A fraction before 5.30pm, Jake Humphrey pivots to his left, extends an arm and introduces the pundits for the night: Rio, Michael and Ally. But it’s a peculiar sight because Humphrey, nestled in a pitchside corner at a hushed Anfield, is chatting enthusiastically into thin air. The starry trio of Messrs Ferdinand, Owen and McCoist are sitting out this technical rehearsal.
“We don’t want to give the pundits brain fog – they should come out fresh and excited,” says presenter Humphrey as he finalises the nuts and bolts of BT Sport’s live coverage of Liverpool’s meeting with Rangers at Anfield. The extensive run through, he relates, is staged for the benefit of the 150-odd staff on the ground for this production. His earpiece, jammed in tight, delivers instructions from presentation director Gemma Knight. She is overseeing “the build-up, half-time and post-match analysis – everything that wraps the game”.
Between his own impromptu bursts of You’ll Never Walk Alone, Humphrey practises links and introductions, occasionally consulting an iPad featuring a script written during the 250-mile trek from home in Norwich. “I am grateful for the long journeys,” he says. “The back of that car is my office.”
Roughly 90 minutes earlier, not long out of that car and dressed in midnight blue sportswear and striking yellow trainers, Humphrey shone a light on a job that retains its power to generate nerves and adrenaline in equal measure. He was sunk into a white sofa in the well-appointed motorhome that acts as a bustling hub for the faces of the night’s programme. Owen was nearby and Ferdinand marched in mid-conversation, shaking every hand in the room. A packet of chocolate biscuits, an assortment of sweets and a multipack of crisps are on a small table next to the door.
“My job is 10 to 15 per cent talking about football,” says Humphrey. “The other 85 to 90 per cent is getting the show on and off air on time, trying to get the best out of the pundits, not standing in their light and listening to the seven or eight voices we hear down our earpieces.” Humphrey limits scripted content because “once the game starts there is no plan – we are entirely reactive. That is the thrill.” He eschews autocues for the same reason. “They tie you to something you wrote five hours earlier.”
Des Kelly, who “is part of an amazing circus” as the station’s pre-eminent interviewer, adopts a similar best-laid-plans policy. “I scribble down some notes but I try to make it a conversation, not an inquisition, then you get much more back. It isn’t Frost-Nixon.”
Darren Fletcher, BT Sport’s ardent lead commentator, completes the heft of his preparation 24 hours before the fixture. Today is Fletcher’s birthday but he remained faithful to the routine of devoting one hour on the morning of the match to studying his notes. The only concession to a personally notable day was the “full English” for breakfast. As for working on his birthday, he wouldn’t want it any other way. “If I wasn’t commentating I’d be after a ticket,” he says. “I used to fit suspended ceilings. Even now – and I have been doing this a long time – I have a fear that somebody is going to take it away from me. I appreciate it so much.”
Kelly has a similar perspective. “To be in the middle of all that fuss and chaos and celebratory joy is an absolute privilege.”
By the time Humphrey, Kelly and Fletcher arrive to do their stuff, this sprawling operation is two days old. BT Sport began “planting their feet”, as executive producer David Moss puts it, on Sunday. The plush centrepiece motorhome – Winnebago, or Winnie on production plans – is accompanied by five large trucks (most of them spilling jumbles of cables onto the sodden floor) and one cherry picker. There are three compact purple BT vans, two catering trucks and one unprepossessing single-decker diner. On the evening of the game a drone is employed, sharing airspace with the police helicopters illuminating a menacing sky. The set-up process was completed on Monday – matchday minus one, to use modern parlance.
Moss, speaking three hours ahead of the production going live, is drinking a cup of tea and is confident that the bulk of his to-do list is ticked off. His myriad duties include choosing camera operators, the “talent roster” and the presenter. “The responsibility is big, yes, but you trust people,” he says. “You could run around and worry about what everybody is doing on the day, but that will only put them on edge. When it is all running late… it can get a bit tetchy. They all want to do a good job. But there is not a culture where if something goes wrong, people try to pick over it.”
An obvious camaraderie exists across this team; Ferdinand, Owen and McCoist easily rub along with floor managers, sound engineers and producers. When the action is under way, these pundits are one press of a button away from an analysis assistant producer, ready to cut and assemble pertinent clips.
“You are in a heightened state throughout the broadcast to make sure you don’t miss anything and I am always buzzing afterwards – I find it very hard to sleep,” says Knight, before heading back to her desk carrying a Styrofoam food tray with the words ‘gammon and veg’ scribbled on its lid.
