FTA-TV Commentator History (database)

[Adelaide Hawk]

Number of times commentating a North match as a play-by-play caller since 2010:
Dwayne Russell - 27
Anthony Hudson - 24
Dennis Cometti - 22
Bruce McAvaney - 19
Brian Taylor - 10
Eddie McGuire - 8
Basil Zempilas - 7
Stephen Quartermain - 6
Michael Christian - 5
Tim Lane - 4
Sandy Roberts - 3
Hamish McLachlan - 2
Matt Campbell - 2
Kelli Underwood - 1

No offence, but why would anyone know this?

 

[pazza]

No offence, but why would anyone know this?

Or care....

 

[jefffff34]

Yeah, he definitely continued til half way through 2002 and he was barracking for Carlton pretty hard in the game I was talking about. Not hard to tell why it was his last game.

I went to that game, and it was the first place I drove to on my P plates without a parent with me (best mate was with me).

Fair to say the traffic exiting PP that day, wasn't the calmest.

 

[swans9605]

That's correct. Glenn Manton was special comments man that day. Manton also did the North Melbourne vs Carlton game from round 3 in 2004.



I'm pretty sure Robertson was still commentating for seven in 2001. He did the Richmond vs Carlton semi final if I'm not mistaken, but may have been relegated away from Friday nights. He also called for Fox Footy in 2002, but only until the Carlton vs West Coast match in round 11.

Actually, Robbo's last game on Fox Footy was the Geelong v West Coast game from Kardinia Park in Round 14 of the 2002 season. I tell you what, he was given a few Eagles assignments during his short year at Fox Footy, wasn't he? He had the Collingwood v West Coast game in Round 2 as well.

 

[yaco55]

Don't forget that Dixie Marshall was a boundary rider for a year or two in the early 90's.

 

[Stevolution]

another couple

max stevens did boundry line duties for all adelaide games between 1991 and 1993. i think neil kerley took over after 1994

ian robertson & peter mckenna were all regulars in the comm box

peter mckenna in 97 and 98 did special comments in the finals series from the front row of the top tier of the southern stand at the MCG

I can give you a close to complete list by xmas, my game collection has commentary teams added for each crows games so i know which ones to avoid

 

[Ollie 22]

I think the best way would be to have some sort of wiki where anyone can go in an edit and have it broken down into years/rounds/games that can be filled in over time.

I seem to also remember Gerald Whately doing at least one game on ten in about 02-03 as a play by play?

 

[Teagueeee15]

I think the best way would be to have some sort of wiki where anyone can go in an edit and have it broken down into years/rounds/games that can be filled in over time.

I seem to also remember Gerald Whately doing at least one game on ten in about 02-03 as a play by play?

Yeah, Gerard definitely did a Wizard Cup game in 2003 at Football Park between Adelaide and Port.

 

[swans9605]

Yeah I do remember Gerard Whateley doing PBP for Ten in that time in some premiership season matches as well. I remember at least one game during 2003 where Gerard was doing PBP with Huddo, and Michael Christian doing special comments instead of PBP as he usually did.

A wiki would be a marvellous idea, it would be great also to have games and commentators listed from every footy league and association that has ever been covered on TV. I'm sure someone would find it interesting to know that Sandy Roberts called some SANFL games in the late 70s before making the move to the VFL in 1981, or Dennis Cometti calling WAFL games for both the ABC and Seven before taking up VFL/AFL games from 1987. I know I do!

 

[ajdude]

there were a couple of games in 2012 when the olympics were on (i think one was at Metricon, Gold Coast v someone on a Saturday night) where Tristan Foenander and Nathan Thompson were commentating on Fox Footy

 

[swans9605]

Wow I didn't know they commentated for Fox Footy in that period, does make sense though given Dwayne and Eddie were at the Olympics. Even Gerard Whateley was in London, he could have filled in too if he hadn't gone there I reckon. I assume Tristan and Nathan would have done three games during that Olympic period, two of those Gold Coast home games, and the other being a GWS home game against Port Adelaide in between them, wouldn't they have?

 

[Connar]

Landy's last Footy assignment was a studio host of the 99 Ess v Carl PF, he did rowing and flatwater canoe/kayak at Sydney Olympics. FNF was a 2 caller booth until after 1999. Bruce/Dermie/Dunstall was the 2000 booth, Bruce/Walls/Dermie was 2001.

Peter Landy hosted the Grand Final marathon in 2001 on Channel Seven & I'm not sure when his last Tennis assignment was.

 

[MagpieBat]

Yeah I do remember Gerard Whateley doing PBP for Ten in that time in some premiership season matches as well. I remember at least one game during 2003 where Gerard was doing PBP with Huddo, and Michael Christian doing special comments instead of PBP as he usually did.

Was probably this one (Round 15, 2003):

 

[daniel anderson]

Was probably this one (Round 15, 2003):

i wonder why they would have him do pbp with huddo when christian was doing pbp?

 

[daniel anderson]

Late to this one, sorry guys.

