In a life that has taken him from Bury to Brazil and beyond, seen him forge some legendary commentary box partnerships and become famous for his meticulous handwritten match notes, commentator Clive Tyldesley has seen and heard just about everything in football – but there is something about West Ham, and in particular Upton Park, that makes the club stand out from the pack.
‘I say this with affection but I always felt West Ham was a town club, not a city club,’ he told Blowing Bubbles. ‘The feeling you got walking through the Rolls Royces in the car park at places like Highbury, White Hart Lane or Chelsea wasn’t like the feeling you got at West Ham.
‘Whenever I was going down the Barking Road pre-match trying to find a parking space, I felt I was in East Ham, not London, and I got the feeling that everyone who was there either lived within five miles of the place or had roots there originally.’
Memories of 1972 and the Giants of the Game
Tyldesley was born in Bury, living next door to his local team’s manager, and cut his footballing teeth being taken to watch Manchester United in the 1960s and 70s. He remembers his first visit to Upton Park on what turned out to be a historic turning point for United.
‘After the great era of the 60s, United went through a bit of a slump, but on New Year’s Day 1972 they went to West Ham top of the Division One table, but lost 3-0, which was the start of a run of seven defeats in a row, which killed off any hopes of a decent finish,’ he said.
Two seasons later, six years after being champions of Europe, United were relegated out of the top flight for the first time since the 1930s.
‘Although United weren’t great in those days, they still had George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton in the team, and lining up against them that day were Geoff Hurst, Bobby Moore, Trevor Booking, Billy Bonds, Harry Redknapp and Frank Lampard.
‘Some of them may have been in the autumn or even early winter of their careers but as an impressionable 17-year-old, that was an amazing and enduring memory.’
Friendship and the Commentary Box
Attending a rugby-playing grammar school took Tyldesley away from playing football and he soon became aware that ‘I was always more likely to be writing the report for the school magazine rather than the match winner,’ so after studying at Nottingham University, he lucked out when he got a job at the newly-launched Radio Trent, and became a sports reporter.
‘This was the early Brian Clough era at Nottingham Forest, when they were still in Division Two, so just before the glory years, but I was travelling with the team home and away, and we were around the same age, so they became my friends, many of whom, like Martin O’Neill, still are to this day, and a couple of seasons later it was my friends who won the European Cup,’ he explained.
It was at this point that something life-changing, and to most fans, utterly inexplicable, happened.
‘I can’t explain it, but Manchester United left me,’ he said. ‘I was almost living with the players of a different team, they were my friends, and I wanted them to do well, so to this day, I don’t support a team, I support my friends.
‘Many of them are now the manager generation, and when they move from one job to another, my affections go with them.
‘Gareth Southgate is my best friend in football, so working covering England with him in charge was as close to the perfect job as you can get. You share the emotions of winning and losing because you know their whole family.
‘The most difficult game I ever had to do was when England lost to Iceland at Euro 2016 because Roy Hodgson was my friend, and I had to say at the final whistle that his position was no longer tenable, but I think he had retired before I’d even finished the sentence/
‘That’s the position you find yourself in sometimes – when I’m commentating on a game involving someone I know well, I understand what defeat means to them.’
The Intimacy of Upton Park
From Nottingham, Tyldesley then moved to local radio in Liverpool, once again with lucky timing, as it was the era when Liverpool were at their European height, followed by Everton’s golden age, and then into local and later national television commentating – meaning more trips to east London.
‘Before the new West Stand was built, Upton Park was so intimate, you were on top of the players, that’s the kind of claustrophobic atmosphere that I grew up with, so I really enjoyed it,’ he said.
‘If you’re a West Ham fan of my vintage, what came after that was always a bit artificial. The new stand was a sign of a club trying to move with the times, I suppose, and in the long run it was a taste of what was to come, but there was a so much longer walk onto the pitch, and the camera angle and the commentary position were so distant, it was like watching from the Goodyear blimp.’
A Connection to Bobby Moore
Another way in which that trip to West Ham as a 17-year-old continues to play a part in Tyldesley’s life is by his connection to the Bobby Moore Foundation.
‘Although I saw him play, I never actually met Bobby, but years ago I was taking part in a golf day for the foundation at Wentworth, and whoever the MC was supposed to be had to leave, so Stephanie Moore asked if I could chair the evening and she gave me some material to use in my speech, talking about early diagnosis, checking your poo, that sort of thing.
