Alan Parry
Encyclopedia
Alan Parry is a British
sports commentator
, born and raised in Garston
, Liverpool
, concentrating on football
and athletics
. He has commentated for all three main broadcasters of football in the UK - the BBC
, ITV
and Sky TV
, as well as for both BBC
and commercial radio.
Starting his career at BBC Radio Merseyside
, he joined the BBC in London
in 1973, and immediately started regular football commentaries. Within a short time he was covering England
matches, and by 1975 he was covering the European Cup
final. After the death of Maurice Edelston
he started working alongside Peter Jones
covering the FA Cup Final
in 1976. By the mid-1970s he was also BBC radio
's athletics commentator, covering the 1976
, 1980
and 1984 Summer Olympics
.
From 1981 he largely relinquished his radio football commentary to commentate for Match of the Day
on BBC television
. In 1985 he left the BBC to join ITV
, initially as an athletics commentator after the commercial channel won the rights to cover British athletics. However, by the late 1980s, Parry had also become a key football commentator for the network, and in 1990, Parry was Brian Moore's number two at the World Cup - this was a role he would retain until he left the network. As well as covering national football and athletics, Parry was also heavily involved on a regional level, being Central's lead commentator for a number of years. Between 1992 and 1996, the ITV regions held the rights to live coverage of the Football League, and Parry commentated on a live match almost every Sunday for the Central region.
After covering Euro 96 for ITV, Parry left to join Sky TV by which time ITV's athletics portfolio had dwindled almost to nothing (he continued covering what little athletics ITV had left until 1997). Parry has also covered athletics for Sky, but his main role has been as a football commentator. For five years he was the Monday Night Football commentator, before working on the pay-per-view games on PremPlus
for four years. In more recent times, Parry has been one of Sky's 'Big Five' commentators - including Martin Tyler
, Ian Darke
, Bill Leslie
and Rob Hawthorne
(now 'Big Four' since Darke left Sky) - who commentate across a wide portfolio of matches in the Premier League
, FA Cup
, League Cup
, Champions League
and Football League. Parry has commentated on seven League Cup Finals for Sky. Parry is also the commentator for Wales'
live international matches on Sky.
Between 1998 and 2002 he also worked as a football commentator for talkSPORT
and a presenter during the World Cup hosting a phone-in. In the 2002-03 season he presented Saturday afternoon football coverage on Capital Gold
.
The 2006-2007 season was another busy one for Parry. As well as his core commitment of 1 live match from every weekend of the FA Barclays Premier League, (plus several live matches for overseas viewers for TWI), Parry covered several live matches from the UEFA Champions League
, the Coca-Cola Championship and the Carling Cup. His season's highlights were the Carling Cup Final which he commentated on for the seventh time and the two-legged Champions League semi-final between Manchester United and AC Milan. During the summer he commentated on the Copa America
for Sky, including the final.
He, by his own admission, is a supporter of Liverpool Football Club
which for a period of several years meant that he did not cover any of their matches for Sky. However, during this period he continued to regularly commentate on Liverpool matches on the TWI International feed for overseas Premiership viewers. His "ban" on Liverpool games for Sky seems to have been lifted, with his live commentary of Aston Villa vs. Liverpool
on 29 December 2009. Parry has also been involved with Wycombe Wanderers
for over ten years now including a spell as a director.
Parry then became commentator of the revived Gladiators
on Sky One
replacing John Sachs
.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
sports commentator
Sports commentator
In sports broadcasting, a commentator gives a running commentary of a game or event in real time, usually during a live broadcast. The comments are normally a voiceover, with the sounds of the action and spectators also heard in the background. In the case of television commentary, the commentator...
, born and raised in Garston
Garston, Merseyside
Garston is a district of Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is bordered by Aigburth, Allerton, and Speke.-History:Gaerstun, meaning 'grazing settlement' or 'grazing farm' in Old English, is one possible root of the name....
, Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
, concentrating on football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
and athletics
Athletics (track and field)
Athletics is an exclusive collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross country running, and race walking...
. He has commentated for all three main broadcasters of football in the UK - the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
and Sky TV
British Sky Broadcasting
British Sky Broadcasting Group plc is a satellite broadcasting, broadband and telephony services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with operations in the United Kingdom and the Ireland....
, as well as for both BBC
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
and commercial radio.
