I get asked a lot of questions about my job every day. How do you actually commentate? How did you get into it? Who do you support? And: Is commentating on men’s football different to commentating on women’s?

Of course it is slightly different. But also not in the ways you might think.

I’ve spent the past year honing my commentary craft, which has seen me travel up and down the football pyramid covering every league of the professional game, men’s and women’s.

The common sense answer is no, the job doesn’t change; it’s 22 players, one ball and me trying to keep up with the play. But there are differences I’ve started to notice…

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Every football season starts the same way - on my bedroom floor, surrounded by broadcasting kit I haven’t even looked at in a good few months.

The headset is pulled out of its case. The Coles 4104 microphone gets cleaned. Cables get untangled, and batteries get checked (sometimes). My printer decides it’s got a mind of it’s own and stops printing halfway through - so I’m off on mhy annual printer fixer run, ready to print what will become hundreds and hundreds of pages of notes over the next nine months.

It’s football’s version of sharpening your pencils before the first day back at school.

By the time August comes around, everyone starts talking about the biggest transfer signings of the summer, promotion favourites and who might get relegated. Not for me. I get excited about something much smaller.

An empty folder.

Every season I start a new one, and this year it’s blue. At first, it contains absolutely nothing. Just empty plastic wallets waiting to be filled. By May, I will have gone through maybe three and the last will barely close. It’ll be stuffed with stories we have yet to discover.

As commentators, we spend hours and hours… and hours… and hours, preparing before a ball is kicked, but the one thing we can never prepare for is what will happen on the day, who will score that goal or who will be sent off etc. That’s why football keeps us coming back.

This year started a little differently for me. My first game was from a commentary booth at Stockley Park for IMG, Bristol Rovers vs Peterborough in the first round of the Carabao Cup. It always feels like easing yourself back in - and I guess… like riding a bike. I’m always rusty on the first few weeks back - because I haven’t been in the swing of it. I got the handballer’s name wrong - both had brown shaggy hair and similar numbers. But that’s all part of the risk, and why I still do these games.

One more this weekend for Ian Holloway’s mighty Swindon Town and then comes my first trip to a ground: Vicarage Road for Watford against Southampton for 5 Live. I tell myself I’ll arrive ridiculously early. But I won’t. I need to stop doing this.

But once I’m there, it’s like walking into the school classroom again for the first time since summer. You see familiar faces you haven’t seen since May. Everyone asking the same questions:

“How’s your summer been?”

“Where are you off to next week?”

It’s a small world, football broadcasting, and there’s something comforting about everyone finding their way back to it.

But that folder that was empty a few days ago has already started collecting its first pages.

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In this conversation, we go right back to the beginning. Sara talks about studying journalism before leaping into the industry and why commentary wasn’t necessarily part of the original plan.

We also chat about the realities of the job that listeners never see: the preparation behind every broadcast, learning the craft without a rulebook, switching between sports, handling live pressure and whether those pre-match nerves ever really disappear.

One of my favourite parts of the conversation is hearing Sara talk about making sport feel like it’s for everyone. It’s something she’s spoken about before, and it was fascinating to hear why that’s become such an important part of her broadcasting philosophy.

I hope you enjoy listening.

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The funny thing is, while we hear them every weekend, we rarely hear their stories.

How did they get their first break? What happens before they go live? What mistakes have they made? Do they still get nervous? And what actually goes into preparing for a big game?

That’s why I wanted to start Mic’d Up.

It’s a series of conversations with commentators, presenters, reporters and broadcasters from across sport, chatting about the careers that brought them here, the moments they’ll never forget and everything that happens behind the microphone.

There isn’t one route into this industry, and that’s something I’ve learnt pretty quickly. Everyone’s journey is different, and I think there’s a lot to learn from hearing how other people found theirs.

Em x

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The funny thing about becoming a commentator is that it changes the way you watch football forever.

I can’t switch it off.

I’ll sit down to watch an England game, telling myself I’m going to enjoy it like everyone else, as a fan. No notes, or overthinking or convincing myself they’re playing a 4-4-2 in modern football.

Thirty seconds later, I’m thinking about what I’d say in a phase of play.

