Football Daily - Best of The Commentators' View 2024/25 - Part Two

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

The best bits as John Murray, Ian Dennis & Ali Bruce-Ball talk football, travel & language. WhatsApp voicenotes to 08000 289 369 Emails to [e-mail] Live show tickets: crossedwires.live/fringeBBC Sounds / 5 Live commentaries: Sat 2000 Spain v England in U21 Euros quarter-final.Glossary so far: 2-0 is a dangerous score, After you Claude, All-Premier League affair, Aplomb, Brace, Brandished, Breaking the deadlock, Bundled over the line, Champions elect / champions apparent, Clinical finish, Commentator’s curse, Coupon buster, Cultured/Educated left foot, Denied by the woodwork, Draught excluder, Elimination line, Fellow countryman, Foot race, Formerly of this parish, Fox in the box, Free hit, Goalmouth scramble, Good touch for a big man, Honeymoon Period, In and around, In the shop window, Keeping ball under their spell, Languishing, Loitering with intent, Marching orders, Nestle in the bottom corner, Numbered derbies, Nutmeg, Opposite number, Park the bus, PK for penalty-kick, Postage stamp, Put their laces through it, Rasping shot, Red wine not white wine, Relegation six-pointer, Rooted at the bottom, Roy of the Rovers stuff, Sending the goalkeeper the wrong way, Sleeping giants, Slide rule pass, Small matter of, Spiders web, Stayed hit, Steepling, Stinging the palms, Stonewall penalty, Straight off the training ground, Stramash, Throw their cap on it, Thruppenny bit head / 50p head, Put it in the mixer, Towering header, Turning into a basketball match, Turning into a cricket score, Walking a disciplinary tightrope, Wand of a left foot, We’ve got a cup tie on our hands, Where the owl sleeps, Winger in their pocket, Wrap foot around it, Your De Bruynes, your Gundogans etc.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Welcome to The Inside Track with me, Rick Edwards. This is the podcast that takes you inside Formula One and Red Bull Racing like never before. And I'm Matt Magindy. And thanks to my exclusive access, I'll be getting up close and personal with Red Bull Racing this season. And this week I'll be answering your questions and you can literally ask me anything. I just think Matt will probably regret that. 2023 Dutch Grand Prix, I think it was practice,

he crashed and he left one hand on the steering wheel, he'd end up breaking his wrist. Experience Formula One like never before by tuning into the inside track, wherever you get your podcasts. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. The Commentator's View with Alistair Bruce Ball, John Murray and Ian Dennis. Hello and welcome to Best of the Commentator's View where we're sharing with you some of our favourite moments from our debut series.

This season correspondent John Murray, senior reporter Ian Dennis and me, Alistairair Bruce Ball have had the privilege of taking you behind the scenes telling the untold stories around our five live commentaries and sharing with you our love of football, language and travel. And we've been happy to answer your questions, well fairly happy, to TCV at bbc.co.uk, including this one from Phil in Southwick about what we listen to on the way to matches. I think I'm more of a podcast guy than a music guy. So I actually do a lot of my traveling in the car and I listen to a lot of podcasts and speech radio

more than music. Although like Ian, I am a, you know, if some music was gonna go on, the Rain Town album, Ian, from Deacon Blue, that is one of my favorites, I have to say. I'm very much on your side there. Well, I mean, I've got the entire back catalogue of Deacon Blue on a USB now, because the car doesn't accept the old CD, so I've downloaded all the CDs onto a USB, and if I'm flagging, I've got Deacon Blue live in concert in Sheffield many, many years ago.

