THE LAB | Burnley to Bilbao: Rob Daly on Goals, Noise and Narrative

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1:41Rob Daly:In this episode of The Lab, we sit down with Spurs commentator Rob Daly, the voice living rent-free in all our heads after Bilbao. We chat about how he finds the right words in the biggest moments, the art of shutting up and letting the crowd breathe, Clive Allen nearly in tears, Academy kids changing games from nowhere, and why fan podcasts are his cheat code for understanding the mood of the fan base. It is a proper love letter to football commentary, to Spurs and to that night in Bilbao. You might actually be hearing this podcast on the Fighting Cock feed. If you are and you haven't already, please go over to the lab wherever you get your podcasts.

2:15Rob Daly:Subscribe. Help the podcast grow. Cheers.

2:37Barrett hangs it. Oh, Vicario pops against his head. And Van der Ven on the line. Still in play. Euro blocked by Romero. And Basuma away. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Van der Ven clearance on the line. Van der Ven comes to the rescue. And look at the way he covers his goalkeeper. As soon as the goalkeeper comes to the six-yard line, Micky Van der Ven's coming round on the cover. It's his own player. There's no foul. Solanke crashes into Vicario. That is magnificent. What a clearance. That might well be a match-winning clearance.

3:16Fernandes. Well done, Archie. Well done. In by Dallow. And they're runners in Vicario with the save of his life. Right at the end. Has it happened? It has happened. We've done it Rob, we've done it The wait for Silverware is over The moment you've been waiting for is here For many that have already been cheers For a moment They've waited on for years 17 for Silverware 41 for this Ton of Oxfair Are you waiting for Europa League winners?

4:11Rob Daly:Rob, in preparation of this interview, I naturally went back to Bilbao. Yeah. And I'm sitting here. It's about half hour before we've started recording. And I'm listening to your voice, right? This time, when you're watching those moments and as they play out, you're experiencing Tottenham winning a trophy. You're aware of so much, the vigil aspect, the players celebrating, you know, especially with the Johnson goal, did it even go in? I'm not even sure it went in and I've watched it. You don't see the ball go in the net. And I'm like, so there's so much to absorb. So this time, I was just listening to your words.

5:02Rob Daly:And I'm 43 at four years old. And I'm sitting in this office on my own. And I'm welling up, mate. I'm welling up. Spurs, have lift off. And I'm like, do you realize, mate, how much you're, even on a subconscious level, you're existing in our brains. Like, you are the soundtrack of the greatest moment since 1991 for our football club. am i living in people's headroom friendly that's that whole thing yeah but that's negative thing generally i think everyone's quite happy for you to be in our heads well look i mean first of all thank you that is so kind and and it's so pleasing because the commentary you are talking about and every single commentary moment i've ever done for the football club is not one you'd see live with the moment it's all like i kind of inception my way into your memory because you see the highlights back and you watch all that stuff because you know i'm not i'm not live there's no way to hear my commentary live we're doing it live obviously like you can hear clive allen you know nearly breaking down next to me half the time we've done it rob we've done it that's the do you know what that that bit of commentary um that's the bit that gets everyone that that's that's the bit like people you know were coming up to me around the parade and everything was like when clive says that that's the moment that made them tear up that makes them snap there's something in the what Clive's energy like the relief but just like sheer joy and hearing it from such a Spurs person I mean you you do well to find many people more Tottenham Hotspur than him that's the moment that got people but I'm really happy like people quote you know occasional lines back to me and all that stuff but especially around Bilbao so that's really that's really great and I'm glad I'm in your head you are yeah and so I guess we're going to get to through the process of this conversation how you do that right through through the preparation through your experience through your understanding of the moment right but how how do you find the words like it's really important you nail this and in the moment and and some of the greatest commentators always manage it right they always have they have whether it's pre-prepared or not what are you doing going into that game against Bill Bell.

7:27Rob Daly:And I want to talk generally about your role as well, but specifically that night. No, I definitely feel a pressure, like whether it actually exists or not, but I definitely feel it. Like all the commentary I do is essentially a time capsule of that moment that will kind of live in Spurs history because of the reason you can't hear it live. So I'm hyper aware of that. And I've had it with a couple of, I mean, obviously Spurs have been in three finals since I started working for the club in 2018. And there was also like, Like you knew the Harry Kane record-breaking moment, for example, was coming.

7:57So these are moments you're like, you're saying it to yourself really, please don't mess this up. Please say something coherent. And the Brennan Johnson goal, for example, is a great example of in your head, you're going into the final. And in my head, I know the story of every player associated with that final. Each player in my head has kind of got a major talking point about them going into the game. and you just hope that the goal is nice and clear and simple and not offside. And then it's the ugliest, weirdest. I don't even know if Brendan Johnson scored it. If you watch the full night, Leon Spurs play, I think we kind of call it nearly an own goal or something like that.

