Total Sports’ Simon Pryde on championing North East sport
BBC Radio Newcastle’s Total Sport presenter, Simon Pryde has been speaking to Daniel Wales about why the show is so important in promoting the very best of North East sport to its listeners.
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00:00 The North East is a hotbed of football and sports in general.
00:07 Every weeknight BBC Radio Newcastle's Total Sports Show taps into that passion.
00:12 Its presenter Simon Pride has been telling me why.
00:16 It came about, so it was, we're going back to the late 2000s, it's been on air now for, this is its 15th season.
00:25 And there had been a couple of other sports programmes in the past on the radio station, I'd presented one of them.
00:31 But none of them had really lasted that long.
00:34 And I think it was down to the fact that there was a commercial station that had a very popular show called The Three Legends, which a lot of people will remember.
00:41 That was still on at the time.
00:43 And my boss decided that we really, as a station that did a lot of sports coverage, needed to have something in the evenings, weekday evenings, to rival that and to try and sort of pinch listeners from that.
00:54 Because there's a big audience for sport out there.
00:56 It's basically been a platform for people to have their say on North East sport, football in particular, and to hear the very latest news and to hear about some stories as well, which they might not have been able to hear elsewhere about North East sport.
01:09 So fundamentally the kind of key points, the foundations of the programme, they haven't changed.
01:15 There's an audience for it, there definitely is.
01:18 And yeah, I mean, I'm the only person at the moment in all the BBC stations around the country that has kind of a job as a BBC local radio sports presenter.
01:31 Elsewhere, they do have sports shows, but they kind of swap it around a bit and the shows are usually shorter.
01:35 Most of them have an hour show.
01:37 Some regions only have one show a week, you know, at six in the evening for one hour to cover their sport.
01:44 We could probably have a four hour show each night if we wanted to, because there's enough to talk about.
01:48 So yeah, it's vitally important.
01:51 I think it's kind of part of the sort of just the social currency generally of the North East, isn't it?
01:57 I would say a couple of the big games recently, Newcastle wise, have been obvious choices.
02:03 So, for example, the semifinal of the League Cup last season, the build up to that to that second leg against Southampton.
02:11 Another obvious example, Newcastle wise, would be the first Champions League game.
02:15 So the Paris Saint-Germain game again, you know, is an incredible atmosphere in the ground.
02:20 Earlier this season, we were at the Stadium of Light as well for the England women's game that they had there.
02:24 England played Scotland there, which again, an occasional international occasion.
02:28 It was a sellout at the Stadium of Light.
02:30 We can kind of reflect that in our coverage.
02:32 Because I think sport is so important to so many people.
02:35 And just to be able to reflect that, it is, you know, it does feel like a privileged position to be in.
02:40 So, you know, I've covered both Sunderland and Newcastle at Wembley,
02:43 as well as the other teams like Gates and South Shields that have been there as well.
02:47 And each time you can kind of see how much it means to people.
02:50 Total sport is certainly unique in what it does.
02:54 And with the appetite for sport in this area, it continues to provide a vital role to its listeners and for those involved in sport in the region.
03:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]