A very good interview Gaffer, I love Taphouse when he does TWI/Sky games, but is he stuck with West Ham games for the majority or something?

I know there is another common misconception in that most, if not all matches that don't involve the Big 4 are commentated off a studio. Well I'll explain it to you:

When Sky Sports produces Football First games, they send commentators like Taphouse to the stadium to commentate for them, but only TWI shows it live, kinda like Match of the Day on the BBC.

However, if there is let's say a 5:15 PM game with Arsenal/Hull on Setanta, THEN TWI uses their own set of commentators separate from Setanta's. Usually Sky has 2 live games and Setanta has 1, so TWI sends 1 or 2, but never all. Arsenal/Bolton last week was off a monitor, but Man Utd/Chelsea was not for example.

So for 10 Premier League games, 7 of them shown live on TWI are guaranteed to have commentators at the stadium.

To summarize:

Games that TWI has commentators at stadium = Football First games produced from Sky and 1 or 2 live games shown on Sky or Setanta.

Games off of a monitor = World Cup Qualifiers in South America, 1 or 2 games from the Premier League that are shown live on Sky and Setanta.

Taphouse only does WCQs and I believe I heard him for one TWI produced Premier League game off a monitor.

Hope this helps, I hope Daniel Mann is next, keep interviewing the up and coming commentators please Gaffer!

Good interview Gaffer, may I suggest Daniel Mann next time?

As for TWI Chiswick, I'll drill it into your brains, when Sky produces a Football First broadcast that is only shown live to international viewers, the commentators are at the grounds as is the case on BBC's Match of the Day.

When it's not a Football First game and it's a live Sky Sports game or Setanta Sports game, TWI brings in their own commentating team (like Steve Banyard and Efan Ekoku) for international viewers.

Games like Arsenal/Bolton from Ian Darke and Gary O'Reilly are from the studio, but Manchester United/Chelsea from Jon Champion and Robbie Earle are in the TV gantry. Monday night matches from Martin Tyler and Paul Walsh are almost guaranteed to be from a studio, with the exception of Man United/Portsmouth from Alan Parry and Paul Walsh, which was at the ground.

I notice that when there are 3 live Setanta/Sky games on, TWI sends 1 or even 2 commentators to the grounds, but never all of them, but that is another misconception that 90% of their fixtures are off a monitor.

So to summarize:

Football First games = Commentators at the game from Sky that are broadcast on TWI

Live Sky Sports and Setanta Games = TWI commentators separate from Sky and Setanta's live broadcast, with 1 or 2 sent to the actual gantry.

From what I know only Taphouse's World Cup work and TWI International Feed games are done off-tube.

Hope this helps.

-SSR

“I’ve spent ages thinking about this question and have come to the conclusion that beyond being a football commentator I’m not a very interesting person as I can’t think of a single thing!”

in other words. I'm really shallow and have yet to consider how great it is to actually be involved in sport as a career… damn