8:36But luckily, you managed to sort of, I've been doing this nearly 20 years, enough experience to kind of bluster through that moment and kind of give a line that will be sufficient. but most of the time you don't know what's going to come out you you don't it's it's I studied journalism I worked in news for years kind of that finding a headline a top story element to everything was like what my background was really and so I think that's why a lot of the time like I'm able to pick out what's you know what's the headline of this moment what's the main thing you need to focus on you know certainly going into that font I say Brandon Johnson's I knew it was kind of his narrative arc of the season, his difficult start, getting a bit of stick, coming off social media, coming back, ripping through the goals, getting the winner, being top scorer.

9:26But when the goal goes in like that, it all kind of goes out the window. And actually, some of the best lines probably come out when you just, you go mad and you don't really know what you're saying. So it's a mix of being prepared and then kind of just really leaning into your passion as a football fan, I suppose.

9:39Rob Daly:You also, as a fan, you kind of want the commentator to stay out of the way to a certain degree, right? Until it's time. So there were some commentators, and I found especially ones that have gone from radio to TV, that it's a different approach, isn't it? When you're commentating, I'm sure you've done both, but you're commentating on radio, you have to be the eyes of the listeners, right? You have to describe everything. And there are some commentators that just seem a little bit to, I'm actually thinking about boxing when I'm talking right now. but there are some commentators that just get in the way of the action there's a way of separating yourself from what's describing what's happening on the pitch but allowing the audience and the fans to absorb it in the same same time how does that how does that manifest in boxing flat i don't watch much boxing is that just like the commentators on top of every single action yes in the fight or something yeah so so so in a so it's similarly to football but in a boxing in a boxing in a bout so much is happening all the time that in order to get a perception of what is actually happening inside the ring if you're not seeing it you need it's an art form and a constant stream of information because you're talking about so many subtle things like footwork the type of punch that's being landed i'm watching boxing it happens less so nowadays days but when i started watching boxing the commentators would be calling punches i'd never even saw saw right so um so and i'm like what if he landed a left hook how um but but as you sort of become more learned through just experience you you tend to um you tend to be able to see it so so i can't remember the guy's name now but he was he's famous for his radio commentary but he over to the the the visual aspects when he when the zone became massive in boxing and um it didn't work because he was being too descriptive right so just bring it back to you and and that moment whereas there's the goals scored and then there's the pause after you've described what's happened which is it's like a pregnant pause right it's inserted in order for us to absorb what's happening before you deliver your the next line is that intentional yeah yeah a lot of the time i'll try and do that what's tricky is that in the social media age i mean especially if again in my case for spurs you're not seeing the game live you're only seeing it as a clip or the youtube highlight or maybe the full match rerun if you're really indulgent in something is that that clip's 20 seconds so if you leave a big pregnant pause you might not actually be saying anything so trying to find that like this can live in the social space this can live in the live space but not trying to get too into your head because the because i love all that like texture stuff like the crowd and riding the wave of sound and if i see for example christian romero is about to crunch someone i you know i don't say anything because you know the crowd are going to make an awesome noise either way like if he gets booked or if he wins the ball like you're going to have that like that texture is so great in tv that you can do that a little bit more than radio so i'm always looking for those moments where i can i can leave it and it also is time to like go right what what am i going to say next just try and get that next sentence in your head so that you don't you know stumble your way through something so definitely deliberate i love all the crowd sounds i love even when the fourth official is making a sob and you hear that you know um pete abbott the stadium announcer say who's coming on and letting that breathe and just see so if you know so you can hear all that stuff because it's you know when you're at the game you don't miss commentary you're fine just watching the game there's all these other sounds that are enough to uh to engross you it's like um you're almost composing to some degree as you're listening aren't you to to to what's happening in terms of the the how the crowd are reacting and and and what's happening on the pitch and then you're almost like the the punctuation in in in that moment yeah um yeah what you're you're not just spurs tv commentator though you're you're like you're bonafide proper on tv champions league you know yeah so i work i work in a few other places like essentially every free every commentator or nearly is freelance i work for a channel in ireland called premier sports so if you're in ireland or you've got a dodgy fire stick you might well have heard me on on premier league and champions league uh football they've got live coverage they've got the live rights over there for for both and then i'll do some is that all football though so or is it when spurs games are playing or is it any game for premier sports on premier yeah yeah anything like um you know the champions league last year they've got the same deal as amazon here yeah in ireland so you know amazon have got an exclusive champions league game in the uk yeah we have that pick in in ireland so like yeah so like liverpool round madrid was the exclusive pick the other week we got the three o 'clock kickoffs because there's no blackout in ireland so we'll do the three o 'clock games and stuff like that and basically whenever i'm working whenever i'm not working for spurs i'll i'll i'll be over there spurs is like 40 percent of my commentary life probably and then there's other little things not little things but smaller percentage of my work like i'll do efl games on sky and and like stuff like that so enough to like build out a job build a complete job you're so you're are you i would say are you relatively young for a commentator there's one i thought you next month so i don't really i'm not feeling that right now yeah to be brutally frank but um i suppose yes because most of the guys who would be at the higher end of things would be uh you know in their 50s 60s you know some guys martin tyler went well into his 70s you know he's still on the circuit and commentating just not on sky anymore so and there is probably something that happens to your voice with age right you probably sound yeah more like what commentator sounds like if you sound older or something like that you know you you say you do you do every other any club or or you know when you get gigs you you you have to be prepared now there's one thing being prepared uh and you know perhaps watching being actively involved in football, but watching, you know, say France play.

