A career in football commentary with Peter Drury
Having become Sky Sports’ main football commentator, Peter Drury is in one of the biggest roles in football broadcasting. Daniel Wales spoke to him about his career leading up to this role.
Category
🥇
SportTranscript
00:00 Where does your love for football come from?
00:04 I don't know really, I guess it was just innate.
00:07 I grew up with brothers kicking a ball around in the backyard and I went to school where
00:13 football was a thing and I guess my love for it at a sort of professional level comes from
00:20 having grown up locking myself in my bedroom listening to the radio.
00:24 If you enjoyed the commentary so much as a child, is that why you chose commentary to
00:29 get into because of course broadcasting and media and football, there's a lot of avenues
00:32 you could go into presenting, you could go into punditry for example.
00:36 That makes it sound as though it was a plan which it never was, I didn't expect this to
00:41 happen to me but insofar as it has happened to me, yeah certainly because truth be told
00:49 and I constantly say this, the thrill of my job is being there and that's the privilege
00:56 that the commentator has.
00:57 What is the difference between commentating for a TV audience and commentating for a radio
01:02 audience where of course they can't see the pictures?
01:05 Yeah it's a massive difference and everybody who's done both would acknowledge that.
01:12 As you say on the radio, the commentator is absolutely essential and truth be told the
01:17 television commentator is nowhere near as essential.
01:22 The basic rule of thumb for a television commentator is only to speak if you can add to the picture
01:27 Now of course you're now working for Sky Sports replacing Martin Tyler, how much have you enjoyed
01:33 your time in this new role so far?
01:36 Yes so far so good, I've really enjoyed working with the people I've worked with, it's a huge
01:42 privilege to be moving into that slot.
01:46 How much preparation does it take to just prepare for one game?
01:50 One day at the desk for one day's football, so maybe an eight hour office day.
01:57 Maybe for the really big ones or the slightly more complex ones that can grow into maybe
02:02 10, 12, 14 hours.
02:04 The truth is you're never as ready as you want to be.
02:07 Some of your iconic lines I think of a Greek God in Rome, do they just come to you off
02:12 the top of your head or have they been meticulously planned?
02:15 The one thing you don't prepare is what you're going to say during a football match.
02:20 To a certain extent you prepare what you're going to say up until kick-off but once the
02:24 game kicks off then you simply have to rely on the homework you've got factually speaking
02:29 and your instinct hopefully for finding something appropriate when the moment occurs.
02:37 Do you have any particular moments yourself that you look back on with a lot of fondness?
02:42 I have great memories of some lovely moments, what I don't do is associate them with myself
02:48 because I'm always keen to remind myself and others that I didn't score Aguero's goal,
02:55 he did.
02:56 The warmest feeling I've had around a football match was when Xabalala scored for South Africa
03:00 at the start of the World Cup in 2010.