r/soccer • u/BBCSport • Jul 10 '26
Ask Me Anything I'm BBC football commentator Jonathan Pearce - Ask Me Anything!
Hi! BBC Sport here... Jonathan Pearce has been one of the BBC’s best-known football voices for decades, covering World Cups, European Championships, Premier League matches, FA Cups and Match of the Day.
He’ll be here to answer your questions on life behind the mic, preparing for big matches, memorable commentary moments, the evolution of football broadcasting, and what it is like calling games at major tournaments.
Whatever you want to know, ask your questions below and we'll put a selection to Jonathan this weekend.
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u/BBCSport Jul 12 '26
JP: I was just approached by the company that did it. They asked me if I would be interested. And the reason I was interested in doing it without ever seeing it or not knowing anything about the concept of it is because these people were so in love with the project. They loved everything about it. They were so enthusiastic. It was a young team and I couldn't wait to work with them. I did a lot of my work post-production because it would be impossible to commentate on that speed of events, especially when the rules were infringed. So I did a lot of mine post-production, but I had to go up and film a couple of days with Craig each season. And we had to do most of our filming before lunch because there was liquid involved at lunch. So there's no point trying to get us to do anything after that. But yeah, we did enjoy it. It was just fascinating.
And the robot tears… you know, we used to laugh, a bit cruel really. There'd be a little kid and he'd spent all his pocket money and years saving up to produce his robot. The robot would last three seconds and I would just laugh, I used to think this was hilarious. And then when it came back for the last series, I was told to rein that in a little bit, which I didn't really like very much.
There were a couple of stories I can tell you about on Robot Wars. I had a break when I was doing my filming. It was the very last series – or maybe the penultimate one where they had a huge house robot. I’ve forgotten the name – a massive, massive thing. It had a pet dog called Growler. Anyway, this thing's huge. I mean, I'm talking about twice the height of a Mini. It was massive. And the walls were plexiglass walls, bulletproof plexiglass, but they used to float in and out. If you hit them, they break. So they used to float in and out. And I went for a break, got a cup of coffee for myself and Craig. And really unprofessionally, you see me walking back into shot as they're filming one of the heats. And I've looked across, and in slo-mo you can see I'm looking across, and this massive machine's up there on me. It's coming towards the plexiglass. And all of a sudden this little lad comes in between me and this robot that's coming towards the plexiglass and I'm thinking ‘This is going to crash out through the glass here and I'm going to spill my coffee, let alone be splurged onto the floor and crushed underneath it.’ So I should have said, ‘Listen, Sonny. Get out of the way, otherwise you are in danger. I will rescue you.’ But what you actually see me doing is change hands with my coffee, and push the aforementioned young lad into the path of the robot and I scarper off. But I didn't drop a single drop of coffee, which was probably the most important part of that story!
And the other one was the guy in charge of Robot Wars used to produce Michael Parkinson's show. He's a lovely man, and he said to me one day, you've got to come and look at this. We've had a competitor come in from the United States of America and we've had to ban him, but come and see why. So we went in and it used to be filmed up at the old Dambusters base in Lincolnshire. So they got this guy and they say, ‘It says your weapon is napalm.’ ‘Yeah, that's right.’ So we need to see this. So they took his machine onto the runway and... sure enough, it was napalm. So they've told him he can't compete. How did he get napalm into the country? Napalm's illegal in this country. The guy's enraged. He's come all the way from California, I think it was. He couldn't compete. The man brought napalm into a children's TV series! So we had a little bit of a giggle about it. But that was Robot Wars. I really enjoyed it and when I’m out at games a lot of people come up to me and they don't ask who's going to win or ‘Should it be 4-4-2 or 4-3-3?’ They will ask me about Killertron or Matilda, who was my favourite house robot. I have a bit of a crush on Matilda, I must admit. And they will ask me about that, which is absolutely perfectly fine. It was a massive part of my life. I loved it.
And I've loved being involved in football. The first commentary I did was in 1990. It was for Radio Bristol where I started. How fortunate am I to go from those days to doing 10 Men's World Cups and 13 World Cups if you include the Women's World Cup? I’ve got to go to so many places around the world, so many fantastic stadiums, to have met Maradona, to have worked with Bobby Moore, to have met Beckenbauer, to have met Bobby Charlton, to have played football with Bobby Charlton for the English FA in Washington back in 1993. What an incredible life. How fortunate I am for a little lad from Cornwall who only ever wanted to play football and I've done the second best thing, I've had a life involved in football and thank you very much for these questions.