16:05Rob Daly:And there's another thing being able to talk about it and commentate on these players to an audience who knows everything about them. So I'm just looking at your website here and you've got a team sheet of what looks like a French site. Yes, Kamen Vigarabio, Gerard, Kolemoani actually was there, Mbappe, Kanate and others. what how what how much studying goes involved before a game like that yeah look i mean if it's a team i haven't done flab and especially if i'm conscious that the audience will be knowledgeable about that team that that's probably six to eight hours a club maybe just to to kind of no days before so like i'm doing um you know i suppose i'm not playing this weekend international break when we're recording this i'm doing grimsby chesterfield which is one of those efl sky games and I haven't covered either team this season.

16:59So I've started on Monday just trying to chip away at the players and the stories so that when you come in, you do sound like a Grimsby fan is not going to come in and go, you're a complete blagger or something like that. And you want to do respect to those clubs. But ultimately, I've kind of got a template. Me and Ben Haynes actually, you've had on your show recently, a brilliant episode. We've kind of been comparing notes on how we do that and the amount of prep that goes in. And I mean, every club's basically got 30 players with you players. Like it's a lot of work to go through and get pictures and ages and stats and where they're from and all the things you might need.

17:35And then 95 % of it you don't touch. But it's more that safety net. It doesn't feel, you feel a bit scared. I'm not going to do this, Rob.

17:42Rob Daly:But can I, could I, I'm not going, I'm not going to do this, right? But could I pluck any player? Rob, I'm not going to do this. But could I pluck any player from the Tottenham squad and you would be able to commentate on him now, do you think? Or would you have to do a little bit of research in youth teams if necessary? In the men's first team squad right now? Well, men's first team, but what if, like, I don't know. Well, I'm not going to do it. But, you know, a player from our youth team. That would take some prep. It would, yeah. I mean, obviously, I essentially know all the guys in the under-21s, know a few of the under-18s, but there's an academy commentator, Adam Inka, who's doing a great job on the academy.

18:24And if someone sneaks onto the bench you haven't seen before, like Williams Barnett, you just know at this point, everyone knows the deal with him. But if someone sneaks on the bench, I'm like, oh, I recognize that I do not know that player. I'll message Adam, we'll chat, we'll do an information exchange, And that's mega useful because again, that player, you never know, could come on and do something incredible. I mean, Elfsborg is the great example. That was a good lesson for me, that game in many ways. And it was one of my, I'd actually say it's one of my highlights, Comtec for Tottenham full stop.

18:56It's been like, it's my eighth season now. And that game, which was just turning into like a bag of nothing really, wasn't it? Like Spurs were going through, just had to avoid defeat. Elfsborg weren't doing anything. and then three academy kids come off the bench and all score it was just the most it was it sounds a bit too like over the top mate but it was oh this is why i love football so much and like we spoke to spoke to demolo jai after right and who scored that incredible solo goal and he comes out and i'm so buzzing for him i cannot even i've never met him i was exchanging messages with adam before the game saying can you tell me a bit more about this guy on the bench and I'm just so happy for him.

19:40And I'm like, I can't believe you just did that. Like I said before the interview, Ron, I was like, that was unbelievable. And he goes, I didn't think this would happen when I woke up this morning.

