Alan Parry

Alan Parry (born August 20, 1948 in Garston, Liverpool) is an English sports commentator, commentating 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 for both BBC and commercial radio.

Biography Starting his career at BBC Radio Merseyside, he joined the BBC in London in 1973, and immediately started regular football commentaries and established himself as one of the most prominent voice in footballing commentary. Within a short time he was covering England matches, and in 1975 he was covering the European Cup final. After the death of Maurice Edelston he started working alongside Peter Jones covering the FA Cup Final in 1976. By the mid-1970s he was also BBC Radio's athletics commentator, covering the 1976, 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics, 1974, 1978 and 1982 European Athletics Championships, 1974, 1978 and 1982 Commonwealth Games and the first World Athletics Championships in 1983.

From 1981 he largely relinquished his radio football commentary to commentate for Match of the Day on BBC television and in 1982 was a member of the BBC Television commentary team for the World Cup in Spain his most famous commentaries was the shock 2-1 win by Algeria over the 1980 European Champions West Germany and West Germany's controversial 1-0 win over Austria in fact he did all 3 of West Germany's 1st round group games for the BBC ironically the ITV commentator was Hugh Johns who was at that time ITV's chief Football commentator in the Midlands a role that Alan Parry would later take for Central Sports Special and The Central Match and also he was a member of the BBC's Euro 1984 commentary team alongside John Motson. In 1985, he left the BBC to join ITV, initially as an athletics commentator after the commercial channel won the rights to cover British athletics. However, by the late 1980s, Parry had also become a key football commentator for the network, and in 1990, Parry was Brian Moore's number two at the World Cup – this was a role he would retain until he left the network.

When not working for Sky Sports, Parry has been heard commentating Premier League matches for Premier League Productions, a venture of IMG Sports Media who produce, package and broadcast the live production of games for the Premier League for its international broadcast partners. The same productions are also shown domestically for highlights packages on Sky Sports' "Football First" programme.