And I just whack on real gone kid. And for about eight minutes, I turn it up really loud and then that will just give me a little bit of, it will re-energize my drive home and keep me going. So Deacon Blue, not only they're close to my heart, but they also make sure that I'm very much thriving when I'm driving. Do you know, I saw Jackie Oakley over Christmas

and we were having this very conversation about what you listen to on the way to matches. And Jackie, and we must get Jackie on here one of these times because she's got some great stories. And she was very much like you, Ali, on the way she will listen to podcasts. Whereas personally, I quite like listening to something Ali, on the way she will listen to podcasts. Whereas personally, I quite like listening to something completely different on the way

to the match. So I listen to a lot of, generally I listen to live radio on the way, music. Although what I do quite like doing occasionally on a Sunday morning when I'm on the way to the match is listening to the Archer's Omnibus, which is quite a nice departure from, you know, it's just completely different. I feel that when you're going to be concentrating for the latter part of the day quite hard, I quite like to do something where you're not concentrating. My favourite though actually would be live sport if I can time a journey with live sport, so listening to our football coverage. But actually it doesn't often happen.

No, although you know often John if I get given an assignment that's say up in the northwest or northeast let's say on a Monday night I've had a game on a Tuesday and I'd listen to the Monday nightclub I will try and time my journey because that will for me three four hours will fly by listening to that you just you just don't even notice you're sort of doing the journey. Or Testmatch Special of course, once we get to the late season, early season, if you're travelling when there's a Testmatch on. And to me, people talk about influences, my early days Testmatch Special was a massive influence on my broadcasting I would say, so I still

love listening to that. Although you still haven't told Phil what your favorite music or artists are. I tell you what I would say to Phil, two of my big favorites at the moment, and this is very much traveling after a match on a Sunday night. When I do, I do a lot of driving on a Sunday night because I'll almost always be commentating on a Sunday.

And I'm hugely into Sharna Leary and Alex Holcomb, who are two of the DJs on radio one on a Sunday night so Sharna Leary who I think is brilliant she presents the Chiller Show and then Alex Holcomb after that presents the Indie show and that and that takes you right through the evening and they are I think that both really listenable and also play lots of music that I really like. So that's who I'd mention. The other thing you can do as well, I don't know if you've ever done this, but obviously you can on the BBC Sounds app, you can obviously go back and listen again to stuff that's already

been. So for example, if I've... Like our commentaries, for example. Well, that's what I'm saying, John. I would listen, sometimes I would go back andaries, for example, well, that's what I'm saying, John. I would I would listen. Sometimes I would go back and think, I know what's happened on a Saturday afternoon, but I quite like to hear how that played out on five live on a Saturday afternoon. And I go back to my Saturday three o'clock.

And the other thing you can obviously do and actually this is not a question that's been sent in to us, but it's one that's just popped into my head. I'd be interested to know if you two do this. Do you ever listen back to your own commentaries? I think so hasn't somebody sent a question in? Have they? Right. I used to do it all the time every commentary I would listen back the beauty of BBC Sounds is that we always tell the reporters on a Saturday afternoon for the three o'clock 15 seconds max but if you press the forward whine button on BBC Sounds, it will skip forward 20 seconds.

And therefore, I found a novel way of finding out now who's on the naughty list. So every time we hand over to a reporter, I press the forward whine button. And if they're still reporting, then I know that I'll tell the producers for next week, oh, so and so needs a reminder, they were too long last week. And so I found a novel way of monitoring who's good and who's bad in that respect. But also I used to listen to every commentary and I still do occasionally, but Pat Nevins said,

it's the first sign of madness. Because you are listening for a mistake. And he was right, I was, but that's how I want to improve. That's how I strive for perfection perfection knowing I'll never reach perfection. Yeah I mean by listening to yourself I think you can find particularly I find phrases that I repeat for my liking too often in a commentary. Yeah. Classic example for me is right hand side or left hand side rather than just right or left so often that hand side that you chuck in,

you know, and it's fine to do a few of them, isn't it? But I sometimes I'll listen to myself. I think how many times, how many times are you gonna say that? And then into the next game, you can sort of take that in and think about, you know, as you say, using it as a means to try and improve.