Will echo poster earlier who said that pre-2002 is going to get tricky with non-concrete commentary teams.

For instance - when the Olympics were on, you had the main commentators (Bruce, Dennis, Landy, Morphett etc) all going off to Barcelona or Atlanta, leaving Gerard Healy, Bernie Quinlan, Terry Wheeler or Blighty to do main play commentating. Rex Hunt and Ian Major (?) each filled in at this time as well, IIRC.

Also - we can't forget that brief moment in time when Channel 7 were intent on making Neil Brooks a network star, before he went and pissed it all up against the wall before Sydney 2000 (talk about bad timing).

The early days of the Eagles had mainly Cometti commentating WA matches, with former East Freo and Essendon player Tony Buhagiar pulling boundary duties.

In terms of other commentators - the Fox Footy Channel ones (first incarnation) over in WA were a mix of:

Tim Gossage
Mark Readings (fill-in on occasion)
Dean Kemp (Special comments)
Peter Wilson (Special comments)
John Casey (same guy who called NBL for Fox)
Jason Bennett

Also - to muddy the waters, some of the matches in 2002/03 were Foxtel/Nine hybrids. Which is why you watch clips of matches such as WCE v Brisbane at the Gabba in 2003 (Judd 5-goal first half) and you had Cometti and Brereton from 9 commentating with Fox's Gerard Healy.

That's a kind of slap-dash list for now, will add to it as I go along.

what do you guys think of Gerard Healy, Bernie Quinlan, Terry Wheeler or Blighty doing pbp were they really that bad of course they had rex

 

[swans9605]

Was probably this one (Round 15, 2003):

Yeah that was the game. It was certainly different to have Gerard in the comm box. It's a pity they didn't have much more room on the commentary team for another regular PBP caller I think.

 

[daniel anderson]

if ten had both saturday and sunday games then i think they would have used Gerard for pbp instead of chrstian maybe?

 

[swans9605]

if ten had both saturday and sunday games then i think they would have used Gerard for pbp instead of chrstian maybe?

Also if Tim Lane hadn't walked out on Nine early in 2002, maybe Gerard could have paired up with Quarters in the comm box on Saturday nights at least towards the end of the broadcast rights period.

 

[daniel anderson]

i wonder how rex and huddo went in 99? i used to have a tape of them calling a crows hawks game in full from that year

 

[swans9605]

i wonder how rex and huddo went in 99? i used to have a tape of them calling a crows hawks game in full from that year

I watched a highlights clip on YouTube of the 1999 Hawks-Cats game from Waverley under lights which Rex and Huddo were commentating. I would have been a bit surprised that Huddo had anything left in his tonsils for the night after calling the match-winning goal by Aaron Lord for the Hawks against his old side. Even as a Cats man, Huddo still called the game with the excitement and professionalism you'd expect from him.

 

[daniel anderson]

rex and huddo did the hawks cats game for fta or paytv?

 

[swans9605]

rex and huddo did the hawks cats game for fta or paytv?

I assume it was FTA because of the animated Seven graphics instead of the static fade-in fade-out graphics that were used for some games during the year, and also I know that there were other Saturday night matches involving Rex and Huddo at least in the first half of the season that were broadcast on FTA here in Tassie, so I would safely assume this game was too. Maybe the other Saturday night game between Fremantle and Sydney at the WACA was broadcast later on FTA here as well, haven't checked the TV guides at the library for those matches yet.

 

[daniel anderson]

would think so since the swans dockers game was a 10.10pm start my guess is once the hawks cats game was done they switched instantly to the waca

 

[daniel anderson]

was that game hawks cats seen in full in melbourne? i would think so with the late start in perth

 

[swans9605]

would think so since the swans dockers game was a 10.10pm start my guess is once the hawks cats game was done they switched instantly to the waca

Well I'm not 100% sure on the time that the Dockers-Swans match was 10:10pm AEST because the AFL Tables website has not been entirely accurate with their match times at least for early 90's matches because the times published on the website didn't closely match up with the times published in the newspaper previews and in the TV guides of the time. In those, the actual time of a match would be two hours earlier for example than the AFL Tables published version for WA matches, most likely because of the confusion with the differing time zones between the east and the west, e.g. a game was published to be played at 4:50pm AWST when it was actually 4:50pm AEST, which is what happened with the Eagles-Bombers game from earlier in the year you'll see below. Anyway, I don't doubt at the moment that the Dockers-Swans game may well have been played that much later in 1999, but I do need to look into the newspapers on microfilm to confirm the time of that game.

I did manage to get an example of a selected week of telecasts aired in Melbourne through HSV-7 from that season while looking through the Web Archive website. It came from Round 4, and the schedule went something like this:

Friday
Demons-Hawks (8:30pm) delayed

Saturday
AFL Today (5pm) - highlights of Saints-Bulldogs, Magpies-Tigers, and Blues-Dockers
Swans-Kangaroos (7:30pm) live
Lions-Crows (10:30pm) delayed

Sunday
Power-Cats (2pm) live
Eagles-Bombers (4:50pm) live