It was in April that Jim Proudfoot exclusively told talkSPORT1089.co.uk that talkSPORT had finally won their battle with the broadcasting authorities enabling them to finally be able to purchase the official rights required to provide live full match commentary on matches at Euro 2004 in Portugal.
The following month, the details of the talkSPORT extensive coverage of the tournament were finally announced, with covering amassing to a whopping sixteen hours each weekday, including nineteen hours on certain England matchdays. This was to be the first time in the station's nine-year history that they would be able to cover a major international football tournament live and officially from inside the stadium.
In the past, talkSPORT had not been as successful in the international sports broadcasting rights market. Most noticeably at the Euro 2000 tournament and the 2002 World Cup, talkSPORT had been locked out of the stadia and effectively the competitions altogether. This was because they were not able to become members of the EBU meaning that they were not able to bid for them at all. This had given them no option but to cover the tournaments unofficially, as if they wanted to cover these events at all, then they would have to do so with commentary coming from studios outside of the stadiums. However, after a lot of very heated and controversial debating, talkSPORT have finally been let in to the bidding market, meaning they are now allowed to bid in order to purchase a share of the official rights for this and future international football tournaments.
Therefore, it may have come as a surprise to some that, of the team of sixtreen that were sent to host nation Portugal, talkSPORT only sent out one commentary team. However, they had only required one commentary team for the 2002 World Cup, and in my opinion, like then, this same team had to be just about the best thing about the stations coverage of Euro 2004. talkSPORT's main commentator was Jim Proudfoot, who covered his first international tournament for the station 4 years earlier at Euro 2000, and just two years later, he became the broadcaster's chief commentator. Proudfoot commentates in a loud, proud and most importantly passionate style. However, there is more to Jim's work than just the pride and passion he is known for. In the pre-match and post-match build-up and analysis during the tournament, he proved that he knows as much about the game as the best of them, even if he was a bit pro-England at times during commentaries.
Also as they did during the 2002 World Cup, talkSPORT didn't cover every match live. Although they covered all the games in the knockout phase "live with passion," they seemed to cover about one match every other day in the group phase. Although this maybe annoying to a number of listeners who would like commentaries on every game, I think it is understandable to see why they don't do this. When they first covered Euro 2000, talkSPORT provided full match coverage on every game possible. Perhaps some of the earlier matches did not prove to be to successful in the ratings, meaning that this time around, talkSPORT didn't see them as being commercially viable enough to air. Overall, I was quite happy with talkSPORT's selection of live games, although I do think that the opening game between Portugal and Greece, Italy v Sweden and one of the two final Group C games would also have been successful if added to the commentary schedule.
talkSPORT wasn't totally divorced from the matches they didn't cover live, as they decided to keep listeners up to date with them via up to the minute reports instead. Match reports primarily came from Graham Beecroft, who managed to cover almost a game a day during the first round. This came as somewhat of a surprise, as the initial press releases regarding the stations coverage had pencilled him in to present a couple of shows. On days when there were two games being played, Graham Courtney, who's unbelievable debut season as a talkSPORT reporter culminated in a trip to the Euro 2004 Finals, was given the opportunity to report on these secondary non-commentary games. The obvious similarity between all reporters was that they all had commentary abilities, enabling the station to cut up the full-match highlights commentary they provided from these games to be used in some of talkSPORT excellent pre-recorded match preview segments.
There were also two other reporters initially sent out by talkSPORT to Portugal, one being talkSPORT's Chief Football Correspondent Dominic McGuinness and the other being Andy Clarke. Dom provided some excellent reports as the station's man with the England team, as well as interviews with the men that mattered during coverage of England and key latter stage games, whilst Clarke was the station's man with the fans both inside and outside of the stadia before, during and after live match commentaries. There was also one reporter who was sent out later than the rest of the talkSPORT team to Portugal. Mike Bovill was sent out directly after the first night of violence in Albufuega to provide reports on the hooliganism unfortunately apparent in the Algarve, with him being witness to the second night of violence there. Personally, I found talkSPORT's coverage of these incidents to be very sensationalist and over the top, especialled when dubbed as "Hooligan Watch."
Other than Euro 2004 Live, the only show to be broadcast live from Portugal was The Sports Breakfast with Alan Brazil and Mike Parry. Although on a couple of occasions the show was broadcast from Coimbra and Porto, it mostly emanated from the special constructed studios in Lisbon. I was interested in the conduct oAlan Brazil due to all the recent events that have involved his somewhat dubious conduct. The trip to Portugal was always going to be the real acid test to see whether Brazil was truly committed to the station or not. I'm happy to report that, with an appearance record to be proud of, Brazil proved that he certainly is.