I'll tell you what I found is a fascinating experience of listening back to your own commentary, which for the reasons that you've outlined Ian, I tend not to do, because I find that just dry. And you know what Pat says is absolutely right. It drives you mad. And you end up, I find that you end up tormenting yourself by listening back, because you take out everything

that you think I should have done that differently. But great experience I had of listening back. You know when the stage play Dear England was on recently about Gareth Southgate's England, I'd heard that that featured my commentary on Harry Kane missing his penalty against France at the World Cup, which I hadn't heard back probably since the time that it happened. And so people had said that it features in the play. So eventually I went to see the play. So I'm sitting in the audience, in the theater,

knowing that this is coming up. So, and I was thinking, how on earth is this gonna play out? So I'm sitting there waiting for it to come on. And I got strangely nervous, like you would when a big moment's coming up. Now I was thinking, why am I feeling nervous about this? I'm feeling like I'm going to have to do this, but I'm not, it's going to get played out. And then when the moment comes and the commentary starts

and they actually play quite a big chunk of it, it was quite, it was a bizarre, bizarre experience. And in that, you know, I felt like my heart rate was increasing, sitting, listening to my commentary, thinking during the course of it, thinking, don't mess it up, don't mess it up. I think I can't, this is being played in. Yeah. But also John, and it probably, particularly you guys do in England, it probably pays, you know, not to think too much about doing it, but if you sit there and you think about those big moments that you have commentated on, and the amount of people that would have

been hanging on your every word at that time, sort of as you sit in that theatre and listen to that, that probably makes that apparent as well, because, you know, there's so many people who will have heard those words. Yeah but you don't really think about it and as I say not really listening back a lot to what I do other than what I actually hear on the radio. That was a very strange out of body experience. Have we listened back to our commentaries much more since then?

Any more verbal ticks that we've noticed? I did have one in the Champions League final where I wanted to say, PICKING POCKETS, and I ended up saying POCKING PICKETS. And there he was on the edge, as you said, Chris, free as a bird, and it is the year of the bird, as we keep being told, to pop it in on the edge of the box. And they had their pickets popped... pockets picked, if I can spit it out, there by PSG, as you say, inside left, outside right, they didn't know where he was,

he was free as can be and popped it in the net. Yep, and it has been a feature of PSG, the longer the season has gone on, the confidence has been there. I listened to the whole thing, and as soon as you said that, and particularly because you had Chris Sutton with you, who pounces, doesn't he? He pounces. He actually didn't, rather surprisingly, didn't pounce on that. Anyway, from John getting nervy in the theatre,

to us discussing the theatre of five live post-match interviews. Just on that game that Ian did on Wednesday night, Tottenham Liverpool in the League Cup, another interesting moment came after the game when Steve Crossman threw to John Southall in the tunnel, who was about to interview Ange Postocoglu live on air. Just have a little listen to this. Let's hear from Ange Postocoglu then, he's live with John Southall. Hi Steve, if you just give us a couple of minutes we'll hopefully be with you shortly. He's just finishing another interview at the moment. Good whispering John. Tell him who he's asking from John.

Yeah John, does he not know it's you John? Come on John, tell him. Tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell him, tell Charlie's asking for him. Fairness. I think he's just about to come to the end of his answer so if you just bear with one second Steve.

Yeah that's fine. It's a very long answer. Don't worry about it. It's a bit like David Attenborough interviewing Ange Postococcaloo John, it's what it'll be like. But this is quite strange, we've never really done this before. He's got time for a good question now though hasn't he? It's a really, he's had quite a long answer. Michael, maybe we should have said that you wanted him because you said that you've spent time with Ange Poster Coghly. Well no, I've interviewed him, he was very very good. He was very open. I'm sure John's got a few questions.

