Ian Dennis (born 22 October 1971) is a commentator for BBC Radio 5 Live and the station's Chief Football Reporter. [1]
Dennis grew up in West Yorkshire where he attended Ilkley Grammar School. [2] He began working in radio with an unpaid Saturday job at BBC Radio York.
In 1989, he began his professional career working for telephone publishing company Independent Media Services Limited (IMS), in Leeds, working as a football reporter on its TEAMtalk service and as cricket editor, managing an outside broadcast team that included Clive Lloyd, Alan Knott and Ralph Dellor.
IMS proved to be a strong training ground for sports broadcasters and among his colleagues were BBC Match of The Day commentator Guy Mowbray, talkSPORT presenter Adrian Durham and Sky Sports' football reporter Johnny Phillips. He returned to the BBC in 1995 to work for BBC Radio Cleveland, BBC Radio Leeds and BBC Radio Newcastle.
In 1998, he began commentating on balls games for BBC Radio Leeds alongside Norman Hunter. [3] In 2002, he left Radio Leeds to work as a football commentator for Radio 5 Live, for which he has covered four major international tournaments.
David Robert Coleman OBE was a British sports commentator and television presenter who worked for the BBC for 46 years. He covered eleven Summer Olympic Games from 1960 to 2000 and six FIFA World Cups from 1962 to 1982.
Nicholas Corbishley Owen is an English television presenter and newsreader, best known for presenting the ITV breakfast programme Good Morning Britain, Good Morning with Anne and Nick, ITV Sport, and the BBC's regional news show Midlands Today since 1997. He was also the chairman of Luton Town Football Club between 2008 and 2017.
Adrian Durham is an English football journalist and broadcaster.
In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator provides a real-time live commentary of a game or event, traditionally delivered in the present tense. Radio was the first medium for sports broadcasts, where the radio commentators had to describe the action in detail because the listeners could not see it for themselves. In the case of televised sports coverage, commentators are presented as a voiceover, with images of the contest shown on viewers' screens and sounds of the action and spectators heard in the background. Television commentators are rarely shown on screen during an event, though some networks choose to feature their announcers on camera either before or after the contest or briefly during breaks in the action.
Ian Payne is a British broadcaster. He is currently a sports correspondent at ITV News and the host of early breakfast 4am-7am current affairs phone-in show on LBC. He previously worked as a presenter for Radio 5 Live and Sky Sports.
Barry George Davies MBE is an English retired sports commentator and television presenter. He covered a wide range of sports in a long career, primarily for the BBC.
Paul Page is an American motorsports broadcaster who is best known for serving as the play-by-play commentator for the Indianapolis 500 for a total of 50 years across radio and television. Page was the radio Voice of the 500 on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Radio Network from 1977 to 1987, and again from 2014 to 2015. He served the same role on television in 1988–1998 & 2002–2004.
Sidney Waddell was an English sports commentator and television personality. He was nicknamed the 'Voice of Darts' due to his fame as a darts commentator, and worked for Granada, Yorkshire, BBC and Sky Sports. Due to his joke telling skills he was also nicknamed the Thief of Bad Gags, firstly by Dave Lanning. He was nominated for two prestigious awards for his work, and published several books.
Peter Donald Drury is a British sports commentator who currently works for Sky Sports in the United Kingdom and NBC Sports in the United States as the lead commentator for their Premier League coverage.
Steve Banyard is best known as a football commentator and broadcaster. In particular, he's known for working on the worldwide television feed of the Premier League and Italy's Serie A, as well as major FIFA and UEFA tournaments.
John Rawling is a British boxing, track and field and darts commentator currently working for ITV and Talksport. As lead boxing commentator for TalkSport, John works alongside former European super-bantamweight champion Spencer Oliver. John has also commentated on Track and Field and Paralympic sports with Channel 4 receiving a BAFTA for Best Live Sports Coverage for their work on the 2012 games
Jacqueline Anne Oatley is an English broadcaster who works as a football commentator for Sky Sports and other broadcasters, calling games at the FIFA World Cup, Premier League, FA Women's Super League, UEFA Champions League, NWSL and UEFA international matches. She was also a sports presenter on Quest TV covering the English Football League, a podcast host for The Athletic, and is current anchor for ITV Sport's live darts coverage. In 2007, she became the first female commentator on the flagship BBC One football highlights programme Match of the Day, which she also presented once in March 2015.
Alison Mitchell is an British-Australian cricket commentator and sports broadcaster, working for the BBC, Australia's Channel 7 and the Australian Open among others. She was the first woman to become a regular commentator on the BBC's Test Match Special, and has been commentating on men's and women's international cricket around the world since 2007.
Keith Macklin was a British journalist, author, broadcaster and sports commentator.
Paul Andrew Francis Dempsey is a British TV and radio sports presenter and commentator now chiefly employed by TNT Sports where he covers football and boxing coverage, as well as TV host and commentary on Indonesian Djarum's multiplatform Mola TV. After 18 years working for Sky Sports and 7 with the Dublin-based channels of Setanta Sports, Dempsey was signed by BT Sport prior to their UK launch.
Dave Roberts is a England-based former TV executive and ex-presenter and commentator specialising in association football. He previously worked for Fox Sports News and ESPN Star Sports in Singapore, ESPN in the US and Sky Sports in the UK as well as a host of English radio stations. As well as his broadcast work, he is a fully qualified International football referee. He owns and operates his own English based broadcast production company X-Cel Broadcast Limited. Roberts was also the BBC commentator on West Indian cricketer Brian Lara's world record breaking innings of 501 not out. He now provides coach travel for Middlesbrough's away matches.
Manchester Sports is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio Manchester whenever a major sport event involving a local team takes place. They are branded as the largest sports programme in the North West. The most common of these programmes is broadcast on a Saturday afternoon during the football season, usually starting at 2 o'clock and finishing at 6 o'clock with a live commentary game of one of the 3 o'clock games.
David Michael Croft, commonly referred to as Crofty, is a British television broadcaster for Sky Sports. He is the lead commentator for Sky's Formula One coverage, a role he has held since 2012. He was born and raised in Stevenage, England.
James Idwal Robling was a Welsh sports commentator, who worked for the BBC in Wales for almost 40 years.
Jonathan Overend is an English presenter, commentator and reporter working for ITV Sport, BBC Sport, Times Radio, ATP Media and Premier League Productions. He also runs his own production company, NinetyFour19 Ltd.