Peter Brackley (13 June 1951 – 14 October 2018) was an English football commentator, perhaps most famous for commentating for ''

Football Italia ''Football Italia'' was a television programme in the United Kingdom, showing Italian football, that ran from 1992 to 2002 on Channel 4, and continued until 2008 on other channels. It was known as ''Football Italiano'' in its final season. The ...

'' on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

in the 1990s, for the computer game series ''

Pro Evolution Soccer ''eFootball'', formerly known as ''Pro Evolution Soccer'' (''PES'') internationally and in Japan and North America, is a series of association football simulation video games developed and published by Konami since 1995. The series consists ...

'' until ''

Pro Evolution Soccer 6 ''Pro Evolution Soccer 6'', known as ''Winning Eleven: Pro Evolution Soccer 2007'' in the United States, is a video game developed and published by Konami. Released in 2006 for the PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, and Microsoft Windows platforms and fo ...

'' (after which

Jon Champion Jonathan Martin Champion (born 23 May 1965) is a British sports commentator currently working as the lead association football commentator for ESPN (US). Champion is a well-established and experienced commentator who has also worked for the BBC ...

replaced him as primary commentator), and for ''Michael Owen's World League Soccer '99''.

Broadcasting career

Radio

He began his career at

BBC Radio Brighton BBC Radio Sussex is the BBC's local radio station serving the counties of East and West Sussex. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios on Queens Road in Brighton. Programming Local programming airs from the BB ...

in the early 1970s, before moving to the network. During his time with

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, Brackley covered

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

– including two

FA Cup Final The FA Cup Final, commonly referred to in England as just the Cup Final, is the last match in the Football Association Challenge Cup. It has regularly been one of the most attended domestic football events in the world, with an official atten ...

s and the

1982 European Cup Final The 1982 European Cup Final was played on 26 May 1982. Football League winners Aston Villa defeated Bundesliga winners Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), also known as FC Bayern (), Bayern Munich, or simply Baye ...

– and

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competi ...

, as well as presenting flagship programmes '' Sport on Two'' and '' Sports Report''.

ITV

The summer of 1982 saw Brackley make the switch to television, initially with ITV company

Central Independent Television ITV Central, previously known as Central Independent Television, Carlton Central, ITV1 for Central England and commonly referred to as simply Central, is the Independent Television franchisee for the Midlands. It was created following the rest ...

replacing

Hugh Johns Hugh Richard Lewis Johns (6 September 1922 – 27 June 2007) was an English football commentator, best known for his appearances for ITV. During his career, he covered 1,000 matches including four FIFA World Cup finals. Early life and career ...

. During his initial spell with the network he covered the

1986 FIFA World Cup The 1986 FIFA World Cup was the 13th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in Mexico from 31 May to 29 June 1986. The tournament was the second to feature a 24-team format. Colombia ha ...

and the European Championship in France in 1984 – including commentaries on semi-final matches in both tournaments. His first live match for

ITV Sport ITV Sport is a sport producer for ITV. It was formed following the merger between Granada Sport and Central Sport.First Division contest between

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...

and

Sheffield Wednesday Sheffield Wednesday Football Club is a professional association football club based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The team competes in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. Formed in 1867 as an offshoot ...

in April 198

He also stepped into the breach during the live broadcast of the

1986 European Cup Final The 1986 European Cup Final was a football match held at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán Stadium, Seville, on 7 May 1986 that saw Steaua București of Romania defeat Barcelona of Spain in a penalty shoot out after 120 minutes of play could not separ ...

between

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

and Steaua Bucharest alongside that night's ITV studio co-pundit,

Ron Atkinson Ronald Frederick Atkinson (born 18 March 1939), commonly known as "Big Ron" or "Mr. Bojangles", is an English former football player and manager. In the 1990s and early 2000s, he was regarded as one of Britain's best-known football pundits. Nic ...

, when communication with the commentary team in

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Penins ...

, Brian Moore and

Kevin Keegan Joseph Kevin Keegan (born 14 February 1951) is an English former footballer and manager. A forward, he played for several professional clubs from 1968 to 1984. Having begun his career at Scunthorpe United, he moved to Liverpool in 1971 a ...

, was lost.

Sky

In 1988 Brackley left ITV. Still stuck behind Brian Moore,

Martin Tyler Martin Tyler (born 14 September 1945) is an English football commentator. He has worked as a commentator for Sky Sports since 1990, covering the Premier League and UEFA Champions League, as well as other domestic and international competition ...

and

Alan Parry Alan Parry (born 1948 in Garston, Liverpool) is an English sports commentator, concentrating on football and athletics. He has commentated for all four main broadcasters of football in the UK – the BBC, BT Sport, ITV and Sky TV, as well as ...

in the pecking order he made the move to

Rupert Murdoch Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...

