h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'll be doing my first ever full match on-air commentary tomorrow. Brentford v Yeovil Town, live from Griffin Park on BBC Somerset Sound 1566AM. I'm looking forward to it, but a bit nervous.

I've done lots of off-air commentating over the last year - where BBC London would record me but only use it when there'd been a goal, so when you're doing that you don't have to commentate during the dull bits when nobody looks like scoring.

Equally, I'll have a pundit alongside me, which I've never had before. It shares a lot of the load - it's quite hard to carry an entire 90 minutes on your own.

It's one of those situations where the component parts are nothing I've not done before, it's just a question of putting it all together for the first time.

Good luck!

I wish I could listen to one of your commentaries sometime.

Hope it goes well and you get plenty of action to comment on!

Best of luck, Six! Let us know how it goes - those of us who can't listen in...

Yes, good luck!

Do you know who your pundit is yet? Anyone we might have heard of..?

Ron Atkinson?

Good luck with it.. and enjoy!

"He's got football pie all over his shirt!"

All the best 6 - Looking forward to you replacing TFT Baker.

Here's hoping your pundit isn't David Pleat.

B

Maybe it'll be Derek Pololol...thingy

You'll breeze it mate

Can i-tune in anywhere?

Good luck. Ronald Reagan used to make it up.

Exciting end, especially for you cider-swillers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_div_2/5373432.stm

ooh-arr.

How did you go?

Is that Marcus Stewart the one that used to feature in sentences containing prolific and Ipswich?

It certainly is. He's doing rather well since being farmed out on loan by Bristol City. It went OK - could have been better, could have been worse - and all-in it's a good thing to have got my first one under my belt.

You can hear the post-match interviews I did here...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/somerset/content/sport/audio_archives/yeovil_town_audio_archive_0607_feature.shtml

All four of them. Interviewing's the best part of my game at the moment, I've done a lot of pre-match stuff since I came down here.

I'll see if there's anything else out the on t'interweb.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/mainframe.shtml?http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/bristol_aod.shtml?bristol/sport

You can hear the last hour and a half of Bristol Saturday Sport on the above link. I'm just listening to it now, it starts at five o'clock and the second thing on is my commentating on all three goals.

I'm going to listen to it now to see what else is on there - I think all four of my interviews got on, but not until just before six. So it'll be interesting to see what's in the middle bit.

Good stuff.

So the question on everones lips (or on mine at least!) is when will you get to do the mighty Greens?

It'd be very difficult to replace Sparksy... like Martin O'Neill with Alex Ferguson, I'd much rather be the bloke who replaces the bloke who replaces him.

Anyway, I've got a bit of work on to convince the Yeovil fans the way things sound. I'm listening to a couple of callers on the phone-in, who disagree with the way I called the game. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, and if I'm wrong I think I'd put my hand up and say I was.

But having watched football from a variety of positions around various grounds, I know you see a completely different game of football when you watch from an 'end' - and I was viewing the proceedings from high in the main stand level with the halfway line where you get a very good idea of the balance of play. Yeovil did well, and it's not like they didn't deserve the win, but the fact remains that excluding the first ten minutes and the last five, Brentford had much more possession and created more chances. So I'm a little bit miffed to hear people think I was talking nonsense.

It doesn't help that I'm not used to this level of scrutiny. Having previously been on BBC London, where there are something like 13 teams to get round, the phone-ins only get one or two callers on per club. Yet having followed Argyle for so long, I should have been expecting it - even the legendary Gordon Sparks on BBC Radio Devon still gets his share of people complaining about him.

I suppose it's the spin you put on things. I'll learn. If I'd said something like 'Yeovil did well to absorb long periods of pressure from the home side' rather than 'Yeovil rode their luck at times' it would probably have gone down a lot better...

Well I think yhou have to call what you see. In the long run the fans will respect you more that way.