Starting his career at BBC Radio Merseyside
BBC Radio Merseyside
BBC Radio Merseyside is the BBC Local Radio service for the English metropolitan county of Merseyside and north Cheshire. It was the third BBC local radio station to launch on 22 November 1967 initially serving the south west of historic Lancashire....
, he joined the BBC in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1973, and immediately started regular football commentaries. Within a short time he was covering England
England national football team
The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...
matches, and by 1975 he was covering the European Cup
UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League, known simply the Champions League and originally known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup or European Cup, is an annual international club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It...
final. After the death of Maurice Edelston
Maurice Edelston
Maurice Edelston was a British footballer, who later became a sports commentator. Born in Hull, England, he was son of the Hull City footballer Joe Edelston, who was his manager at Reading for a while. At the age of 18, he played in the football tournament in the 1936 Berlin Olympics for Great...
he started working alongside Peter Jones
Peter Jones (broadcaster)
Peter Jones was a Welsh-born broadcaster, best known as a sports commentator on BBC radio in the United Kingdom, although many of his commentaries were also broadcast internationally on the BBC World Service...
covering the FA Cup Final
FA Cup Final
The FA Cup Final, commonly referred to in England as just the Cup Final, is the last match in the Football Association Challenge Cup. With an official attendance of 89,826 at the 2007 FA Cup Final, it is the fourth best attended domestic club championship event in the world and the second most...
in 1976. By the mid-1970s he was also BBC radio
BBC Radio
BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...
's athletics commentator, covering the 1976
1976 Summer Olympics
The 1976 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event celebrated in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1976. Montreal was awarded the rights to the 1976 Games on May 12, 1970, at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam, over the bids of Moscow and...
, 1980
1980 Summer Olympics
The 1980 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event celebrated in Moscow in the Soviet Union. In addition, the yachting events were held in Tallinn, and some of the preliminary matches and the quarter-finals of the football tournament...
and 1984 Summer Olympics
1984 Summer Olympics
The 1984 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIII Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event held in Los Angeles, California, United States in 1984...
.
From 1981 he largely relinquished his radio football commentary to commentate for Match of the Day
Match of the Day
Match of the Day is the BBC's main football television programme. Typically, it is shown on BBC One on Saturday evenings during the English football season, showing highlights of the day's matches in English football's top division, the Premier League...
on BBC television
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
. In 1985 he left the BBC to join ITV
ITV Sport
ITV Sport is a sport producer and brand name owned by ITV plc. It was formed from the amalgamation of Granada Sport, Carlton's sports department and ISN, the sports division of London News Network. The company produces Champions League and FA Cup Football, along with coverage of England's national...
, initially as an athletics commentator after the commercial channel won the rights to cover British athletics. However, by the late 1980s, Parry had also become a key football commentator for the network, and in 1990, Parry was Brian Moore's number two at the World Cup - this was a role he would retain until he left the network. As well as covering national football and athletics, Parry was also heavily involved on a regional level, being Central's lead commentator for a number of years. Between 1992 and 1996, the ITV regions held the rights to live coverage of the Football League, and Parry commentated on a live match almost every Sunday for the Central region.
After covering Euro 96 for ITV, Parry left to join Sky TV by which time ITV's athletics portfolio had dwindled almost to nothing (he continued covering what little athletics ITV had left until 1997). Parry has also covered athletics for Sky, but his main role has been as a football commentator. For five years he was the Monday Night Football commentator, before working on the pay-per-view games on PremPlus
PremPlus
PremPlus or Premiership Plus was Sky Sports' first and only pay-per-view channel, which was dedicated to airing live and interactive Premiership football from the Premier League...
for four years. In more recent times, Parry has been one of Sky's 'Big Five' commentators - including Martin Tyler
Martin Tyler
Martin Tyler is an English football commentator who was voted as the FA Premier League Commentator of The Decade...
, Ian Darke
Ian Darke
Ian Darke is an English football and boxing commentator who currently works for ESPN US. Darke was previously one of Sky's 'Big Four' football commentators alongside Martin Tyler, Alan Parry and Rob Hawthorne. He was also the main commentator for Sky's big boxing fights, along with Jim Watt, they...