Instead of following the ball, I’m watching the full-back on the opposite side of the pitch. I’m listening to the crowd almost as much as the commentary. I’m wondering how the commentator is going to describe the next big moment. And if someone scores, half of my brain is enjoying the goal while the other half is quietly thinking, “That’s a brilliant line!” after hearing Peter Drury deliver “Mbappeeeeeeee, simply irrepressible!”

I don’t think I watch football any differently because I’m trying to. I think it’s just what happens when you’ve spent the last year learning how to describe it.

So while everyone else has been watching the World Cup, here are a few things I’ve realised I can’t help noticing.

👂 I listen as much as I watch.

People think commentary is all about seeing. It’s about listening.

The crowd often tells you momentum is changing before the football does. You hear the sharp intake of breath before a chance develops. You hear the roar build as a counter-attack gathers pace, which thrills you with adrenaline. You hear the frustration when a pass goes astray. Sometimes you even hear the manager before you see them on screen.

As a commentator, all of those sounds become part of the story you’re trying to tell.

❌ I notice when commentators don’t speak.

Before I started, I don’t think I’d ever consciously noticed silence.

Now it’s one of the first things I hear.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt over the last year is that commentary (specifically on TV; radio is different) isn’t about filling every second with words. Sometimes the best thing you can say... is nothing.

Think about a last-minute winner. A trophy lift. The scenes after a dramatic penalty shootout.

Those moments don’t need someone talking over them. The crowd is telling the story better than you ever could. Whenever there’s a huge World Cup moment now, I almost find myself timing how long the commentator lets the atmosphere breathe before speaking again.

It feels wrong when your job is to speak, but a picture is worth a thousand words.

📰 I’m always looking for the story.

Goals are important… Stories are unforgettable.

As commentators, we’re constantly asking ourselves what the bigger picture is. Is this redemption? History? Heartbreak? A breakthrough? One goal can mean completely different things depending on who’s scored it and why.

That’s why World Cups are so special. They’re full of stories that have been building for years. The goal is the ending. The story started long before kick-off.

⚽ I spend more time watching players without the ball.

As a fan, you follow the ball, you follow the player driving in. I’m usually looking somewhere else.

Who’s organising the defence? Who’s constantly talking? Which player has suddenly stopped making forward runs? Who’s warming up? Who looks nervous?

Football is full of tiny moments away from the ball that tell you where a game is heading. The more matches I’ve commentated on, the more fascinated I’ve become by those little details.

⭐ I always appreciate the commentary.

There’s a funny moment I have almost every game now… “I wish I’d thought of that.”

Not because I want to copy them. Because I’m still learning.

Every World Cup brings together some of the best broadcasters in the world, and listening to them feels like sitting in a masterclass.

How they build anticipation, and use silence, and how they describe emotion without saying too much. You never stop learning from people around you.

✍️ I notice the preparation behind every sentence.

Someone listening at home will hear that a player is making their 100th appearance, or that they’ve scored in their last four internationals.

It sounds effortless; it probably wasn’t. I know that sentence probably came from hours of preparation earlier in the week. Through hours and hours of research: Team sheets, press conferences, pronunciation guides, pages and pages of notes.

People hear one sentence, and 9 times out of 10 forget about it. But if that information wasn’t there, you would notice.

💬 Pronunciations become an obsession.

I don’t think I’ve heard a World Cup team sheet without mentally checking whether I’d pronounce every name correctly.

It’s become second nature.

Sometimes I’ll hear a commentator use a pronunciation I wasn’t expecting and immediately make a mental note of it. Like when I found out Bruno Fernandes is actually pronounced Bruno Fern-nanch, or Erling Haaland is How-land in his native tongue.

It’s probably not how most people spend their evenings. Trust me, I’m aware.

Maybe that’s why I love watching the World Cup so much.

Of course, I’m watching as a football fan. I’m still celebrating the goals, feeling the tension and getting caught up in the drama like everyone else. But I’m also watching as someone who’s still learning the craft. Every broadcast makes me think, “I’d love to remember that next time.”

So if you ever catch me watching a winger who hasn’t touched the ball for five minutes, smiling because of a clever line of commentary or quietly admiring thirty seconds of complete silence after a goal...