Humphrey – who broadcasts with an open mic, enabling him to hear every word from the production gallery – relies heavily on both his director and producer. The director, he says, “is in charge of the technical side of broadcasting: choosing camera shots and asking for different angles and perspectives”. It is a creative assignment for the producer, who “listens to on-air conversations and chips in with helpful information, while managing the running order”.
Tonight’s ‘live’ opening is filmed 10 minutes prior to the programme’s 6:30pm start time. Ferdinand, Owen and McCoist are gathered on a balcony overlooking Anfield Road – and a mass of Rangers fans waiting for their turnstiles to open. McCoist punches the air in response to a lusty airing of Super Ally while Ferdinand – who filmed on his phone as the Scottish supporters snaked through a walkway from Stanley Park – is amused by a few less-than-complimentary comments sent in his direction.
The two Rangers team coaches ease into view earlier than expected. This coincides with McCoist’s filmed recollections of Scottish Third Division trips to footballing outposts such as Elgin City, when he was the club’s manager less than a decade ago. Owen joins in, relaying personal experiences of Battle of Britain clashes as a Liverpool player facing Celtic – one won and one lost. Humphrey deftly steers the conversation, sustaining a brisk pace and rounded contributions. “We’ll use that [to open the show],” he tells his three guests after the recorded chat draws to a conclusion.
Humphrey likens his role in these set-pieces to that of a referee. “You need to keep things flowing nicely,” he says. “As soon as people are talking about the presenter, you haven’t done your job right. You need to give the pundits the freedom to act like they’re not on television, then keep them interested and working hard. These guys have money in the bank – they can sit at home and chill. They don’t need to be here.”
Inside the stadium, Humphrey and his panel are complemented by Scottish presenter Emma Dodds and ex-Rangers striker Kenny Miller, positioned in front of a fast-filling away section. Steve McManaman, last seen digging into some salt and vinegar crisps and sharing jokes with colleagues outside the Winnie, briefly joins Dodds and Miller before darting up six floors to the commentary platform.
Second co-commentator Kevin Thomson, the former Rangers midfielder, met Fletcher for the first time tonight. That pair reached the gantry in advance of McManaman, Fletcher transferring three large packets of sweets from his bag to the table, then opening up a large pad to two pages filled with tiny, barely decipherable notes. He unpeels labels containing information about each substitute and attaches them to the top of one of eight television screens in front of him. When a player is brought on, his details will be fixed on the pad – over those of the man he replaced.
Speaking shortly before assuming his seat for the night and cradling a full plastic teacup – “It’s all right, I have a strong bladder” – Fletcher admits he could not get by without either his “essential” sound technician or Alex Rollitt on Camera 2, also known as the close-up camera. “If there is a goalmouth scramble, a stray leg, and you are thinking, ‘Cor, who was that?’ he always gets the right person,” says Fletcher. “It is such a comfort, knowing to pause – ‘Don’t say anything, wait for Alex, he has got you’ – then bang, in you go. He is the best in the world. I have never met anyone as good at their job. He is my better eyes.”
Fletcher opted against preparing a snappy opening gambit for this fixture. He is anticipating a crackling atmosphere and is proven correct when those Rangers devotees transfer their excitement to the stands. As they wait for their side to emerge from the tunnel, the songs grow in noise and intensity; the locals, inevitably, try to drown out their boisterous visitors. Just the sort of occasion, then, when Fletcher prefers to “let the crowd bring the teams out. As a commentator you try to accompany the atmosphere, rather than make it about what you are doing.”
There is little in the contest that unfolds at Anfield to rival Fletcher’s favourite Champions League nights: the twin back-from-the-dead semi-final second legs of 2019, closely followed by every twist and turn of Real Madrid’s advance to the trophy last season. The job of calling the game is tiring nonetheless, due to the unbroken concentration. But, insists Fletcher, “I don’t want people saying, ‘Oh, he reckons his job is hard,’ because it’s not.”
At full-time Kelly secures a headline-grabbing on-field chat with Liverpool goalscorer Trent Alexander-Arnold then dashes down the tunnel, taking a sharp left for the flash zone: the oppressive, sweaty, heavily lit and faintly artificial area where the bulk of post-match interviews are conducted.