, Bill Leslie
Bill Leslie (commentator)
- Biography :Leslie's first broadcasting experience was with London radio station Capital Gold, working initially as a football reporter and secondary commentator before taking the lead role on Jonathan Pearce's departure to the BBC in 2002...
and Rob Hawthorne
Rob Hawthorne
Rob Hawthorne is a football commentator currently working for Sky Sports. He is most notable for his commentating alongside Andy Gray in the 2005 UEFA Champions League Final in Istanbul.He was born in Dudley, Worcestershire now West Midlands...
(now 'Big Four' since Darke left Sky) - who commentate across a wide portfolio of matches in the Premier League
FA Premier League
The Premier League is an English professional league for association football clubs. At the top of the English football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with The Football League. The Premier...
, FA Cup
FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...
, League Cup
Football League Cup
The Football League Cup, commonly known as the League Cup or, from current sponsorship, the Carling Cup, is an English association football competition. Like the FA Cup, it is played on a knockout basis...
, Champions League
UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League, known simply the Champions League and originally known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup or European Cup, is an annual international club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It...
and Football League. Parry has commentated on seven League Cup Finals for Sky. Parry is also the commentator for Wales'
Wales national football team
The Wales national football team represents Wales in international football. It is controlled by the Football Association of Wales , the governing body for football in Wales, and the third oldest national football association in the world. The team have only qualified for a major international...
live international matches on Sky.
Between 1998 and 2002 he also worked as a football commentator for talkSPORT
TalkSPORT
Talksport , owned by UTV radio, is one of the United Kingdom's three terrestrial analogue Independent National Radio broadcasters, offering a sports and talk radio service broadcast from London to the United Kingdom....
and a presenter during the World Cup hosting a phone-in. In the 2002-03 season he presented Saturday afternoon football coverage on Capital Gold
Capital Gold
Gold is a network of oldies radio stations which was formed by the merger of the Capital Gold network and the Classic Gold Network in August 2007...
.
The 2006-2007 season was another busy one for Parry. As well as his core commitment of 1 live match from every weekend of the FA Barclays Premier League, (plus several live matches for overseas viewers for TWI), Parry covered several live matches from the UEFA Champions League
UEFA Champions League
The UEFA Champions League, known simply the Champions League and originally known as the European Champion Clubs' Cup or European Cup, is an annual international club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations since 1955 for the top football clubs in Europe. It...
, the Coca-Cola Championship and the Carling Cup. His season's highlights were the Carling Cup Final which he commentated on for the seventh time and the two-legged Champions League semi-final between Manchester United and AC Milan. During the summer he commentated on the Copa America
Copa América
The Copa América —previously known as South American Championship—is an international football competition contested between the men's national teams of CONMEBOL, the sport's continental governing body...
for Sky, including the final.
He, by his own admission, is a supporter of Liverpool Football Club
Liverpool F.C.
Liverpool Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Liverpool, Merseyside. Liverpool has won eighteen League titles, second most in English football, seven FA Cups and a record seven League Cups...
which for a period of several years meant that he did not cover any of their matches for Sky. However, during this period he continued to regularly commentate on Liverpool matches on the TWI International feed for overseas Premiership viewers. His "ban" on Liverpool games for Sky seems to have been lifted, with his live commentary of Aston Villa vs. Liverpool
Liverpool F.C.
Liverpool Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Liverpool, Merseyside. Liverpool has won eighteen League titles, second most in English football, seven FA Cups and a record seven League Cups...
on 29 December 2009. Parry has also been involved with Wycombe Wanderers
Wycombe Wanderers F.C.
Wycombe Wanderers Football Club is an English professional football team from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, which has been promoted to Football League One after finishing third in Football League Two in the season 2010–11. The club's nicknames are "The Chairboys" and "The Blues", and they play...
for over ten years now including a spell as a director.
Parry then became commentator of the revived Gladiators
Gladiators (2008 UK TV series)
Gladiators was a British television series which aired on Sky1 from 11 May 2008 to 25 October 2009. It was filmed in Shepperton Studios and was produced by Shine Limited. It was a revival of the earlier series of the same name and based on the American version of the show. The US, UK and...
on Sky One
Sky One
Sky1 is the flagship BSkyB entertainment channel available in the United Kingdom and Ireland.The channel first launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, and is the fourth-oldest TV channel in the United Kingdom, behind BBC One , ITV and BBC Two...
replacing John Sachs
John Sachs
John Sachs is a British television presenter, voiceover and commentator known for his narration on the original series of Gladiators and as a long time DJ on London's 95.8 CapitalFM....
.