With England being the only British nation to have qualified for Euro 2004, I think it's fair to say that the station's coverage was unashamedly focussed on the performance of Sven Goran Eriksson's boys. Indeed, it was on England matchdays when the station's coverage shone the most, with the station not just airing full match commentary and The Sports Breakfast from the host cities of the England games, but also some special live events from some of the top sports bars around the UK. The Football First Euro 2004 Special and Hawksbee & Jacobs shows both came live from the Sports Café in London, whilst Sports Café branches in Manchester and Birmingham played host to The Game before the Croatia and Portugal matches respectively. Then, after all these matches, Adrian Durham and Gary Stevens were on hand to take the fans calls on special Euro 2004 post-match reaction shows, which on most occasions aired until 1:00am in the morning. However, these long hours devoted to just one topic are entirely justified. The station's fascination with England wasn't always that great, as on a number of non-England matchdays, many of the shows were talking about exactly the same subjects that had already been discussed meaning that the programming did become very repetitive.
This brings me on to Euro 2004 Today, which many hoped would be like the critically acclaimed 2002 Today that aired during the last World Cup. This show was put in place between 10:00am-1:00pm every weekday, and was to be presented by Lee Clayton and former England international Alan Mullery. Steve Bower and Lou Macari would also present a weekend edition between 12:00pm-4:00pm. One of the main selling points of the weekday show was the use of the highly rated Sky Sports' pundit Mullery, although listeners awaiting his talkSPORT arrival were to be a bit disappointed. Only days before the start of the tournament, it was announced that his debut had been postponed, and for the first week of the shows run, he would be replaced by Lou Macari. However, this wasn't all bad news. Personally, I thought Macari was the pleasant surprise of the station's coverage. I'd never really been impressed with Macari's appearances on talkSPORT in the past, although I've really changed my mind regarding him over the past month as Lou, who had previously been very downbeat on-air, seemed to be much more upbeat, whilst still managing to remain objective at the same time.
The format of the show itself was excellent, with top features such as Clayton's Sports Breakfast co-presenter Andy Townsend giving his take on the tournament in Today With Townsend and a talkSPORT Panel giving theirs. Clayton and, when he did appear in the second week, Mullery were fine presenters of the show, although, again, for me the show's only downside was that it was very England-centric. This was unlike the show Bower, who was making a temporary return to the station after having left it in 2002 to work on MUTV, and Macari presented at the weekends, which seemed to be much more general. Instead of constantly chatting about England, they tended to concentrate on that day's games and the tournament overall.
Therefore, it came as no real surprise that, after England were knocked out of the tournament, talkSPORT management decided to abandon the weekday show earlier than initially planned, replacing it with Ian Collins presenting the kind of mid-morning current affairs debate we're used to hearing at that time from Mike Dickin. Although it's a bit of a shame that Lee Clayton - a presenter on the station for two years, who on taking the position of Sports Editor at the Daily Mail, was to leave talkSPORT as well as the Sunday People at the end of the tournament - never got the proper send-off he deserved, I can understand why the station made this move. As much as I and a number of other listeners may have liked to hear Euro 2004 talk at this time for the remainder of the tournament, talkSPORT have to go with what they think will attract the most listeners. With England going out, the deciding factor for management may have been that, in general, interest in the tournament and therefore the show will have significantly decreased.
As for the rest of talkSPORT coverage, well before the tournament started, we were promised that, thanks to the shows sponsors The Times, Tony Cascarino would be broadcasting his half of The Game from Portugal, with Patrick Kinghorn back in London. However, this turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, as Cascarino only presented a couple of shows from Lisbon in the early stages of the tournament. In the afternoon slot, Hawksbee & Jacobs tended to take a breather from the usual style of football discussion, with them instead looking at the tournament from different angles. There were also a couple of other nice touches that talkSPORT added to there daily coverage which I really liked, such as Sportswatch host Andrew McKenna's Euro 2004 Player Profiles and the regular Eurolink Updates, which ran through from late May until the end of the tournament. Amongst the Eurolink presenters were standout reporters Ian Abrahams and Mike Bovill.
In my personal opinion, talkSPORT can take a lot of positives from their coverage of this tournament, the biggest being that talkSPORT have finally overcome the main problems that had hindered them so much in the past. Hopefully, this has been put behind them forever and we can look forward to official coverage of many more big tournaments in the years to come.
talkSPORT's Coverage of Euro 2004
Reviewed by Walsall Chris
July 2004 |