“It looks nice and cosy on television but there is a phalanx of people behind you – people dragging you back saying ‘Come on!’ and a row of other interview points,” says Kelly. “It took me a while to crop out the other stuff that’s going on. You have to be in charge of your own little environment – then it becomes more manageable.”
Kelly laughs when remembering an infamous post-match joust with Jürgen Klopp. “Any manager can be horrible after a bad game – and I have a certain amount of empathy,” he says. “If somebody came up to me straight after my interviews and said, ‘Ooh, that didn’t go very well, did it?’ then I’d probably react in a similar way.”
Liverpool manager Klopp is in genial form tonight following his side’s routine victory. Either way, smiles Kelly, pointing to the phone in his pocket, social media will rapidly return a verdict on his interviews. Would it not be wiser to avoid the court of public opinion? “Ah, it’s all right,” he says. “Sometimes, things go wrong. My job isn’t a perfect science.”
Fletcher, in contrast, religiously watches back the entire match before switching off his light. “Every game, whether I’m at home or abroad,” he says. “Only I can make myself better – nobody is going to do it for me. I am more critical than happy, usually. I will think, ‘I could have said that better, or done that here.’ Then I will take it into the next game.”
Fletcher will be covering Chelsea’s match against AC Milan within 24 hours; it feels like a relentless schedule. But Knight unwittingly speaks for all
her colleagues when she mentions her thought process after the completion of another BT Sport production. “When you do so many matches, you wake up the next morning and the first thought is, ‘Right, what’s the next one?’” she says. “But I love my job. It’s fun.”
A fraction before 5.30pm, Jake Humphrey pivots to his left, extends an arm and introduces the pundits for the night: Rio, Michael and Ally. But it’s a peculiar sight because Humphrey, nestled in a pitchside corner at a hushed Anfield, is chatting enthusiastically into thin air. The starry trio of Messrs Ferdinand, Owen and McCoist are sitting out this technical rehearsal.
“We don’t want to give the pundits brain fog – they should come out fresh and excited,” says presenter Humphrey as he finalises the nuts and bolts of BT Sport’s live coverage of Liverpool’s meeting with Rangers at Anfield. The extensive run through, he relates, is staged for the benefit of the 150-odd staff on the ground for this production. His earpiece, jammed in tight, delivers instructions from presentation director Gemma Knight. She is overseeing “the build-up, half-time and post-match analysis – everything that wraps the game”.
Between his own impromptu bursts of You’ll Never Walk Alone, Humphrey practises links and introductions, occasionally consulting an iPad featuring a script written during the 250-mile trek from home in Norwich. “I am grateful for the long journeys,” he says. “The back of that car is my office.”
Roughly 90 minutes earlier, not long out of that car and dressed in midnight blue sportswear and striking yellow trainers, Humphrey shone a light on a job that retains its power to generate nerves and adrenaline in equal measure. He was sunk into a white sofa in the well-appointed motorhome that acts as a bustling hub for the faces of the night’s programme. Owen was nearby and Ferdinand marched in mid-conversation, shaking every hand in the room. A packet of chocolate biscuits, an assortment of sweets and a multipack of crisps are on a small table next to the door.
“My job is 10 to 15 per cent talking about football,” says Humphrey. “The other 85 to 90 per cent is getting the show on and off air on time, trying to get the best out of the pundits, not standing in their light and listening to the seven or eight voices we hear down our earpieces.” Humphrey limits scripted content because “once the game starts there is no plan – we are entirely reactive. That is the thrill.” He eschews autocues for the same reason. “They tie you to something you wrote five hours earlier.”
Des Kelly, who “is part of an amazing circus” as the station’s pre-eminent interviewer, adopts a similar best-laid-plans policy. “I scribble down some notes but I try to make it a conversation, not an inquisition, then you get much more back. It isn’t Frost-Nixon.”
Darren Fletcher, BT Sport’s ardent lead commentator, completes the heft of his preparation 24 hours before the fixture. Today is Fletcher’s birthday but he remained faithful to the routine of devoting one hour on the morning of the match to studying his notes. The only concession to a personally notable day was the “full English” for breakfast. As for working on his birthday, he wouldn’t want it any other way. “If I wasn’t commentating I’d be after a ticket,” he says. “I used to fit suspended ceilings. Even now – and I have been doing this a long time – I have a fear that somebody is going to take it away from me. I appreciate it so much.”
Kelly has a similar perspective. “To be in the middle of all that fuss and chaos and celebratory joy is an absolute privilege.”
