Peter Guise’s earliest footballing memory came in that most famous year 1966, his grandfather took him to see West Ham and then a few months later that England team.
Peter Guise has seen a lot of the beautiful game since then as his work as a sports broadcaster has taken him all over the place. CommunityAd had the real honour to ask him about his long life in sports commentary, for any sports fan or budding commentators this is a fascinating insight.
Peter, if you wouldn’t mind telling our readers a little about your time as a sports reporter, how did that come about?
I had always wanted to be a radio sports person, and especially cricket. Sure, football interested me, but cricket was where I wanted to be. In my formative years, the opportunity to get into radio was severely limited so I found a career in public service that allowed me to fashion my radio skills on hospital radio. As time went by I started doing the odd freelance assignment for various local radio stations when that genre started to flourish whilst writing a few sports reports and articles for local newspapers free of charge because they never wanted to pay and survived, probably, on getting such content anyway.
Three decades later I got the chance to retire early, I was only 52 at the time, and jumped at the chance to make a go of it in the freelance radio world. I didn’t look back. I’ve commented on two FA Vase Finals, one at the old Wembley and one at the new Wembley. I’ve driven or taken the train to half the football league grounds in the country and commentated at, or reported from, all the Test cricket grounds in England and Wales. I’ve been given assignments by a whole host of independent local radio stations and I’ve ‘contributed’, as the BBC like to term it, for almost every BBC Local radio station including BBC Guernsey, along with 5 Live, 5 Live Sports Extra and BBC World Service. I interviewed Wasim Akram for them, a real buzz moment for me, such a nice man as well to talk with about cricket. I never made it to TMS, which was my boyhood dream, but I’ve had a great ride with my second career.
What is your favourite moment that you reported on?
There have been so many. I really loved broadcasting no matter what the event. It was always the broadcasting that mattered to me rather than the event. This may surprise folk but it captures that point perfectly. I was at Canterbury reporting on a County cricket match for BBC Radio Kent. I can’t remember who Kent were playing but it was pouring hard and the station came to me for a 30 second update. I described the lone spectator huddled in the green seats under a golfing umbrella, in utter defiance of the weather, optimistically waiting for play, while the ice cream van sat, customer-less, on the mound to the right of the Les Ames stand. It was all about painting pictures on the radio for listeners to whom I was lending my eyes in real time.
How does reporting on a game change the way you watch football?
Objectivity is paramount. There is no room for partisan feelings, unless you are writing or broadcasting from that angle anyway. A radio broadcaster is simply putting what he sees into words that convey that picture to the listener. It really is that simple provided you have the vocabulary to support it. Too often, I hear commentators describe the ordinary as amazing. Once you’ve done that, there’s nowhere to go, word-wise, if something truly is amazing. It’s a bit different on TV because the viewer can use his own eyes. I remember being told, for the few times I ever did any TV work, to only say something if it added to the picture. That’s why commentators reeling off reams of statistics about this or that player and what the left winger had for breakfast really wind me up! Whether I’m at the London Stadium or watching Herne Bay, I still watch the game with that mindset, although I will allow myself a celebratory roar when my team scores now that I’ve fully retired. The blinkers haven’t fully taken effect yet!
Do you care to share one or two memorable moments during your career as a reporter?
Again, there’s been so many. Interviewing Wasim Akram, commentating at Wembley and Lords (from the media spaceship at the Nursery End), they are the good bits. What isn’t so glamorous is nights spent in a hotel room (and not always the best hotels because we are on a budget) after a long day at the cricket, and county matches are four days remember. I once lived out of a suitcase for 10 days going to Southampton, then Leicester, then Nottingham and then Manchester reporting on cricket and football.
What advice would you give any readers who want to get involved in sports reporting?
There are so many more opportunities in the modern era to have a career in sports reporting. If you can get a degree in media studies so much the better, a good friend of mine used to lecture at Nottingham University on the subject and gave his students real life reporting tasks around the area, but there are also apprenticeship opportunities with the BBC offered from time to time. Try your hand at writing a few match reports for local matches and send them to the local newspaper. Remember to make those reports objective. I once saw a report from a journalist friend of mine, who has long passed by the way, that started something like ‘Herne Bay outplayed Dorking (or whoever the team was) and were unlucky to lose 6-0’. Really?