arsenal versus Manchester City is a good example because it was so not the game
04:14 that people expected it to be that it became quite an interesting almost academic project
04:23 and it's on occasions like that actually that you lean quite heavily on your co-commentator
04:27 in that case for me Gary Neville who has interesting things to say and is prepared to say them
04:36 whether or not some will disagree with what he has to say and some will agree. That is
04:41 important but I think it's also important to acknowledge that even if the game is a
04:47 slightly quote academic game in the sense that it's of interest without being thrillingly
04:53 exciting minute by minute, the fact that it is tight and close merely adds to the jeopardy.
05:00 So five minutes out at nil-nil you could you know without saying well this has been a fabulous
05:06 game because it probably hadn't been from certainly from a neutral perspective, what
05:09 you can say is if somebody scores here it's a big deal you know we're all on edge, there's
05:14 jeopardy and of course that played out. Now of course you're now working for Sky Sports
05:22 replacing Martin Tyler, how much have you enjoyed your time in this new role so far?
05:28 Yes so far so good, I've really enjoyed working with the people I've worked with, you know
05:33 it's a huge privilege to be moving into that slot and it's a privilege which comes with
05:43 a certain pressure because Martin had done it so brilliantly for so long and you know
05:51 to step where he stepped I could only do it respectfully and to an extent sort of trepidatiously
05:58 you know. So my sort of bottom line is to try and not offend, I can't help not being
06:06 him but I can only do my best and so far I think I've stayed alive.
06:15 Now I saw a video on social media the weekend actually of you showing your commentary notes
06:20 I think it was a question about how often do you think about the Roman Empire given
06:24 that's prominence at the moment but your commentary notes were absolutely stacked, how much preparation
06:29 does it take to just prepare for one game?
06:33 Well I always say that the average for a football match is one day at the desk for one day's
06:41 football so maybe an eight hour office day. Actually for the really big ones or the slightly
06:47 more complex ones that can grow into maybe 10, 12, 14 hours but the truth is you're never
06:54 as ready as you want to be, there's always another click you can go, you can always go
06:58 a stage further, find another stat, find another piece of information that just might be interesting
07:05 and the frustration is that you do all of that and actually only a tiny tiny percentage
07:10 of it gets used. I sit at my desk thinking interesting thoughts, at least interesting
07:15 to me possibly not to other people, thinking interesting thoughts and writing them down
07:20 and then I come off the gantry at the end and thought oh you know that was 40 minutes
07:25 of my life that I needn't have bothered with. For instance this weekend I did a whole study
07:32 for my own interest into the possibility of Manchester City winning four consecutive titles
07:39 which no one's ever done and a comparison to when Arsenal won three titles way back
07:45 pre-war because I thought that in a moment of idleness that might come up and of course
07:53 even though there were plenty of moments of idleness it never felt appropriate to bring
07:58 it up and so I'm glad I didn't but equally I'm thinking that's 40 minutes of my life
08:06 I'll never get back but that's the essence of homework, the point is to try and be prepared
08:11 for all eventualities in the full and certain knowledge that all eventualities won't occur.
08:18 But of course this preparation at times and you mentioned of course moments in television
08:23 commentary this preparation can certainly create some of your iconic lines I think of
08:29 Greek God in Rome, do they just come to you off the top of your head or have they been
08:34 meticulously planned?
08:38 The one thing you don't prepare is what you're going to say during a football match, to a
08:43 certain extent you prepare what you're going to say up until kick-off, obviously you see
08:47 when you watch a game on Sky or anywhere you see the team graphic come up and the players
08:50 and so on, obviously you're preparing that because that's a sort of set piece but once
08:56 the game kicks off then you simply have to rely on the homework you've got factually
09:01 speaking and your instinct hopefully for finding something appropriate when the moment occurs.
09:11 If you try to over prepare that then it sounds over prepared and it's not authentic and real.
09:20 You mentioned the Rome one as people kindly do, if you think about that at all you'll
09:27 realise that it would have been impossible for me to prepare that.
09:31 If you believe that I had words ready for a Greek centre-half scoring the third goal
09:35 against Barcelona that put them through having been behind, that's just preposterous, you
09:43 couldn't, this Greek bloke scored a goal and I had to think of something to say about him
09:47 and that's sort of slightly odd monologue is what came out on that particular evening.
09:52 That's obviously a very unusual one, it's, you know, and lots of goals happen during
10:00 the course of a season and maybe two, three percent of them are really special ones, there's
10:09 seven, eight, nine, ten percent you sit in the car afterwards thinking I didn't do that
10:12 very well, you know, I wish that could have gone better or whatever and the rest are just
10:18 another goal, you know, and you just have to be prepared to articulate a moment as and
10:24 when it comes.
10:25 And just to summarise, do you have any particular moments yourself that you look back on with
10:30 a lot of fondness and just to add to that as well are there any ones from perhaps other
10:34 commentators that you listened to when you were sort of getting into your stride that
10:38 you thought oh yes that was also very good?
10:40 In terms of moments I've witnessed, I have great memories of some lovely moments, what
10:49 I don't do is associate them with myself because I'm always keen to remind myself and others
10:55 that, you know, I didn't score Aguero's goal, he did, you know, I didn't score that Manolas
11:03 goal, he did, you know, that's nothing to do with me, the commentator is a very lucky
11:07 guy who sits and watches and gets to sort of express him or herself in the moment.
11:15 So you know, there's no better football match I've seen than the last World Cup final, I
11:24 don't think there's a much better football match that anybody has seen, so of course
11:28 I'll carry that one to my grave, until that World Cup final I've always felt that the
11:35 warmest feeling I've had around a football match was when Xhavailala scored for South
11:39 Africa at the start of the World Cup in 2010, which I thought was a very meaningful goal,
11:45 you know, in terms of the unity of the world and what sport could do for it and so on,
11:50 and that's the one that sends a shiver up my spine or brings me out in goosebumps really,
11:56 that whole occasion, that match and a significance that sort of transcended football.
12:02 So yeah, I mean, so many, so many, but I stress nothing to do with what I said, just to do
12:09 with what the players did.
12:13 And finally, my very last question, for those, I always ask this to anyone in sort of a position
12:18 of broadcasting media, for those wanting to get involved, perhaps if they were younger,
12:22 wanting to be a commentator, what advice would you give?
12:27 My advice is A, to make sure you really are enjoying it, never let it be a chore, be authentic,
12:33 be yourself, don't pretend to be somebody else and do it because you love it.
12:41 If you think there's something to be gained from some sort of spurious fame or infamy,
12:48 I promise you there's not, you know, the fun in the job is being there, being invested
12:54 in it and really having a sense of your own good fortune, frankly, because it is a massively
13:04 privileged thing to do.
13:05 So if you're going to do it, go for it, because it's a wonderful way of earning a living,
13:10 but do it for the right reasons.
13:12 [BLANK_AUDIO]