‘At the end of the evening, she said “you’ll have saved someone’s life tonight by saying that”, and about 15 years ago she made me a patron of the foundation, and it’s my go-to charity for any fee donation. It’s an association I’m very proud of.’
Famous Nights: Di Canio and the “Gunslingers”
In 1998, Tyldesley became ITV’s lead commentator, a season that climaxed with Manchester United’s remarkable injury-time Champions League triumph over Bayern Munich, a game he calls the most important of his life because of the size of the audience and its unrivalled drama, but it is another United cup game a couple of years later that he commentated on that is remembered as more important by West Ham fans.
‘The FA Cup game at Old Trafford, when Fabien Barthez tried to psyche out Paolo Di Canio, was amazing,’ he said. ‘There was a massive audience for it anyway, and I think the word got around during the match that something special was happening, and so the Anyone But United element meant that day everyone was a West Ham fan, and by the end, everyone was tuning in.
‘I was commentating with Ron Atkinson, and we just couldn’t work out what on earth Barthez thought he was doing. It was like watching two wild west gunslingers trying to stare one another out.’
The Legend of the Commentary Charts
Having come up in an era before copious press packs and pre-match statistics, Tyldesley has always been a dedicated compiler of notes before games, and his commentator’s charts – now commercially available – are the stuff of legend.
Originally they were just for games he had covered, but he has now created them for other big games, including the last game at Upton Park, and West Ham’s Europa Conference League final triumph.
‘It’s part of your job to be prepared, and I always tell students that whatever it is – an exam, an interview, a football match – it’s the same process. You need to do the research so you know more than anyone watching, and then it’s up to you to use your skill and judgement in how and when you use that information in the most effective way,’ he said.
‘My mentor was ITV boxing commentator Reg Gutteridge, who said you have to editorialise and process the information to use it when it’s relevant, to amplify what people can already see. Only about 10 percent of what I write down ever gets used, but just by the process of writing it, it gets stored away.
‘Different games attract different audiences, so you don’t want to be talking over people’s heads, you want to invite them and make them part of the event. Purveyors of information have a massive responsibility to be accurate and do their job right.’
From ITV to the US Audience
These days, Tyldesley’s voice is most usually heard on CBS coverage of the UEFA Champions League, after an unexpected end to his long association with ITV just before the delayed Euro 2020 finals.
‘I didn’t see the ITV axe coming and didn’t understand the decision,’ he said. ‘It’s up to the manager to pick the team, and if I never commentate on another game I’ve got nothing to moan about, I’ve done it all, so I am grateful, but if you still think you’re performing at the level that would improve the team, you’re confused and frustrated and you can get annoyed.’
But it has opened up a new audience in the United States. ‘CBS encourages us to talk as if we were talking to a European audience, so it’s left to me to decide how much the audience knows and how much they need telling.
‘My all-time favourite commentator was an NFL commentator called Pat Summerall, who got me really into American football for a while as he was a great talker and I felt I was being given an authentic American viewing experience, so CBS gives Americans an authentic European experience, with pundits and commentators.’
The Heart of West Ham
Talking about commentating on the Champions League for a US audience just highlights how much football has changed during Tyldesley’s career, and West Ham is certainly a club that has had a complete overhaul over the decades, but at Upton Park or Stratford, it is a club that Tyldesley says belongs in a select group.
‘Every club has things that are unique or special about them, but there are a handful across the whole of Britain that you can just feel are in some way a bit different – put it this way, someone Mark Noble could only come out of a very small number of clubs,’ he said.
‘Those players who represented West Ham in my most impressionable years, Moore and Hurst, and then those who follow liked Bonds and Lampard, they were all proper West Ham guys – to me, as a non-local it felt like it was a club that represented its part of the world, and that should be a source of pride to any West Ham fan.
‘It felt like the club was at the centre of the community, and it’s a genuine privilege to say I saw the best players play for West Ham at Upton Park. Any young fans who hear that will probably feel jealous, but it’s true, it can never be better than that.
‘West Ham’s club culture comes from the junction at the end of Barking Road and Green Street, and that statue is exactly where it should be because it’s the heart of the club.
‘It’s different these days, of course, but it’s not totally different – there’s an element of that connection that permeates to this day.’
*Clive Tyldesley’s commentary charts are available to order from commentarycharts.com
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