's Sky Television. The bulk of his work would be for the pan-European channel

Eurosport Eurosport is a group of pay television networks in Europe and parts of Asia. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery through its international sports unit, it operates two main channels— Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2—across most of its territorie ...

, then part-owned by Sky. He led their commentary team at the

1990 FIFA World Cup The 1990 FIFA World Cup was the 14th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was held from 8 June to 8 July 1990 in Italy, the second country to host the event for a second time (the first being ...

in Italy, with

Ian Darke Ian Darke (born 1954) is an English association football and boxing commentator who currently works for ESPN and BT Sport. Darke was previously one of Sky's "Big Four" football commentators alongside Martin Tyler, Alan Parry and Rob Hawthorne. ...

Paul Dempsey Paul Anthony Dempsey (born 25 May 1976) is an Australian musician. He is best known as the lead singer, guitarist and principal lyricist of rock group Something for Kate. Dempsey released his debut solo album, '' Everything Is True'', on 20 Au ...

and Gary Bloom among his colleagues. Brackley was also behind the mic for Sky's first live matches, which came in the Zenith Data Systems Cup. When Sky and BSB merged in 1991, Brackley took up other duties including regular

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football compet ...

matches and weekly coverage of live Italian football. This was the continuation of a long relationship with coverage of

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Cop ...

, which had actually begun in the middle of the 1980s when he took up work for CSI Sports who picked up the international broadcast rights. Brackley also commentated Eurosport's coverage of the

1991 World Masters The World Masters, known for sponsorship reasons as the Mita/Sky World Masters, was a snooker tournament held between 13 and 26 January 1991. Conceived by promoter Barry Hearn, the tournament had a similar format to the Grand Slam (tennis), Gran ...

snooker tournament at the NEC in Birmingham alongside

Mike Watterson George Michael Edwin Watterson (26 August 1942 – 8 March 2019) was an English professional snooker player, businessman, entrepreneur and television commentator. He was an England Amateur international for two years before turning professiona ...

Jim Wych Jim Wych (born 11 January 1955 in Calgary) is a Canadian sports announcer and former professional snooker and pocket billiards player. He turned professional in 1979 and reached the quarter-final of the 1980 World Snooker Championship in his debut ...

, Willie Jamieson, Paul Wade and Phil Yates.

''Football Italia''

This association with Italian football deepened in 1992 when, in the wake of

Paul Gascoigne Paul John Gascoigne (, born 27 May 1967), nicknamed Gazza, is an English former professional footballer who played as an attacking midfielder. He is described by the National Football Museum as "widely recognised as the most naturally talent ...

's transfer from

Tottenham Tottenham () is a town in North London, England, within the London Borough of Haringey. It is located in the ceremonial county of Greater London. Tottenham is centred north-northeast of Charing Cross, bordering Edmonton to the north, Wal ...

side

Lazio it, Laziale , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

bought the rights to cover the league. For the next decade they provided regular live games on Sunday afternoons, with Brackley commentating from a studio in England. He worked alongside James Richardson,

Kenneth Wolstenholme Kenneth Wolstenholme, DFC & Bar (17 July 1920 – 25 March 2002) was an English football commentator for BBC television in the 1950s and 1960s. He is best remembered for his commentary during the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final; in the closing minu ...

, Gary Bloom, Ray Wilkins,

Don Howe Donald Howe (12 October 1935 – 23 December 2015) was an English football player, coach, manager and pundit. As a right back Howe featured for clubs West Bromwich Albion and Arsenal together with the England national football team in his pla ...

and Luther Blissett,Winter, Henry (1992)
Football: Sampdoria set ball rolling: Henry Winter on Channel 4's winning start with a big draw in the Italian League
, ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...

'', 7 September 1992, retrieved 23 January 2010

Return to ITV

1992 was an eventful year for Brackley, as he also returned to the fold at

ITV Sport ITV Sport is a sport producer for ITV. It was formed following the merger between Granada Sport and Central Sport.Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...

British Sky Broadcasting Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...

