Ian, where did it all begin for you as a football commentator, then?
“To be honest, I originally thought I wanted to be a newspaper journalist, but then when I went to watch my local team, Weymouth FC, I used to stand there with my transistor radio listening to all the scores and would pretend to give a full-time match report from the game. That’s when I thought this commentating stuff could be fun.
“I started working in hospital radio for Moorfields Eye Hospital in the City of London, and then won a competition on Essex Radio to become the tannoy announcer at West Ham. As a fan, I was literally living the dream doing that.
“Through doing that, I met Jonathan Pearce, who was at Capital Radio and was setting a different way of broadcasting football on the radio, so I ended up getting a job with Capital, and from there, started working my way up the country!”
And how did you get your big break?
“I couldn’t break into things on the broadcasting side of things at the BBC, where I was working in an office job, so my big break came when Sky were actually launching their Premier League coverage back in 1992.
“There was nobody else around, and it was in the diary that somebody needed to attend and get a few interviews with people.
“It was at Terry Venables’ club in west London, and it was there I ended up talking to Vic Wakeling, who was the director of Sky Sports.
“I hadn’t been commentating long by that point, but I said, ‘Vic, I’m going to be working for you one day when I get the hang of this commentating stuff’.
“A few months later one of his producers phoned, asking if I wanted to do the Bundesliga [commentary] for Sky. The rest, as they say, is history.”
So, what was it like to work for West Ham in the 1980s, when John Lyall was manager?
“It was fantastic for me, and I was only 21 years old!
“I couldn’t believe it. It was such a friendly Club. People had worked there for years, and some of them were still there when I went back 20 years later.
“John Lyall was a fabulous guy and made me feel at home because I was always a little bit nervous.
“I used to go and get the team sheet off him to read out before kick-off, and that’s when he’d invite me into his office. I’d often ask myself, ‘Is this for real?’. I just had the most fabulous time.
“When he left, I wrote to him just to say thanks for making me feel really welcome. I still have the letter he sent back in front of me in my office.
“He was an absolute legend who was taken from us far too early, sadly.”