By the time Humphrey, Kelly and Fletcher arrive to do their stuff, this sprawling operation is two days old. BT Sport began “planting their feet”, as executive producer David Moss puts it, on Sunday. The plush centrepiece motorhome – Winnebago, or Winnie on production plans – is accompanied by five large trucks (most of them spilling jumbles of cables onto the sodden floor) and one cherry picker. There are three compact purple BT vans, two catering trucks and one unprepossessing single-decker diner. On the evening of the game a drone is employed, sharing airspace with the police helicopters illuminating a menacing sky. The set-up process was completed on Monday – matchday minus one, to use modern parlance.
Moss, speaking three hours ahead of the production going live, is drinking a cup of tea and is confident that the bulk of his to-do list is ticked off. His myriad duties include choosing camera operators, the “talent roster” and the presenter. “The responsibility is big, yes, but you trust people,” he says. “You could run around and worry about what everybody is doing on the day, but that will only put them on edge. When it is all running late… it can get a bit tetchy. They all want to do a good job. But there is not a culture where if something goes wrong, people try to pick over it.”
An obvious camaraderie exists across this team; Ferdinand, Owen and McCoist easily rub along with floor managers, sound engineers and producers. When the action is under way, these pundits are one press of a button away from an analysis assistant producer, ready to cut and assemble pertinent clips.
“You are in a heightened state throughout the broadcast to make sure you don’t miss anything and I am always buzzing afterwards – I find it very hard to sleep,” says Knight, before heading back to her desk carrying a Styrofoam food tray with the words ‘gammon and veg’ scribbled on its lid.
Humphrey – who broadcasts with an open mic, enabling him to hear every word from the production gallery – relies heavily on both his director and producer. The director, he says, “is in charge of the technical side of broadcasting: choosing camera shots and asking for different angles and perspectives”. It is a creative assignment for the producer, who “listens to on-air conversations and chips in with helpful information, while managing the running order”.
Tonight’s ‘live’ opening is filmed 10 minutes prior to the programme’s 6:30pm start time. Ferdinand, Owen and McCoist are gathered on a balcony overlooking Anfield Road – and a mass of Rangers fans waiting for their turnstiles to open. McCoist punches the air in response to a lusty airing of Super Ally while Ferdinand – who filmed on his phone as the Scottish supporters snaked through a walkway from Stanley Park – is amused by a few less-than-complimentary comments sent in his direction.
The two Rangers team coaches ease into view earlier than expected. This coincides with McCoist’s filmed recollections of Scottish Third Division trips to footballing outposts such as Elgin City, when he was the club’s manager less than a decade ago. Owen joins in, relaying personal experiences of Battle of Britain clashes as a Liverpool player facing Celtic – one won and one lost. Humphrey deftly steers the conversation, sustaining a brisk pace and rounded contributions. “We’ll use that [to open the show],” he tells his three guests after the recorded chat draws to a conclusion.
Humphrey likens his role in these set-pieces to that of a referee. “You need to keep things flowing nicely,” he says. “As soon as people are talking about the presenter, you haven’t done your job right. You need to give the pundits the freedom to act like they’re not on television, then keep them interested and working hard. These guys have money in the bank – they can sit at home and chill. They don’t need to be here.”
Inside the stadium, Humphrey and his panel are complemented by Scottish presenter Emma Dodds and ex-Rangers striker Kenny Miller, positioned in front of a fast-filling away section. Steve McManaman, last seen digging into some salt and vinegar crisps and sharing jokes with colleagues outside the Winnie, briefly joins Dodds and Miller before darting up six floors to the commentary platform.
Second co-commentator Kevin Thomson, the former Rangers midfielder, met Fletcher for the first time tonight. That pair reached the gantry in advance of McManaman, Fletcher transferring three large packets of sweets from his bag to the table, then opening up a large pad to two pages filled with tiny, barely decipherable notes. He unpeels labels containing information about each substitute and attaches them to the top of one of eight television screens in front of him. When a player is brought on, his details will be fixed on the pad – over those of the man he replaced.
Speaking shortly before assuming his seat for the night and cradling a full plastic teacup – “It’s all right, I have a strong bladder” – Fletcher admits he could not get by without either his “essential” sound technician or Alex Rollitt on Camera 2, also known as the close-up camera. “If there is a goalmouth scramble, a stray leg, and you are thinking, ‘Cor, who was that?’ he always gets the right person,” says Fletcher. “It is such a comfort, knowing to pause – ‘Don’t say anything, wait for Alex, he has got you’ – then bang, in you go. He is the best in the world. I have never met anyone as good at their job. He is my better eyes.”