19:51Rob Daly:How sweet is that? That's incredible. Rob, but what's, you're saying you don't know who's on the team sheet before the team sheet's submitted? No. Well, so like, that's got to help you out a little bit now. It's like, you've got to talk about it. well to be fair like most of the guys like with the home games for example for like we've got the pre-match show which comes on 25 minutes after the team seems comes out so i've got enough time to kind of digest like what's happening and normally when the players arrive on the coach you might see an academy player say walking looking a bit shy right next to like romero and you're like oh he could be in the match day squad get my stuff on him now and get and get ready for it but ultimately again like you don't need to overcomplicate it he comes on I don't need to tell you that his dad used to run a butcher's and you know he spent half his life in Hong Kong and this that the other unless they score and then they're suddenly everyone's going who's this I mean with in the case of Damola Rajai I bet 90 % of the ground came to the match that night and had never heard of him I bet and he just scores one of the best goals the south sand has ever seen so um yeah that's when you then have to give him his focus and even in game you can kind of be like let's find a bit more out about this guy if i can to try and flesh out his character because suddenly people are interested you know what i mean yeah um so in terms of the balance between professionalism and and and fandom and i guess less so fandom but being emotionally connected to the journey you when when you're talking about tottenham obviously it's on spurs tv your audience is Tottenham lots of fans and so how do you go about do you just call a game like you would any other if you work for if you're doing work for uh premier sport in Ireland or do you know that it needs to be weighted towards Tottenham so the case in point yeah so case in point was when we played you might have been commentated on this so Spurs played Arsenal in a pre-season friendly about three years ago I think it was under Conte I might be wrong four years ago maybe it was a pre-season thing you know the tournaments are set up now and teams play each other there was a the only there was a Spurs TV feed but there was also an Arsenal feed and the obviously the commentary on both of them were ridiculously different right and the reason why I noticed is someone took both and edit it together and it's like watching two different games that's why it was fantastic yeah that's great but i'll put it i try and put it like this like i don't think first of all i love commentators for clubs who do the whole fan screamy fan thing like the guys who work for fulham if you haven't seen their commentary the winner at chelsea last year like one of the guys nearly swears like it's just so good right and i love that stuff i love the cam footage of that like i totally get why that stuff works but i i'm i'm so aware that these things want to be a kind of time capsule and have context for years and years and years when they come back on that i want to do my commentator thing so that it's not bias it's focus and you know a spurs focus like i've got some great i got I had some mentoring a couple of years ago in relation to broadcasting.

23:19And the guy was like, you want to picture one person, like pick that guy. And I often think of my mate Jim, right? Spurs fan, season ticket holder. He's listening. Like, what would he want to hear? And I don't mean as in he wants to be lied to. I think the opposite is true. Who wants to hear that the team's playing well when they're playing badly? No. like i think i think i'll maybe i'll come at it at a more empathetic angle than your sky sports commentator might do but you can't lie to the audience fans are just too intelligent to know that so it spurs focus rather than like spurs buy imagine buying your kid a toy only to find the batteries aren't included or buying furniture but missing the tools to build it frustrating right?

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25:27Rob Daly:If that makes sense. Yeah, but you know, you're 100 % correct. But when you're watching, you'll know this. When you're watching a game, you're probably more aware than anybody as a commentator because it's your wheelhouse. But you get into a situation where you're getting frustrated because the commentators are not saying what you think they should be saying about your football club. And I'll tell you what, the Europa League run last year at times where they had Sam Matterface, who's a Chelsea fan, whatever. we had Glenn Odell who wasn't necessarily enjoying what he was seeing but I was like you're Spurs Glenn you're a legend just stop like I don't know just be like spin it for us spin it and obviously you know he didn't want to do that and it's his prerogative to call the game as he sees it but it's just like I don't know you we the commentator and especially the color commentary more so they they come under a lot of scrutiny from from fans and like what what is what do you think the difference is in that in terms of like um Clive Allen being doing the colour and you calling the game is that is that dynamic different for club focus yeah that's different yeah Clive obviously takes up his analytical role and he's great at it and his you know his association with the club is clear he's been on the staff he's been a player all the rest of it but he does kind of take that fan role you know that's kind of his position to really just lean into it and love it while delivering his great pieces of of commentary I mean I'm always let's take the example of Spurs want to win the Europa League so they qualify for the Champions League right that that narrative was pretty heavy going into I'd say even the semi-final with Buda Glimpse.

