Upset. Annoyed. Baffled. Those were the words Clive Tyldesley chose to delineate his anger and confusion after being relieved of ITV’s senior football commentator position in 2020. Four years later, they pretty accurately reflect the feelings of thousands about Saturday’s match between Germany and Denmark being among Tyldesley’s last on British television, and certainly his last on ITV. The voice of multiple footballing generations is signing off with a nondescript second-round tie.
For the past fortnight, Tyldesley has repeatedly proven he remains at the apex of his craft; funny without descending into “banter”, well-informed and well-educated without being patronising, increasingly bathed in a sun-kissed comfort born of his breadth of experience. Two months from his 70th birthday, he only appears to be falling further in love with football.
It’s an infectious, childlike love; love which reminds you why you’re watching Georgia vs Portugal on a Wednesday evening, love he is not only desperate to share but masterfully skilled at doing so. His public upset at first losing his senior position and now his ITV contract only proves how much he believes he has left to give, even after 28 years with the broadcaster. It’s incredibly difficult to disagree with him.
Aided by the hallmark of late-era Tyldesley – the partnership with Ally McCoist – his handling of Georgia’s first major tournament win was virtuoso. The pair have a fair claim at being the best current commentator/ co-commentator duo working – genuine friendship connecting two legends of their industry.
“It really became a partnership at the last Euros,” Tyldesley said of his relationship with McCoist on a recent episode of The Football Authorities podcast. “We’ve known each other for years. He’s absolutely everything you’d expect him to be, but he’s also got heavyweight opinions on the game.
“I love his company, I love his company on the air and it’s nice when people enjoy it, but as I say, it’s not our decision to make.”
Alongside McCoist, Tyldesley has excelled alongside Andros Townsend, another co-comm who shares his assiduous approach to pre-match preparation and genuine love for football.
It’s worth stressing this is not a column about who ITV’s first-choice voice or pairing should be. Replacing Tyldesley with Sam Matterface four years ago was unpopular then and still is now, but Matterface is ever-improving and gradually relaxing into his role.
But there should be no such respite for Lee Dixon, increasingly your football-hating uncle who’s only come to watch the England game because there’s free beer and he’s been lonely since Carol left. Dixon is not just uninteresting but uninformed, not so much charmingly pessimistic as a vacuum of joy or insight.
This was never clearer than 75 minutes into England vs Slovenia, when 36-year-old Josip Ilicic emerged on the sidelines to enter a Euro 2024 pitch for the first time.
Now, not only is Ilicic among the three biggest names in Slovenia’s squad having played for Fiorentina and Atalanta, well-publicised mental health issues almost forced him to retire. This was a triumphant moment, one which deserved scripting by Dickens. Instead we got Dixon grousing: “Who? How old? He looks older than me.”
The biggest criticism you can make of Dixon, or Martin Keown, or Danny Murphy – that they appear to actively dislike football – only highlights the significance and value of the unaffected joy which makes Tyldesley quite so admirable.
Unlike radio, TV commentary isn’t so much an exercise in translating moments as it is adding the finishing brushstrokes to history, informing and entertaining without becoming the entertainment. You are both in someone’s living room and in their hearts and minds, providing the artistic flourishes for their memories. You are so often the soundtrack to happiness.
And you only had to watch the Georgia game to appreciate how well Tyldesley handles this oratorical tightrope. His is a V8 voice which purrs through its gears as though driven by God, finding rasping octaves you didn’t know it had, even at 69.
Aside from his famously thorough research and light humour, Tyldesley’s voice remains his greatest gift. It now preserves nearly 30 years of nostalgia, generations who grew up subconsciously associating that squealing rasp with the defining moments of their footballing educations, to whom hearing Tyldesley speak now comforts and swaddles.
Close your eyes and he can still teleport you to Champions League weeknights spent with long-lost friends and lovers, to the first time you saw Zinedine Zidane, to days when football felt purer, holier, better. This is what great commentary should do. Clive never lost respect for that.
He can still use a brief pause like a stunted penalty run-up, teeing up his audience with an effortless, imperceptible millisecond’s silence. He took a stance against gambling advertising to step away from his role at TalkSport and wrote to the PFA advocating training for co-commentators after a study found racist comments were prevalent on air. He not only moved with the times but embraced them, which makes ITV’s decision even more bizarre. Not for me, Clive.
So thank you to the soundtrack of my footballing childhood, to the titan who gave us “Can Manchester United score? They always score” and “Remember the name – Wayne Rooney”. Thank you to a rare man who understands both the power of precise language and of well-utilised silence, and came to master both. Thanks Clive.
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