Fletcher opted against preparing a snappy opening gambit for this fixture. He is anticipating a crackling atmosphere and is proven correct when those Rangers devotees transfer their excitement to the stands. As they wait for their side to emerge from the tunnel, the songs grow in noise and intensity; the locals, inevitably, try to drown out their boisterous visitors. Just the sort of occasion, then, when Fletcher prefers to “let the crowd bring the teams out. As a commentator you try to accompany the atmosphere, rather than make it about what you are doing.”
There is little in the contest that unfolds at Anfield to rival Fletcher’s favourite Champions League nights: the twin back-from-the-dead semi-final second legs of 2019, closely followed by every twist and turn of Real Madrid’s advance to the trophy last season. The job of calling the game is tiring nonetheless, due to the unbroken concentration. But, insists Fletcher, “I don’t want people saying, ‘Oh, he reckons his job is hard,’ because it’s not.”
At full-time Kelly secures a headline-grabbing on-field chat with Liverpool goalscorer Trent Alexander-Arnold then dashes down the tunnel, taking a sharp left for the flash zone: the oppressive, sweaty, heavily lit and faintly artificial area where the bulk of post-match interviews are conducted.
“It looks nice and cosy on television but there is a phalanx of people behind you – people dragging you back saying ‘Come on!’ and a row of other interview points,” says Kelly. “It took me a while to crop out the other stuff that’s going on. You have to be in charge of your own little environment – then it becomes more manageable.”
Kelly laughs when remembering an infamous post-match joust with Jürgen Klopp. “Any manager can be horrible after a bad game – and I have a certain amount of empathy,” he says. “If somebody came up to me straight after my interviews and said, ‘Ooh, that didn’t go very well, did it?’ then I’d probably react in a similar way.”
Liverpool manager Klopp is in genial form tonight following his side’s routine victory. Either way, smiles Kelly, pointing to the phone in his pocket, social media will rapidly return a verdict on his interviews. Would it not be wiser to avoid the court of public opinion? “Ah, it’s all right,” he says. “Sometimes, things go wrong. My job isn’t a perfect science.”
Fletcher, in contrast, religiously watches back the entire match before switching off his light. “Every game, whether I’m at home or abroad,” he says. “Only I can make myself better – nobody is going to do it for me. I am more critical than happy, usually. I will think, ‘I could have said that better, or done that here.’ Then I will take it into the next game.”
Fletcher will be covering Chelsea’s match against AC Milan within 24 hours; it feels like a relentless schedule. But Knight unwittingly speaks for all
her colleagues when she mentions her thought process after the completion of another BT Sport production. “When you do so many matches, you wake up the next morning and the first thought is, ‘Right, what’s the next one?’” she says. “But I love my job. It’s fun.”
A fraction before 5.30pm, Jake Humphrey pivots to his left, extends an arm and introduces the pundits for the night: Rio, Michael and Ally. But it’s a peculiar sight because Humphrey, nestled in a pitchside corner at a hushed Anfield, is chatting enthusiastically into thin air. The starry trio of Messrs Ferdinand, Owen and McCoist are sitting out this technical rehearsal.
“We don’t want to give the pundits brain fog – they should come out fresh and excited,” says presenter Humphrey as he finalises the nuts and bolts of BT Sport’s live coverage of Liverpool’s meeting with Rangers at Anfield. The extensive run through, he relates, is staged for the benefit of the 150-odd staff on the ground for this production. His earpiece, jammed in tight, delivers instructions from presentation director Gemma Knight. She is overseeing “the build-up, half-time and post-match analysis – everything that wraps the game”.
Between his own impromptu bursts of You’ll Never Walk Alone, Humphrey practises links and introductions, occasionally consulting an iPad featuring a script written during the 250-mile trek from home in Norwich. “I am grateful for the long journeys,” he says. “The back of that car is my office.”
Roughly 90 minutes earlier, not long out of that car and dressed in midnight blue sportswear and striking yellow trainers, Humphrey shone a light on a job that retains its power to generate nerves and adrenaline in equal measure. He was sunk into a white sofa in the well-appointed motorhome that acts as a bustling hub for the faces of the night’s programme. Owen was nearby and Ferdinand marched in mid-conversation, shaking every hand in the room. A packet of chocolate biscuits, an assortment of sweets and a multipack of crisps are on a small table next to the door.
