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SI: You have commentated at every World Cup since 1978. Which tournament and which final in particular would you regard as the most memorable?
MT: I think 1982 was very memorable because it was the first final I actually commentated. I think when you set out, that’s the sort of game that you hope one day you’ll be lucky enough to do and it came to me reasonably quickly. I mean, my first commentary was within eight years of becoming a mainstream broadcaster, so I was very lucky to get one that early, and clearly it was a very exciting final with Italy. That was the tournament where Italy started dreadfully and got better and better and better and Paolo Rossi dawned his name on the history of the competition, so that was very special.
SI: You’ve done plenty of work for us in Oz, when did you first work exclusively for Australian television?
MT: I guess some of the stuff I did in England must have been shown in Australia for a number of years. My first ever piece of commentary that went on the air was a match on December 28, 1974. It’s inscribed on my heart. It was a game in the old second division, now the Championship, between Southampton and Sheffield Wednesday and that was my ‘debut’ as Richie Benaud would say. I worked for ITV and I guess some of the stuff would’ve filtered its way through overseas. But my first real contact with Australian audiences was in 1988 when I was asked to come out to do the Bicentennial Gold Cup with Australia, Brazil, Argentina and Saudi Arabia. I don’t quite know how it happened and it was a bit of a rush job because I came straight back from the European Championships in Germany. I came back on the Sunday and we left on the Tuesday night – we being my wife and my, then, seven-month-old son Adam. We have some family in New South Wales, so I took my fledgling family. It was very odd for my son (who is now 21), as he was babysat by Paul Wade during the tournament – I don’t think Paul’s ever recovered from the experience.
We stayed in the Australian team hotel and Eddie Thomson took us out one night and my wife and I said that we couldn’t come out because we had a baby. He said ‘don’t worry I’ll get a babysitter from the squad’ and Paul Wade was summoned, but I made sure he got a good mention in the commentary the next day.
SI: When you began commentating for Australian audiences, did you have trouble adapting?
MT: No, I don’t think so. I’ve always been a commentator who believes there are two teams on the pitch. So the biggest danger of being English and doing an England game for Australian viewers is that you get into that ‘we’ mode, but I’ve never done that here. I get quite upset actually if there’s a suggestion that I’m an Englishman first and a commentator second, but I’m not when it comes to the football, I’m a commentator first and my English feelings are private ones for afterwards. SI
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