And thanks for talking to us on Five Live. Just give us your emotions after that. Yeah, really sort of pleased just for the players. Michael Brown being ever so slightly mischievous there as they were waiting for Ange Poster Cogoglu to get to the point. I'm not sure John Southall to begin with there knows he's on air initially or does he do you think? No I think he'd I was with John I think he was expecting him to come a lot quicker than he actually did but you two would have been ideal for that situation with your experience of commentating and whispering quietly on the golf courses. Yeah, I mean John I quite like moments like that because

we're all about live sport on Five Live aren't we? That is live reaction in the tunnel and you genuinely feel like you're down there with John Southall and you're sort of in those hushed tones and you can sense people moving around and posture cogglue finishing an interview. I mean it happens to you all the time doesn't it you guys when you do England quite often you know Mark Chapman will throw to you and you're waiting for whoever it is. I was just gonna say it definitely happened I think it was possibly Helsinki was it or it was one of the autumn matches anyway where I'm all lined up with I remember one in

particular Ollie Watkins is standing in front of me and I've had a chat with him and I said they're coming live in a moment, just bear with us. And at the moment Mark was saying, right, let's go down to the tunnel area, John's about to speak to Ollie Watkins. It was at that point that someone from some TV interviewer had sort of said, you know, we're ready for you now. And so they'd actually said, well, we'll go and do the TV for it. And as Mark was queuing over, Ollie Watkins just sort of says, bye, and goes to do the TV interview. I think...

Izzy, I'm just going to jump in because John has made his way from making sarcastic comments in the commentary box to the tunnel where he's got an England goal scorer with him. In actual fact the England goal scorer who was standing in front of me has just been grabbed away to speak to someone else. He's on some European television station. Is he? Anybody else around? We've got Jordan Pickford who is in the area. We've got Jordan Pickford who is in the area. And Lee Carsley has also just walked through. So those are all of the people that we might hear from. Are you just watching people walk up and down past you

or are you gonna put your microphone in front of them at any point? Yeah, there's a system here. Don't worry. Right, Izzy, whilst we wait for the system to work, what were you talking about again? I'd like to see Rice and Curtis go. And then of course the next one, and so I've had to say it on air to Mark, sorry, he was ready, he was going to talk to us and he's been dragged away.

Then I think there was another one, another player, exactly the same circus. Mark cues across to me again, I'm sorry sorry he's just been taken away from it. And I can hear Mark going, oh, what a rumphing down the line. Yeah, I mean... Hang on, hang on, before you answer that. Has he got someone? Well, who knows? Let's find out if the system has worked. John Murray.

Yeah, it's not Jordan Pickford, it's not's not only Watkins it is Connor Gallagher who has joined us well done tonight Connor tell us how that went with a good team performance wasn't it yeah thank you for that and yeah it was a brilliant performance very professional and I'm thinking I don't just stand down here going yeah bring Watkins here now. There is an established pecking order. And there are umpteen different other people doing interviews with players after a match. And it's a bit of a juggling system, isn't it?

I had once an embarrassing moment. You remember back in the day when Sports Report was an hour long and you'd be a reporter. As soon as the full-time whistle goes you had a choice of either filing your report from your position or getting down to the tunnel and doing it live from the tunnel. So it was Middlesbrough Everton and it was quite a convoluted way down to the tunnel area. That's a long way down at Middlesbrough. So I said after the full-time whistle I'll go down to the tunnel, I'll do it in the tunnel. And I had an opportunity to get David Moyes live

on the radio. So I put his headphones on, I've got my headphones on, and I gotta be with you in a minute, David. So David Moyes has got his headphones on. And before Mark Pugacz or Ian Payne crosses to David Moyes, they say, well, actually, let's listen to the match report that Ian has previously prerecorded from my reporting position. They then go to David and ask him the first question. His opening gambit is, well, let me say, first of all, I disagree with the report or what you

said there. And I'm right in front of him. And he must have known that it was me. And I just bowed my head. I just kept my head bowed throughout the whole of the interview and then I said to him, thanks for your time, David. It was excruciating. Can you remember if David Moyes did say anything to you after that? No, I don't think he did because I think he was then whisked away. It was down in the mouth of the tunnel at the Riverside.