“My job is 10 to 15 per cent talking about football,” says Humphrey. “The other 85 to 90 per cent is getting the show on and off air on time, trying to get the best out of the pundits, not standing in their light and listening to the seven or eight voices we hear down our earpieces.” Humphrey limits scripted content because “once the game starts there is no plan – we are entirely reactive. That is the thrill.” He eschews autocues for the same reason. “They tie you to something you wrote five hours earlier.”
Des Kelly, who “is part of an amazing circus” as the station’s pre-eminent interviewer, adopts a similar best-laid-plans policy. “I scribble down some notes but I try to make it a conversation, not an inquisition, then you get much more back. It isn’t Frost-Nixon.”
Darren Fletcher, BT Sport’s ardent lead commentator, completes the heft of his preparation 24 hours before the fixture. Today is Fletcher’s birthday but he remained faithful to the routine of devoting one hour on the morning of the match to studying his notes. The only concession to a personally notable day was the “full English” for breakfast. As for working on his birthday, he wouldn’t want it any other way. “If I wasn’t commentating I’d be after a ticket,” he says. “I used to fit suspended ceilings. Even now – and I have been doing this a long time – I have a fear that somebody is going to take it away from me. I appreciate it so much.”
Kelly has a similar perspective. “To be in the middle of all that fuss and chaos and celebratory joy is an absolute privilege.”
By the time Humphrey, Kelly and Fletcher arrive to do their stuff, this sprawling operation is two days old. BT Sport began “planting their feet”, as executive producer David Moss puts it, on Sunday. The plush centrepiece motorhome – Winnebago, or Winnie on production plans – is accompanied by five large trucks (most of them spilling jumbles of cables onto the sodden floor) and one cherry picker. There are three compact purple BT vans, two catering trucks and one unprepossessing single-decker diner. On the evening of the game a drone is employed, sharing airspace with the police helicopters illuminating a menacing sky. The set-up process was completed on Monday – matchday minus one, to use modern parlance.
Moss, speaking three hours ahead of the production going live, is drinking a cup of tea and is confident that the bulk of his to-do list is ticked off. His myriad duties include choosing camera operators, the “talent roster” and the presenter. “The responsibility is big, yes, but you trust people,” he says. “You could run around and worry about what everybody is doing on the day, but that will only put them on edge. When it is all running late… it can get a bit tetchy. They all want to do a good job. But there is not a culture where if something goes wrong, people try to pick over it.”
An obvious camaraderie exists across this team; Ferdinand, Owen and McCoist easily rub along with floor managers, sound engineers and producers. When the action is under way, these pundits are one press of a button away from an analysis assistant producer, ready to cut and assemble pertinent clips.
“You are in a heightened state throughout the broadcast to make sure you don’t miss anything and I am always buzzing afterwards – I find it very hard to sleep,” says Knight, before heading back to her desk carrying a Styrofoam food tray with the words ‘gammon and veg’ scribbled on its lid.
Humphrey – who broadcasts with an open mic, enabling him to hear every word from the production gallery – relies heavily on both his director and producer. The director, he says, “is in charge of the technical side of broadcasting: choosing camera shots and asking for different angles and perspectives”. It is a creative assignment for the producer, who “listens to on-air conversations and chips in with helpful information, while managing the running order”.
Tonight’s ‘live’ opening is filmed 10 minutes prior to the programme’s 6:30pm start time. Ferdinand, Owen and McCoist are gathered on a balcony overlooking Anfield Road – and a mass of Rangers fans waiting for their turnstiles to open. McCoist punches the air in response to a lusty airing of Super Ally while Ferdinand – who filmed on his phone as the Scottish supporters snaked through a walkway from Stanley Park – is amused by a few less-than-complimentary comments sent in his direction.
The two Rangers team coaches ease into view earlier than expected. This coincides with McCoist’s filmed recollections of Scottish Third Division trips to footballing outposts such as Elgin City, when he was the club’s manager less than a decade ago. Owen joins in, relaying personal experiences of Battle of Britain clashes as a Liverpool player facing Celtic – one won and one lost. Humphrey deftly steers the conversation, sustaining a brisk pace and rounded contributions. “We’ll use that [to open the show],” he tells his three guests after the recorded chat draws to a conclusion.
