Stephen Robert Bower is an English football commentator. He is best known as one of the main voices for

BBC TV BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1 January 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios ...

Match of the Day ''Match of the Day'' (abbreviated to ''MOTD'') is a Association football, football highlights programme, typically broadcast on BBC One on Saturday nights during the Premier League season. ''Match of the Day'' is one of the BBC's longest-runn ...

, culminating in being part of the commentary teams for the

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

2014 The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the Western African Ebola epidemic, West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the List of Ebola outbreaks, most widespread outbreak of the Ebola, Ebola virus in human history, resul ...

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

, and

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often called the World Cup, is an international association football competition among the senior List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams of the members of the FIFA, Fédération Internatio ...

s. Bower commentated on

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

's historic draw with

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

and

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

's 4–1 win over

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

amongst others. He can also be heard on

TNT Sports TNT Sports is the brand name for sports television channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world that are owned and operated by Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). The name originates from the American cable television ...

covering the

Europa League The UEFA Europa League (UEL), usually known simply as the Europa League, is an annual association football, football club competition organised since 1971 by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European footb ...

Serie A The Serie A (), officially known as Serie A Enilive in Italy and Serie A Made in Italy abroad for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Italy and the highest tier of the Italian football league system. Establish ...

, and the

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany and the highest level of the German football league system. The Bundesliga comprises 18 teams ...

NBCSN NBCSN (also known as NBC Sports Network) was an American sports television television channel, channel owned by the NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It originally launched on July 1, 1995, as the Outdoor Lif ...

covering the Premier League in the US, and

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

covering international matches. He is the lead presenter on world feed Premier League Productions and presents Premier League football for Amazon Prime Video UK. Previous work includes

Setanta Sports Setanta Sports Media is a sports television company based in Dublin, Ireland and in Tbilisi, Georgia, broadcasting throughout select Eurasian countries, and the Philippines. The company was formed in 1990 to facilitate the broadcasting of Iris ...

, ESPN UK, and MUTV.

Early career

Educated at Calday Grange Grammar School, Bower began his career in 1991 at Radio City (Liverpool), where he presented sports bulletins on the weekday breakfast show. He then began providing commentary and presenting on the stations coverage of local football teams

Everton F.C. Everton Football Club () is a professional association football club based in Liverpool, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1878, the club was a founding member of the Football Lea ...

, Liverpool F.C. and

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

matches In May 1996, Bower was appointed Head of Sport at

Piccadilly Radio Greatest Hits Radio Manchester & The North West is an Independent Local Radio station based in Manchester, England, owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Greatest Hits Radio Network. It broadcasts to Greater Manchester and North West En ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

, at the time the youngest sports editor in UK Independent Radio. He also presented various sports programme, and match commentary on

Manchester United Manchester United Football Club, commonly referred to as Man United (often stylised as Man Utd) or simply United, is a professional association football, football club based in Old Trafford (area), Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, Engl ...

Manchester City Manchester City Football Club is a professional association football, football club based in Manchester, England, that competes in the Premier League, the English football league system, top flight of Football in England, English footbal ...

and

Bolton Wanderers Bolton Wanderers Football Club ( ) is a professional association football, football club based in Horwich, Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, which competes in EFL League One, League One, the third level of the Englis ...

. In addition, he gave coverage of

UEFA Euro 1996 The 1996 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 96, was the 10th UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial Association football, football tournament contested by European nations and organised by UEFA. It took place in ...

for

Independent Radio News Independent Radio News provides a service of news bulletins, audio and copy to commercial radio stations in the United Kingdom and beyond. The managing director, Tim Molloy, succeeded long-term MD John Perkins in November 2009. Perkins had been ...

, while in 1998, he gave full match commentary on all England and Scotland matches during the

1998 FIFA World Cup The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the Association football, football world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 1 ...

for the entire EMAP radio network.

MUTV

From September 1998 to July 2007, Bower was senior commentator and presenter at Manchester United Television (MUTV) where he provided commentary on

Premier League The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football Lea ...

, Champions League,

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual Single-elimination tournament, knockout association football, football competition in domestic Football in England, English football. First played during ...

and League Cup matches for the full 90-minute delayed broadcast with a co-commentator (including the historic treble winning season of '98-99). He also gave commentary and on-location presentation on pre-season tour matches live around the world in places such as Australia, United States, China, Japan and South Africa, not to mention Reserve and Youth Cup matches (live). He conducted after-match interviews at every game with players and manager, plus special exclusive sit-downs such as with

David Beckham Sir David Robert Joseph Beckham ( ; born 2 May 1975) is an English former professional footballer, the president and co-owner of Inter Miami CF and co-owner of Salford City. Primarily a right winger and known for his range of passing, cross ...

on signing in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, Sir Alex Ferguson on announcing his retirement and

Roy Keane Roy Maurice Keane (born 10 August 1971) is an Irish football pundit, former coach, and former professional player. He is best known for his career in the Premier League, in particular his captaincy of Manchester United. He is the joint most ...

on 'prawn sandwich' fans. The Roy Keane interview was recorded as part of the series, ''Roy Keane Plays The Pundit'', but was never broadcast due to Keane's reported stinging attack on his fellow Manchester United players. Bower's role also comprised studio presentation, which included fans' phone-ins and special shows such as with Joel Glazer on his family buying Manchester United. His work as Head of Presentation made him responsible for all presenters and the overall look of the channel. In the Autumn of 2000, he and long time co-commentator from his days at Piccadilly, 1968 European Cup winner,

Paddy Crerand Patrick Timothy Crerand (born 19 February 1939) is a Scottish former Association football, footballer who played as a Wing half, right half. After six years at Celtic F.C., Celtic, he moved to Manchester United F.C., Manchester United, where he ...

were given their own show by MUTV entitled ''Crerand and Bower...in Extra Time''. During this time, Bower was the England reporter for

talkSPORT Talksport (styled as talkSPORT) is a sports radio station in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, owned by News Broadcasting. Its content includes live coverage of sporting events, interviews with the leading names in sport and entertai ...

radio during Euro 2000 which saw him conduct daily interviews with manager and players, and offer on-location studio presentation. He also provided studio presentation throughout Euro 2004 for talkSPORT radio in addition to full match commentaries on England qualifiers and Champions League matches. Bower's MUTV commentary work, alongside Paddy Crerand, can be heard in the 2004 film ''The Day After Tomorrow''.