He was then whisked away probably to do another interview, but it was more the stare during his answer in Sports Report that I knew and he knew that it was me who'd done the report so no he didn't. From my very first game I knew that I wanted to be a goalkeeper. The buzz and the adrenaline that I got from it. The dream was to always represent my country. Mary Earp's desperate to impress. I can remember saying I know I've got what it takes.

You have to be obsessed. Mary Herbst with a super save. You just look at some of the saves that she makes. Not everyone can do that. I really had no idea really how far I would go. England around Don Abadie. It felt like my world was ending. That was the moment I was in pieces on the kitchen floor. You have to hit rock bottom to understand what you really want. Mary would put herself in front of anything and feel like she could stop it. I've done something that I'd always dreamed of doing

that I never knew if I would get the opportunity to do. Mary Erps, Queen of Stops. Watch on BBC iPlayer. Welcome to The Inside Track with me, Rick Edwards. This is the podcast that takes you inside Formula One and Red Bull Racing like never before. And I'm Matt Magindy, and thanks to my exclusive access, I'll be getting up close and personal with Red Bull Racing this season.

And this week, I'll be answering your questions and you can literally ask me anything. I think Matt will probably regret that. 2023 Dutch Grand Prix, I think it was practice, he crashed and he left one hand on the steering wheel and ended up breaking his wrist. Experience Formula One like never before by tuning into the inside track wherever you get your podcasts. The commentator's view with Alistair Bruce Ball, John Murray and Ian Dennis. John, you mentioned Jackie Oatley earlier on.

We did get her on the Commentators' View for an episode this season. She told us about when her local radio boss gave her her football commentary break and the weight she felt on her shoulders as a woman in a male-dominated industry. That first night that I did that game, which was very short notice because I'd done the breakfast show sport for BBC Radio Leeds that morning. And another commentary fell by the wayside

due to the lovely Yorkshire weather. And Derm Tanner said, would you like to do a commentary? Which I've been asking him to do for a while, very politely. And oh, my heart just raced. And it was probably the hardest commentary I've ever done. Plus, and if I'm being completely honest about it, the guide that I was being thrown to down the line was shall we say old school and leave it at that.

So I felt already kind of like, who's this little woman in the commentary box and what would she know type thing. So, and I also felt I couldn't do my best job because I didn't know who these players were. There wasn't the information on the internet these days of non-league football. This was like 20 something years ago, nowhere near.

And I showed up with a club captain, luckily he was injured and sat with me in a terrible commentary position, low down in the far corner of one end of the stands. And I just have an image, a snapshot of all the action being up the other end. All the players seem to have short brown hair and be about 5'11".

So player identification was torture. And then if we fast forward from that through to other commentaries, to national radio, which was my first, was the women's Euros. Again, hardly any information online on the Finland women's national team. Literally, virtually nothing at all. There was no YouTube and videos

and trying to identify players. I just remember being the bait in my life. But then there was the kind of, oh, it's women's football, it's okay to have a woman commentate on that. And then I went on to do loads more on Five Life Sports Extra and then Five Live and then later match of the day.

I remember, I can still picture it now. It was when I was living in Ealing at the time, so this would be back in the 90s. I remember going downstairs, the paper had been delivered through the door, I picked it up, you were on the front page of the paper, the front page picture in the paper and this was, this is gonna be the first woman who's gonna commentate on match of the day. Talk about pressure. You texted me about it. I didn't know about it, it was the Guardian

and it had a picture of my boat race saying, is football ready for Jackie Oatley? And you texted me going, what on earth is going on? That game, that was at Fulham, wasn't it? For the match of the day. To do your first game for match of the day is a big deal anyway, but then to do it with the scrutiny in that public glare that you were in must have been added pressure. Oh, it was hideous because unfortunately the news had broken in The Mail on Tuesday and

