Clive Tyldesley

English television sports broadcaster

Clive Tyldesley (born 21 August 1954) is an English television sports broadcaster. He was ITV's senior football commentator from 1998 until 2020. In that role, he led the ITV commentary team at five World Cups and five European Championships and was lead commentator on seventeen UEFA Champions League finals and nine FA Cup finals for ITV. He currently serves as the lead commentator for CBS/Paramount Plus live UEFA Champions League coverage in the United States. In 2021, his first book was published by Headline: the semi autobiographical Not for me, Clive.

For much of his radio career, Tyldesley contributed match reports to ITV's World of Sport programme. In 1987, he began to work on Sportsweek, a late night Granada Television sports programme featuring Elton Welsby and Robert McCaffrey. During the next two years, Tyldesley began to split his working time between Radio City and Granada, the latter of which he eventually joined full time in 1989. He became Granada's main football commentator and also worked as a reporter and occasional presenter on their Kick Off and Granada Soccer Night programmes. Tyldesley's first television commentary was Manchester City’s famous 5–1 win over Manchester United in September 1989. He also became ITV's rugby league commentator in the North West, alongside Hull F. C. coach Brian Smith, and worked with Martin Tyler and Fred Trueman as a cricket commentator on Granada's coverage of Roses matches. Tyldesley's commentaries were now being broadcast on ITV network programmes, and he was chosen to be part of their commentary team at the 1992 UEFA European Championship in Sweden. From 1989, he also became a regular reporter on Saint and Greavsie.

Tyldesley received an offer to join the BBC's sports department in London in the summer of 1992. BBC's partnership with BSkyB enabled them to obtain highlights rights for the new Premier League in the spring of 1992, and they added Tyldesley to their established commentary team of John Motson, Barry Davies and Tony Gubba. For four years, he contributed commentaries, voice overs and film reports to Match of the Day and Sportsnight, working at the 1994 World Cup and the 1996 European Championship as a BBC commentator. Because of the pre eminence of Motson and Davies, he only commentated on four live matches in as many years with the BBC, and in 1996 he was offered a chance to return to ITV. Tyldesley's final weeks with the BBC were spent commentating on the basketball tournaments at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Tyldesley rejoined ITV in August 1996 as an understudy to Brian Moore. When Moore retired in 1998, following that year's World Cup final, Tyldesley became the network's lead football commentator. During his first season in that role, he commentated, alongside Ron Atkinson, on all of Manchester United's games in their successful Champions League campaign, in addition to their FA Cup final victory in that treble season of 1999. Tyldesley commentated on every Champions League final between 1998 and 2015 for ITV. He was ITV's lead commentator at the European Championships from 2000 to 2016 and the World Cup finals between 2002 and 2018. His regular co commentators, after Atkinson's resignation in 2004, were David Pleat, Jim Beglin, Andy Townsend, Glenn Hoddle and Ally McCoist. In July 2020, Tyldesley said he was "upset", "baffled" and "annoyed" when ITV promoted Sam Matterface to be senior commentator in his place. This decision sparked public controversy, but later that year, he joined CBS Sports to be their lead commentator for the UEFA Champions League. He is also a regular commentator on Amazon Prime Video's live coverage of the Premier League. In July 2023, Tyldesley stepped down from his role as a commentator on Talksport. He has been a patron of the Bobby Moore Bowel Cancer Fund since 2010. Amongst his other broadcast activities, Tyldesley has been a regular voice on Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeway and has been host of the International Electronic Games Conference at the Edinburgh Festival on two occasions.

Tyldesley has provided commentary for a number of video games, including the EA Sports FIFA series starting with FIFA 06 and running until FIFA 17. From 2011 to 2017 he mostly partnered Andy Townsend (PS2 and PSP (Only FIFA 12 to FIFA 14), PC, PS3 & PS4 International Friendly (FIFA 12 FIFA 17), Wii, 3DS, iOS and Android (FIFA 12 FIFA 15)) who also appeared before in the DS version of FIFA 11, FIFA World Cup 2006, UEFA Champions League 2006–2007, UEFA Euro 2008, 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, UEFA Euro 2012 and 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil and options in commentary for FIFA 12 to FIFA 13. He also provided commentary for Championship Manager 2, the last in the franchise to feature verbal analysis, and the PlayStation video games This is Football and FA Premier League Stars 2001.

Tyldesley's own detailed research notes, dubbed his 'commentary charts', are published as commemorative prints.