, the various ITV regions began to place more emphasis on live coverage of the lower leagues. On 16 August 1992, Brackley was partnered by

for Central's first live broadcast of a

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in Association football around the wor ...

match since the split when

Birmingham City Birmingham City Football Club is a professional football club based in Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, it was renamed Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905, and Birmingham City in 1943. Since 2011, the first te ...

faced

Notts County Notts County Football Club is a professional association football club based in Nottingham, England. The team participate in the National League, the fifth tier of the English football league system. Founded on the 25 November 1862, it is the ...

at St Andrew's. From the second week on,

became the regular voice on The Central Match Live until 1996 when ITV lost the rights to live league football. This return to ITV saw Brackley feature prominently in coverage of another four World Cups, from

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nels ...

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro votes to declare independence from Serbia; The 2006 ...

and the European Championships in

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone o ...

and

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

. He was also a regular commentator on the network's Champions League programmes and contributed frequently to highlights programmes on Central and Meridian Broadcasting in the south of England. He also commentated on his only major final for ITV in 2000 – the League Cup final between

Leicester City Leicester ( ) is a city, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city lies on the River Soar and close to the eastern end of the National ...

and

Tranmere Rovers Tranmere Rovers Football Club is a professional association football club based in Birkenhead, Merseyside, England. The team compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1884 as Belmont Football Club, they ado ...

. From August 2001, he featured heavily in ITV's coverage of Premiership highlights on The Premiership. He commentated on the very first match of the very first programme in August 2001, Middlesbrough v Arsenal. In addition to his commentaries for the programme, he utilised his skills as an impressionist during the 'Brack Chat' segment of the Monday night highlights programme. After the demise of the

ITV Sport Channel ITV Sport Channel was a short-lived digital sport television channel, that was owned by Carlton Communications and Granada plc. It was launched on 11 August 2001 and closed on 12 May 2002, precipitating ITV Digital's collapse over a month late ...

in 2002, Brackley's network commitments were considerably reduced (though he continued to work on Premiership highlights until 2004), featuring only very occasionally before returning as part of the team for the World Cup in Germany in 2006. His main source of work was coverage of the

England national football team The England national football team has represented England in international Association football, football since the first international match in 1872. It is controlled by The Football Association (FA), the governing body for football in Engl ...

and the

for international distributor Octagon CSI. He covered the majority of FA Cup Finals between 1992 and 2008 for them. The 2008–09 season saw Brackley do the FA Cup highlights show for ITV. His games were Leicester–Stevenage, Fleetwood–Hartlepool, Hull–Newcastle, Doncaster–Aston Villa, and Blackburn–Coventry.

Other activities

As well as a successful broadcasting career, Brackley also carved a niche as a comedian and impressionist. He undertook several UK tours with

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

fan and comedian Mike Osman, including a run as part of

George Best George Best (22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005) was a Northern Irish professional footballer who played as a winger, spending most of his club career at Manchester United. A highly skilful dribbler, Best is regarded as one of the greatest pla ...

and

Rodney Marsh Rodney William Marsh (born 11 October 1944) is an English former footballer and football coach; he later worked as a broadcaster. A forward, he won nine caps for England between 1971 and 1973, scoring one international goal. Brought up in th ...

's stage show. He also performed with Osman, Richard Digance and others on several programmes for

. In 1990, Brackley stood in for an indisposed

Jimmy Greaves James Peter Greaves (20 February 1940 – 19 September 2021) was an English professional footballer who played as a forward. Greaves is regarded as one of England’s best ever players. He is England's fifth-highest international goalscorer ...

on the long-running

ITV Sport ITV Sport is a sport producer for ITV. It was formed following the merger between Granada Sport and Central Sport.Saint and Greavsie ''Saint and Greavsie'' was a British television show in which former footballers Ian St John and Jimmy Greaves discussed current football themes such as the day's matches. It ran on ITV from 1985 to 1992. Format Englishman Jimmy Greaves and S ...

''. The commentator provided the voice for Greaves' ''

Spitting Image ''Spitting Image'' is a television in the United Kingdom, British satire, satirical television puppet show, created by Peter Fluck, Roger Law and Martin Lambie-Nairn. First broadcast in 1984, the series was produced by 'Spitting Image Productio ...

'' caricature. He also undertook voiceover work for Brighton & Hove Albion F.C., the club he supported, and wrote a weekly column in the city's '' Argus'' newspaper.

Death

Brackley died on 14 October 2018, at the age of 67, after a period of ill health.Peter Brackley: Former BBC Radio Sport broadcaster and commentator dies aged 67
''BBC Sport''. Published14 October 2018. Retrieved 14 October 2018.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brackley, Peter British association football commentators British journalists North American Soccer League (1968–1984) commentators 1951 births 2018 deaths People from Brighton