then on the Wednesday The Mail did a huge, huge piece on should she be allowed to, shouldn't she? And they managed to get a couple of old gentlemen from the world of football, shall we say, who said it was completely wrong and everyone in football is against it. And she'll have a voice like a fire siren and she's not Jon Motson and all this stuff. And so that really stoked the sexism debate rather than, oh, we've just got the first woman to do X, Y and Z. It was the sexism debate that meant my phone didn't stop, my emails didn't stop, when I had the old Yahoo messenger going pew, pew, pew, every three seconds asking for interviews.

Stupidly, I replied to all of them really politely saying, thanks very much, but I'm not keen to do any interviews, I don't want to add any fuel to the fire. Instead of just switching everything off and just doing my prep, which is what I should have done, and I didn't. and my prep got truncated and truncated and it came to the night before and I had to bring Mark Crossley who I'd done commentaries with who was on the coaching staff for full and I was like can you just give me the team this is crazy and I just I just got through it but completely massively underprepared because I hadn't really had the headspace all the

time to just sit and do my notes like any other commentator would. But it is what it is. It was what it was. You move on. I survived. I'm still going 20 plus years later. And there we go. Yeah, that's it.

Isn't it? You, it's an experience and you, you grow from those experiences as they say. Yeah. I think somebody had to do it and if it was going to happen, somebody had to do it. I don't mind it being me because I'm quite a strong character. I don't mind it wasn't nice, but the next one I did, no one batted an eyelid. So it was just a case of getting past that first one and the cameras being on you instead of the pitch, which was horrid for me because I just did not want to be the story. We all learn when we do our journalism courses,

don't become the story. And I had no intention of it. And I turned down all the celebrity shows and everything that came with it. I wasn't after the profile. People kill for profile. I wasn't after that. I just wanted to be a journalist and a football commentator.

And I just got my head down and just cracked on and just carried on working. And I've enjoyed it ever since, done a load of presenting over the years as well. And very much back in commentary all over the place now. And I just feel calm now. I feel like I belong now. I feel happy now. I don't get hate tweets about being a female anymore.

I just try and do the best job I can, which is what I've always done. But now with the benefit of experience and hindsight, I feel a lot more confident and competent, shall we say, at the same time. Yes, Jackie Oatley, a true trailblazer for women in football and Jackie, who we still see all the time at football stadiums around the world. Yeah. And we have kind of lived through this, haven't we? I think the three of us, probably particularly me being slightly older than you too.

You know, and I mean, in terms of seeing how times have changed and the scepticism there was around Jackie being on match of the day in 2007 to it being routine nowadays for a woman to be commentating on a match. Right, let's squeeze in some glossary before we go. So this is our great glossary of football commentary, our collection of football terms and phrases, which we are building with help from you, the listeners. And something which has given the glossary a boost in our debut season has been the introduction

of the WhatsApp thingy, the voice notes to the podcast, which came as a bit of a surprise to John or maybe he was just being mischievous. I wasn't expecting that Ian. Well, have you got one of those on the Fantasy podcast, Ali? We don't, John. We have an email address. We don't know. That's interesting, isn't it? I know, it is interesting. So why has that happened?

Well, maybe it's down to the popularity of this pod. Well, I was going to say the fluctuating fortunes. Is anyone going to get in touch that way? Is it something that would happen? They won't unless they read out the number. So you can make contact through WhatsApp as on the football daily and the number is 08000289369. 08000 289 369 08000 289 369 I'm hearing we actually we actually do have a voice note to play in to this week's podcast

