Gary Taphouse | Freelance Football Commentator
I currently commentate on 100–120 games a year for TV. Around half of those are for Sky Sports, a mixture of live Premier League for Match Choice, live EFL, live WSL, and other games as and when required, such as Africa Cup of Nations. I also cover games for Gravity Media (world feeds for FA Cup, Europa League and others), Pitch International (world feed for Carabao Cup) and IMG (Euro & World Cup qualifiers). I did a Multimedia Journalism degree at Bournemouth University with NCTJ qualifications, then worked on a local newspaper in South London before moving on to Opta as a football writer. All the while I was spending weekends working in radio for little or no money to build up my broadcasting experience. I finally got a full-time job in radio aged 25 and was offered my first match for Sky Sports at 29. It was a long road! I grew up listening to Capital Gold Sport and dreamt of joining Jonathan Pearce and the rest working in football. I knew age 15 that commentary was my ultimate goal. In 1999, I was offered the chance to report for Capital on a Fulham FA Cup tie and I couldn’t believe I was actually working on the show I’d been listening to for so many years.A mixture of prep and travel. In the autumn and winter I might be doing six games a week across a variety of competitions, some at stadiums, some off tube. You have to have good time management and always be looking ahead to games you have coming up. The games are the fun part but the truth is you spend far more time in front of a laptop preparing, or driving on the motorway.
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