Setanta Sports

In July 2007, Bower made the move to

where he was a commentator and presenter. His work included live

games, live

matches, live

UEFA Cup The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

matches, live World Cup qualifiers, commentary and presentation of live Blue Square Premier (conference) games, including play-off games and a final at Wembley. He also worked on FA Cup matches including build-up to the final, as well as coverage of live England under-21 and under-19 matches, and coverage of the FA Youth Cup (including the Final).

Freelance work

Following Setanta Sports' UK division entering administration in June 2009, Bower began working for

in August 2009, mainly focusing on European football including

Portuguese Liga The Primeira Liga (), also known as Liga Portugal Betclic for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Portugal and the highest level of the Portuguese football league system. Organised and supervised by the Liga ...

and Eredivise, but also domestic competitions from time to time. His first commentary for the network was the pre-season friendly between S.L. Benfica and

A.C. Milan (), commonly referred to as Milan or AC Milan () mainly outside of Italy, is an Italian professional Football club (association football), football club based in Milan, Lombardy. Founded in 1899, the club competes in the Serie A, the top tie ...

He has been heard commentating for

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British broadcasting of sports events, subscription sports channels operated by the satellite television, satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television ...

and on

for the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

. He also lends his voice for

ITV Sport ITV Sport is the Broadcasting of sports events, sports department of ITV plc, which produces and presents sports programming for the ITV (TV network), ITV network and ITVX. The branding was originally introduced in 1985 as an umbrella title fo ...

's highlights of the

UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (UEL), usually known simply as the Europa League, is an annual association football, football club competition organised since 1971 by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European footb ...

ITV4 ITV4 is a British free-to-air television channel which first aired on 1 November 2005. It is owned by ITV plc. The channel focuses primarily on general entertainment programming targeting a male audience, including action series and films, ...

. In the 2013-14 season he has commentated on live

Conference Premier The National League, officially known as Vanarama National League for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in England. The National League is the first division of the National Leagues and step 1 of the National Le ...

coverage for

BT Sport TNT Sports (formerly BT Sport) is a group of pay television sports channels in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Now owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe, Warner Bros. Discovery and BT Group, they first launched as B ...

. He continues as the No. 2 commentator for

as well as working

and

Ligue 1 Ligue 1 (; ), officially known as Ligue 1 McDonald's France, McDonald's for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in France and the highest level of the French football league system. Administered by the Ligue de ...

for BT Sport. He has also worked for

NBC Sports NBC Sports is an American programming division for NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, that is responsible for sports broadcasts on their broadcast network NBC, the Cable television, cable channels NBC owns, and on Peacock (streaming service) ...

as a play-by-play commentator for Premier League matches as an alternate to Arlo White, and has also hosted studio coverage for the network during the absences of primary host

Rebecca Lowe Rebecca Lowe (born 11 November 1980) is a British and American television presenter and anchor who works for NBC and NBC Sports. She previously worked at the BBC, Setanta Sports UK and ESPN UK. Early life and education The daughter of BBC News ...

, as well as various on-location segments. He has also hosted the network's ''Match of the Day'' and ''Premier League Download'' programs. In 2016, Bower was a lead presenter for

's coverage of Euro 2016. Now, Bower is the presenter on Sundays for Premier League Productions for worldwide viewers. Since 2019, Bower presents the live goals show for Amazon Prime UK coverage of the Premier League. He also commentates on the Champions League final every year for

DAZN DAZN (; pronounced "da zone") is a British Over-the-top media service, over-the-top sports Sports broadcasting, streaming and entertainment platform. Founded in 2007 as Perform Group via the merger of Premium TV Limited and Inform Group, it is o ...

worldwide.

Commentating Credits

: 2010 (BBC), 2014 (BBC), 2018 (BBC) *

: 1998–2007 (MUTV), 2007–2009 (Setanta) (Presenter/Commentator), 2009–present (BBC), 2015–2019 (NBC) (Presenter/Commentator), 2019–present (PL Productions) (Lead Presenter), 2019–present (Amazon) (Commentator/Presenter) *

UEFA European Championships The UEFA European Football Championship, less formally the European Championship and informally the Euro or Euros, is the primary association football tournament organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). The competition ...

: 2012 (BBC), 2016 (ESPN) (Presenter), 2020 (BBC) *

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

: 2015–present (BT Sport), 2019–present (DAZN) (Lead Commentator) *

: 2009-2013 (ESPN UK), 2013–present (BT Sport) *

: 2009–present (BBC), 2009–2013 (ESPN UK), 2013–present (BT Sport) *

: 2009–2013 (ESPN UK), 2013–present (BT Sport) *

: 2009–2013 (ESPN UK), 2013–2019 (BT Sport) *

UEFA Nations League The UEFA Nations League is an international European football competition played by the senior men's national teams of the member associations of UEFA, the sport's European governing body. The competition was devised to minimise friendlies a ...

and Euro 2024 Qualifiers: 2022–2024 (Channel 4; England matches only)

References

External links

MUTV website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bower, Steven English association football commentators Living people People educated at Calday Grange Grammar School Olympic Games broadcasters 1973 births