So here it comes our first ever voice note on the commentator's view comes from Solomon Hi John, Ian and ABB I hope you are all well I'd like to suggest the phrase last chance saloon to be inducted into the great glossary of football commentary. This term is often used in the dying embers of a match when a team has one last chance to launch a long throw, corner or free kick into the box in the hope of a late equaliser or winner. Love the pod, keep up the terrific work. All the best. There we go. Wow. I mean, yeah, you don't get any more authentic than that. Last chance saloon. I love last chance. Last chance saloon. I remember coming out with a line and I only

remember it. Well, I was quite pleased with it, but also Jonathan over and I think Neil Harmon at the time sent me a message saying, you know, very well done. But you remember when Derby really struggled in the Premier League, worst side in Premier League history. On the last day of the season, they were playing Reading and Reading had to win to try and stay up. So I said, Reading are in the last chance saloon, but playing Derby, it's the equivalent of happy hour. Very good. But that's one of those old style newspaper football reporting phrases that has sort of crept into football. It's been a part of football commentary for a long time, hasn't it? But you'd never ever talk about drinking in the last chance saloon, would you?

And I wouldn't know whether anyone's ever had a drink in the last chance saloon, would you? And I wouldn't know whether anyone's ever had a drink in the last chance saloon while they have been walking a disciplinary tightrope. That's another one I love, John, because you're right, in everyday language you would never talk about walking a disciplinary tightrope, would you? But what that conveys is, you know, you could say in commentary, he's got to be careful now because he's got five yellow cards he gets another one he's banned for two games but walking a disciplinary tightrope just deals with it doesn't it just everyone knows what you're talking about and it does conjure up that lovely image of the high wire balancing act that

you've got to be careful so I love both of those. So disciplinary tightrope has stayed in the glossary, but we did end up removing last chance saloon because it's too common in other walks of life. Which was a shame, I feel. But your suggestions are always welcome. Tcv at bbc.co.uk and remember our debut live show isn't far away now.

We are in Sheffield on Friday the 4th of July. Tickets are free and all the details are on the crossedwires.live website. That's crossedwires.live. But just remember because tickets are free more actually get issued than there are seats. So you've got to make sure you turn up early to avoid missing out. And for more episodes of The Commentator's View, just have a scroll down your Football Daily feed. You can find all of them there on the BBC Sounds app. Thanks for listening.

Attaching exciting new football daily branded mic muffs to the lip mics before the pod. I've just sent you a picture of mine. Ali? Yeah, hello. How does... So what you do, you disconnect your microphone. Yeah. And the hole, the shaft of the lip mic goes in the hole and then you pull it round.

So put it in the front. No, not there. Not there. That's the wrong way to do it. Put it in the front. I hope we're recording this by the way. Right turn, turn. So the large, where you've got the hole put the stem in. You need to take it off the wire. You need to put the stem in there. Yeah. And

then put it through down the little hole. No, put it in the... Watch, I'll show you. I got you. You're a technical whiz this morning, don't I? I have a confession to make. It took me about five minutes myself to work it out. I wasn't getting there all day today. It's the scandal that rocked Rugby Union to its core. The so-called Bloodgate scandal.

Tom Williams now receiving attention. It seems so clear that this wasn't real blood. It's out and out cheating. This is a story of lies and deception, conspiracies and cover-ups. There was terror that it could tear the house down. Courtroom drama and secret deals. So obviously a lie.

And a human cost that changed lives and careers forever. Dee Richards is found guilty and banned for three years. I'm Ross Kemp and this is Sports Strangers Crimes, Bloodgate. Listen on BBC Sounds. Welcome to The Inside Track with me, Rick Edwards. This is the podcast that takes you inside Formula One and Red Bull Racing like never before. I'm Matt Magindy, and thanks to my exclusive access, I'll be getting up close and personal

with Red Bull Racing this season. This week, I'll be answering your questions, and you can literally ask me anything. I think Matt will probably regret that. 2023 Dutch Grand Prix, I think it was practice, he crashed and he left one hand on the steering wheel and ended up breaking his wrist. Experience Formula One like never before by tuning into the inside track wherever you get your podcasts.