Humphrey likens his role in these set-pieces to that of a referee. “You need to keep things flowing nicely,” he says. “As soon as people are talking about the presenter, you haven’t done your job right. You need to give the pundits the freedom to act like they’re not on television, then keep them interested and working hard. These guys have money in the bank – they can sit at home and chill. They don’t need to be here.”
Inside the stadium, Humphrey and his panel are complemented by Scottish presenter Emma Dodds and ex-Rangers striker Kenny Miller, positioned in front of a fast-filling away section. Steve McManaman, last seen digging into some salt and vinegar crisps and sharing jokes with colleagues outside the Winnie, briefly joins Dodds and Miller before darting up six floors to the commentary platform.
Second co-commentator Kevin Thomson, the former Rangers midfielder, met Fletcher for the first time tonight. That pair reached the gantry in advance of McManaman, Fletcher transferring three large packets of sweets from his bag to the table, then opening up a large pad to two pages filled with tiny, barely decipherable notes. He unpeels labels containing information about each substitute and attaches them to the top of one of eight television screens in front of him. When a player is brought on, his details will be fixed on the pad – over those of the man he replaced.
Speaking shortly before assuming his seat for the night and cradling a full plastic teacup – “It’s all right, I have a strong bladder” – Fletcher admits he could not get by without either his “essential” sound technician or Alex Rollitt on Camera 2, also known as the close-up camera. “If there is a goalmouth scramble, a stray leg, and you are thinking, ‘Cor, who was that?’ he always gets the right person,” says Fletcher. “It is such a comfort, knowing to pause – ‘Don’t say anything, wait for Alex, he has got you’ – then bang, in you go. He is the best in the world. I have never met anyone as good at their job. He is my better eyes.”
Fletcher opted against preparing a snappy opening gambit for this fixture. He is anticipating a crackling atmosphere and is proven correct when those Rangers devotees transfer their excitement to the stands. As they wait for their side to emerge from the tunnel, the songs grow in noise and intensity; the locals, inevitably, try to drown out their boisterous visitors. Just the sort of occasion, then, when Fletcher prefers to “let the crowd bring the teams out. As a commentator you try to accompany the atmosphere, rather than make it about what you are doing.”
There is little in the contest that unfolds at Anfield to rival Fletcher’s favourite Champions League nights: the twin back-from-the-dead semi-final second legs of 2019, closely followed by every twist and turn of Real Madrid’s advance to the trophy last season. The job of calling the game is tiring nonetheless, due to the unbroken concentration. But, insists Fletcher, “I don’t want people saying, ‘Oh, he reckons his job is hard,’ because it’s not.”
At full-time Kelly secures a headline-grabbing on-field chat with Liverpool goalscorer Trent Alexander-Arnold then dashes down the tunnel, taking a sharp left for the flash zone: the oppressive, sweaty, heavily lit and faintly artificial area where the bulk of post-match interviews are conducted.
“It looks nice and cosy on television but there is a phalanx of people behind you – people dragging you back saying ‘Come on!’ and a row of other interview points,” says Kelly. “It took me a while to crop out the other stuff that’s going on. You have to be in charge of your own little environment – then it becomes more manageable.”
Kelly laughs when remembering an infamous post-match joust with Jürgen Klopp. “Any manager can be horrible after a bad game – and I have a certain amount of empathy,” he says. “If somebody came up to me straight after my interviews and said, ‘Ooh, that didn’t go very well, did it?’ then I’d probably react in a similar way.”
Liverpool manager Klopp is in genial form tonight following his side’s routine victory. Either way, smiles Kelly, pointing to the phone in his pocket, social media will rapidly return a verdict on his interviews. Would it not be wiser to avoid the court of public opinion? “Ah, it’s all right,” he says. “Sometimes, things go wrong. My job isn’t a perfect science.”
Fletcher, in contrast, religiously watches back the entire match before switching off his light. “Every game, whether I’m at home or abroad,” he says. “Only I can make myself better – nobody is going to do it for me. I am more critical than happy, usually. I will think, ‘I could have said that better, or done that here.’ Then I will take it into the next game.”
Fletcher will be covering Chelsea’s match against AC Milan within 24 hours; it feels like a relentless schedule. But Knight unwittingly speaks for all
her colleagues when she mentions her thought process after the completion of another BT Sport production. “When you do so many matches, you wake up the next morning and the first thought is, ‘Right, what’s the next one?’” she says. “But I love my job. It’s fun.”