Now you know why. I’m still watching the football. I just don’t think I’ll ever watch it quite the same way again.

What do you notice?

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Every now and then, someone messages me saying, “I loved your commentary on 5 Live.” Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes what they’ve actually heard is me reporting. It’s an easy mistake to make. To most people, I’m standing at a football match with a headset on, talking into a microphone, so surely, it’s all commentary...

Except it isn’t.

The biggest misconception is that reporting is just “less commentary.” It isn’t. They’re almost opposite skills. Reporting is about delivering the information as quickly and clearly as possible. Commentary is about taking your time, building a picture and letting the game breathe. One asks, “What’s happened?” The other asks, “What did it feel like?”

That usually surprises people. Commentary is exactly what you’d imagine. You’re responsible for taking people through the entire story of a football match, from kick-off to full-time. You’re building drama, creating atmosphere, describing goals and helping people understand not just what’s happening, but why it matters.

Reporting is a completely different challenge. Instead of ninety minutes, you’ve got about ten. Not ten minutes. Ten seconds. Imagine someone hands you a football match and says, “Right, tell everyone everything they need to know… now.” That’s reporting. You’ve got to work out what’s important, explain it clearly and get back out before the presenter moves on. There isn’t time to overthink your wording. Every single word has a job to do.

Being able to switch between those mindsets in the space of twenty-four hours, as well as sometimes between radio and TV, is one of the biggest challenges, and one of my favourite parts of the job. One constantly makes the other better.

Before a commentary, my preparation usually starts days before kick-off. I’ll read everything I can. Recent form, injuries, manager quotes, head-to-head records, player milestones, pronunciations, tactical trends, etc. If someone has changed their surname, I’ll know about it. If a full back is about to make their 100th appearance, it’s highlighted. If a striker hasn’t scored in eight games, it’s probably written somewhere in the margin. By the time I arrive at the ground, I’ve usually got pages of notes spread across my desk.

Will I use all of them? Absolutely not. Probably less than half, maybe even less than three-quarters. But commentary preparation isn’t about trying to memorise everything. It’s about giving yourself the confidence to know that, whatever happens, you’ve got the information if you need it. It’s a bit like revising for an exam. You rarely get asked every question you prepared for, but you’re very glad you revised anyway. (I will be going into my notes in more detail in the coming weeks).

Reporting couldn’t be more different. Of course, you still prepare. You’d never walk into a stadium blind. But instead of preparing to tell the whole story, you’re preparing to identify the headline. If commentary is writing the whole book, reporting is trying to explain the best chapter before someone closes it. That’s a completely different skill. One I’ve probably found harder to learn.

As a commentator, you’ve got time to let moments breathe. You can build anticipation before a corner, explain why a substitution matters or allow the atmosphere inside the stadium to tell part of the story for you. As a reporter, there isn’t that luxury. You’re waiting for your cue, listening to the presenter, keeping an eye on the match, making notes and knowing that at any moment you might hear your name in your headset:

“Emily... stand by.”

Three words that immediately make your brain start working overtime. You quickly decide what you’re going to say, how you’re going to say it and what information absolutely has to make it into those few precious seconds.

Then you hear:

“Emily is at The Den…”

And unlike commentary, where you’re building a narrative over ninety minutes, reporting asks you to distil everything into one clean, concise update. It’s amazing how difficult ten seconds can be. You learn to identify the headline before you’ve even finished writing the sentence in your head. And are taught to follow this structure: Score, who has scored, context, score. The middle bits sometimes can tie in together and you can play around with it, but you MUST under all cirmcumstances start and end on the score. In every report, you’ll hopefully hear that structure. I owe a lot of that to Rob Nothman, who once sat down with me at Loftus Road and patiently helped me fine-tune the craft.

Then, when you sit down to commentate a full ninety minutes, you take those same instincts with you. You know which moments deserve more time. You know when to slow down. You know when silence says more than another sentence ever could. It’s easy to think commentary is about talking. In reality, it’s about listening, listening to the game and listening to the atmosphere and listening to your co-commentator. And, sometimes, listening to yourself and realising you don’t actually need to say anything at all.

