Unexpected Delirium

Unexpected Delirium

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Unexpected Delirium
Unexpected Delirium
Voices of Football: Bryon Butler, The Quiet Authority

Voices of Football: Bryon Butler, The Quiet Authority

It's been more than thirty years since Bryon Butler left BBC Radio, but his voice is still fondly remembered by those amongst us old enough to be able to.

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Ian King
Feb 14, 2024
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Unexpected Delirium
Unexpected Delirium
Voices of Football: Bryon Butler, The Quiet Authority
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Football commentary to a broadcast quality is an exceptionally difficult job, and it says a lot about those who make it to the top of the trade that they make it sound so easy. Having said that, though, commentating on the television and on the radio are very different disciplines. The television commentator has pictures, which can speak for themselves, leaving them to pay more attention to space and pacing. The radio commentator, on the other hand, has to describe what is happening in a way which allows the listener to form the idea of the match in their head. The radio commentator is the eyes and ears of the listener, in the stadium.

Since the 1970s, television audiences for football broadcasts have far outweighed those for the radio, and consequently the best remembered pieces of television football commentary have passed into our general lexicon in a way that hasn’t been the case for the radio since the 1950s. Sometimes, though, the radio just manages to catch the moment.

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