Local lad making waves at Merseyside

Interview by David Coyne

For Ian, who left the school in 1987 aged 18, is now a sports reporter for BBC Radio Merseyside, commentating on many of our local football team's big games at home and in Europe.

The job is a dream come true for the Litherland-born lad, who had to re-sit four of his O-levels at the old Bootle High School sixth-form centre on Marian Way because his results were not what he had expected!

It was while at sixth-form, though, that Ian first started pursuing his ambition to be a football commentator.

"I wrote to Charles Lambert, who was the sports editor at Merseyside then," Ian says. "He said I could come down on the Saturday and have a look around. I think somebody was leaving, so I was lucky really.

"To start with, I was opening envelopes and just doing general running about, ferrying scores through from non-league football matches and rugby union matches.

"That was all for nothing and I wasn't paid for about another year-and-a-half, so I was starting at the bottom!"

Ian continued to do freelance work at Radio Merseyside while studying for his degree at Edge Hill College in Ormskirk. After completing his degree course, he worked as a researcher on "A Question of Sport" for two years, while still keeping his hand in doing commentaries for Merseyside at weekends.

Eventually, a full-time job came up at the station and Ian jumped at the chance. "I always wanted to be a football commentator, that's the thing," he says. "Though there is a lot more to it than just that.

"My official title is Broadcast Journalist, the commentating just comes at the end of the week. People think I just turn up for matches on a Saturday! They don't realise what goes on during the week. There's a lot of hard work, unsociable hours, so it's not very glamorous at times."

The day-to-day grind must seem all worthwhile, though, when Ian gets to cover some of the biggest football matches in the world.

"I've been lucky really," he admits. "I commentated on the 1995 FA Cup Final between Everton and Manchester United and also the 1996 one between Liverpool and Man United.

"And of course, there's European football now as well. I've been to Russia, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, France, Finland… so it does take you to some weird and wonderful places, which you wouldn't otherwise get a chance to go to."

Ian, of course, is required to offer unbiased commentaries on Everton, Liverpool and Tranmere Rovers, but as a local lad did he support one of the teams when he was younger?

"I was hoping you wouldn't ask that!" he laughs. "I grew up a Liverpool fan. But I have to say that it never comes into it at all, you just want to do a good job.

"In fact, because we go up to the training grounds once or twice a week for pre-match interviews, you get to know the players, so you don't want either side to do better than the other.

"And because getting after-match interviews is one of the hardest parts of the job, you just want the home team to win because they'll be in a better mood!"

The conventional way of getting into broadcasting with the BBC is through one of the corporation's training schemes, but Ian is happy with the way he worked his way through the ranks.

"I trained just by watching people," he explains. "I went in at ground level, getting experience of how to edit and how to broadcast. I didn't do any broadcasting for about a year, and then they risked me reading out racing results and things like that.

"I'm sure there are people who have done the training scheme and got straight in, but I'd rather have done it my way, even though it was hard work, because you don't get blasé about anything.

"The first football matches I covered were Sunday amateur games, watching pub sides, with no numbers on their backs, from the sidelines, getting soaked," Ian recalls.

"I remember thinking 'one day I'm going to get somewhere' - and thankfully it has come true!"

Back