Some of my favourite commentary moments have been the ones where the crowd has done the talking for me. A sudden death penalty, when Charlton women were promoted to the top flight. A huge save when Lize Kop kept Tottenham in the FA Cup. A trophy lift. Sometimes the best thing you can do is get out of the way and let people at home feel like they’re in the stadium.

The funny thing is that I still don’t think there’s a “better” job. They’re just different. Commentary lets me tell the whole story. Reporting teaches me which parts of the story matter most. I honestly think I’m a better commentator because I report, and a better reporter because I commentate.

When matchday arrived, the nerves disappeared, and the adrenaline took over. I walked into Wembley just saying ‘wow’ every two minutes. If you’d asked me five years ago whether I’d become a football commentator, I’d have laughed. Not because I didn’t want to work in broadcasting. I absolutely did. I just thought I’d be doing something completely different. Growing up, I wanted to be a television presenter. Holly Willoughby or Louis Theroux were probably the benchmark in my head. I loved live television, storytelling and broadcasting. Football wasn’t even part of the picture. In fact, I came to football surprisingly late. I did not get it.

I wasn’t the kid who knew every Premier League winner or could tell you obscure transfer facts from 2009. My football education really started at university when a group of boys I lived with insisted I watch Liverpool’s Champions League run in 2021. Then I watched. The atmosphere, the drama, the emotion. I got it.

I studied journalism at the University of Leicester and, as part of my degree, completed a placement at BBC Radio Leicester. As with most placements, I started by shadowing others and trying not to get in the way. One week I’d be following reporters out on interviews. Next I’d be writing stories for the newsroom. My first time live on air? A news bulletin about a local café closing. Not exactly breaking news. But I still remember how it felt hearing my voice come through the headphones. I loved it.

Eventually, I moved into sport due to the fact I was in the University rugby team, which appealed to the sports editor. Every afternoon I’d read the sports bulletins: thirty seconds at half past four, thirty seconds at half past five. Half a minute doesn’t sound like much until you’re trying to squeeze in three football scores, two cricket results and a weather warning in. From there I started presenting a programme called Game Night, where I’d spend Tuesday evenings trying sports I’d never done before. One week it was chess (I’m still not entirely convinced it counts), another week it was archery. I loved everything about it: meeting people, trying something new, the liveness, speaking into a microphone. At that point, I thought I’d found exactly what I wanted to do. But there was still something missing!

My first football reporting shift was Leicester City against Manchester City in the Women’s Super League. I still remember sitting there with a Coles 4104 microphone, describing what was unfolding in front of me. There was no second take, no editing, no script, just football. And something clicked. I wanted to commentate.

The only problem was that there isn’t a handbook explaining how to build a match, when to let the game breathe or how to prepare for ninety minutes of unpredictability. There isn’t even a clear career path. Looking back, that was probably the hardest part.

I wasn’t afraid of working hard. I just didn’t know where to start. So I did what most people in the industry do. I listened. I listened to the commentators I admired, I replayed matches, paid attention to how they built excitement, when they chose to stay silent and how they described moments without overcomplicating them. Then I’d try it myself. I’d listen back, spend ten minutes wondering why I’d ever thought commentary was a good idea, and then turn up the following weekend to do it all again. You begin to recognise patterns in football: a winger chopping inside, a last-ditch tackle, a teasing cross into the box, a scramble in the six-yard area. And you start to link words to certain situations - it’s about building instincts. Which is unfortunate, because I’ve always been much better at revising than winging it.

The difficult part is that every lesson happens live. Every mistake has an audience or a hesitation there for everyone to hear. It’s intimidating, but it’s also the only way to improve.

One thing I smile about now is my voice. At school, people used to comment on how deep it was. When you’re younger, anything that makes you different feels like something to hide. Now? It’s one of the reasons people remember me, and it’s one of the reasons people hire me. Funny how life works. Sometimes the thing you once worried about becomes the thing that sets you apart. One thing I learnt very quickly when moving to London.

After university, I joined BBC London, continuing to report on football while trying to learn as much as I possibly could. Another chance to watch experienced broadcasters at work. Another opportunity to ask questions, make mistakes and leave knowing just a little bit more than I did when I arrived.

Not long afterwards, I found myself preparing to commentate on my first game… the Women’s FA Cup Final at Wembley! The same Wembley I’d only ever watched on television. The night before, my brain refused to switch off. I convinced myself I’d forget a player’s name. Miss a goal. Get a statistic wrong. I sat at home reading team sheets over and over again like I was revising for an exam, even though I knew deep down football doesn’t work like that.

The following morning, my boss rang. He asked if I was okay. I said yes (my Apple Watch probably had a different opinion). By the time I walked into the press room, though, the nerves had disappeared. They’d been replaced by adrenaline. I was lucky enough to be alongside former England international Paul Mortimer, whose calmness immediately settled me. Looking back, that’s something I’ve really come to appreciate about this industry. People remember what it’s like to do something for the first time, and the best people go out of their way to make you feel like you belong. Vicki Sparks was also there that day for BBC Radio 5Live, who convinced me I was the one for the job on my first day.

Then the whistle blew. The first goal went in. And, judging by the pitch of my voice, so did I. I remember listening back afterwards and thinking, “Right... maybe let’s keep that a little lower next time.” By the second and third, I was more comfortable.

But it’s live, so it’s not always going to be comfortable. Last season, my headset stopped working five minutes into a game, and I completely lost communication with the director and producer. At one point, I was practically leaning into my co-commentator just to hear what she was saying. We looked less like a commentary team and more like two people sharing a secret at the back of the classroom. Another time, I had an uncontrollable sneezing fit live on air. I muted my microphone and spent what felt like two minutes praying nobody scored while I physically couldn’t speak. Thankfully, they didn’t. It would’ve been a very difficult sentence to explain in the highlights package. Live broadcasting has a funny way of keeping you humble.

I’m still right at the start of this career. There are commentators with decades and decades more experience than me, and I hope that never stops feeling exciting. Hopefully, a few years from now, I’ll look back at this article and smile at how much there still was to learn. For now, though, I’ll continue to share the little things I learn in an elusive industry.

Em

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Well, this feels a bit weird.

For someone who’s spent the last year talking into microphones, the idea of writing things down for people to read somehow feels more intimidating.

But here we are.

If you’ve found this through TikTok, Instagram or YouTube, thank you for making the jump over.

If you’ve somehow stumbled across this without seeing any of my football content before, welcome. I’m Emily. I spend most of my time talking about football, defending Cristiano Ronaldo in arguments I probably shouldn’t still be having, and wondering how on earth I ended up commentating on football matches for a living.

A few years ago, I was just trying to find a way into the football industry. Now I’ve somehow gone from that to commentating on a Women’s FA Cup Final at Wembley as my first gig, covering North London derbies, watching Arsenal lift trophies from a commentary position, and regularly having moments where I have to remind myself this is actually my job.

It’s been a strange journey.

Somewhere along the way, I started making football videos online as a bit of fun. That “bit of fun” turned into a community of thousands of people who either enjoy my football opinions or strongly disagree with them. Either way, I’ll take it.

The problem with social media is that everything moves fast. One minute you’re discussing a transfer rumour. The next time you’re reading a comment explaining why you’ve apparently never watched football before. There’s never enough room to properly tell stories, explain opinions or talk about what it’s actually like trying to build a career in football.

So that’s where this comes in. This newsletter is going to be football, obviously. But it’s also going to be everything around football.

• The stories behind commentary.

• The lessons I’ve learned while getting into the industry.

• The things I wish someone had told me when I was trying to break in.

• The opinions that need more than a 60-second video.

• The ridiculous moments, the good days, the bad days and everything in between.

Most importantly, I want this to feel like a community rather than a broadcast. Football is at its best when it’s a conversation.

So whether you’re here because you love football, you’re interested in commentary, you’re trying to get into the industry yourself, or you've followed me over from TikTok purely to continue an argument we never finished in the comments, I'm glad you're here.

For now, everything will be free while I work out exactly what people enjoy most. And if nothing else, at least this gives me somewhere to put thoughts that don’t fit into a TikTok.

Thanks for being here.

Em :)

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