27:16That was kind of being pushed around. I think if you misjudge that, that's really disappointing because the fan base are obviously saying the opposite. You've tonally missed where the fan base are. I don't know, Flav. I did not meet a fan who said, this is great we're in the semi-final for the Europa League because we might be in the Champions League league face next year. Couldn't care less about that. Right? it and and um it just wasn't it what i think it's if you're missing those marks that's where it's a bit frustrating because fans will let you know how they feel and it was it was clear like what are the ones what's the one thing spurs fans were getting grief for for the past 17 years it wasn't not qualifying for the champions league right like everyone knows the thing was the trophy um you know so i think that that kind of thing can happen that's where actually podcasts are like a mega useful um litmus test where are the fan base right now so that's where like fan stuff is great

28:17Rob Daly:so you spend some time as a part of your research and understanding fan sentiment well this is flav this is where the true disclosure comes out that when i joined tottenham in 2018 i'd been away in germany working in the bundesliga i'd done i've been working on the bundesliga every saturday for three years and and to get the tone of the fan base i listen to the fighting cock you can't see this over my arms are stretched out wide can i give you another bit of anecdotal it kind of shocked me because the stuff you were talking about i said they're not talking about the football yet and we're 15 minutes i was like it's mad i do i am conscious that sometimes but you know we're 15 years in now so we we must be doing something right even if we aren't talking about the game straight away i dread to think of some of the things you did here i um that's fantastic i was listening to all that stuff at the time like I've been at I'd even been at Premier League coverage to be honest for three or four years because of my work in Germany so it was like that and the Spurs show and everything just trying to like get up to speed and I felt like going into the season understood where everybody was you know what I mean so um that that's kind of I think that's really important actually uh in terms of your work more important than stats and numbers of course it's feeling isn't it it's understanding the feeling of the vibe of the fan base can I just while we're blowing um while i'm blowing my own trumpet uh uh hummin son listened to the fighting cock podcast when he joined spurs to help with his is that true so the reason why i know that's true is because a friend of the fighting cock and he's been on a few times comedian called dan low he was on another podcast which i won't name so don't you know it won't basically what happened was he brought up the fact that he knew that hummin son had been listening to podcasts but the guys he was on a podcast talking about this and they were like obviously he's talking about our podcast and he wasn't he was talking about the fighting cock so we know that uh min son used it that's great but look there's a guy who got the football club who means on got the football club didn't he yeah and all that stuff would have what was your what were your did you manage to interact how inside are you rob so i'm at the training ground maybe once or twice a month but my interactions with the players and everything and and the managers pretty fleeting it was a bit more so last season with Ange but because of the way we're doing the interviews and our post-match content now I'm not in the Thomas Frank interview I mean I did the first interview with Thomas Frank when he arrived at the training ground you know back in whenever that was July and the first with Moe Koulis when he arrived but that's normally Ben Haynes territory he was away for both of those but not much I mean we're down at the training ground it's essentially the same building you might walk past each other and say hello but really it's the interviews where you or maybe that that that kind of 30 seconds before an interview starts so you try and get a little bit of insight you know into how a player's feeling or the mood or something like that that is where ben uh is really good like if mickey van der ben's coming out the tunnel ben knows not in a cynical way like they get on really well so like ben's got a minute there to try and ascertain how's he feeling where are we at but ultimately i'm not around the players the staff the coaches that much i am truth i wish i got on really well with van dervin like ben does yeah yeah can i tell you i want to be friends with uh dan kulicevsky so bad really really yeah i'm not bothered but obviously they're doing their thing we're doing our thing it's good you're not friends or something like that but diane i feel like everyone needs i forget when i speak to him that he's 15 years younger than me like he's so wise and all that like i'm like you 25 year old bloke but he did that he i think i really like a's ginger like me so big fan of that brilliant player and uh told me uh he liked my commentary one time which really went down brilliantly Of course.

32:13Rob Daly:What was the... It was his... You know when he smacked in the window against Sheffield United? Early Ange. Crowds up. Spurs are up. Richarlison. Kuliszewski with him. Kuliszewski!

32:30Kuliszewski! Kuliszewski! Kuliszewski!

32:35Spurs win!

32:45listen to time what's going to stadium

32:53an incredible time yeah that was something like yeah because we actually spoke about it so in my memories so I said I actually didn't let say anything basically I said Kulazewski I think I just said I let it go for ages something like Spurs win and then I did this silly killer Kulazewski like just a silly thing but then he loved that like he liked that so sometimes those mad like the like i don't mean steven bergvani it's leicester you know i kind of when he scored that second goal i kind of blacked out i don't really remember what happened i kind of got picked up off the floor after like and then they played me the clip and i was like what the flying dutchman what am i talking about what am i doing yeah but it doesn't matter it works it doesn't matter you know

33:37Rob Daly:so it's funny i hadn't thought about this and this wasn't i hadn't prepped this for this podcast because I didn't know that the Kulosevsky chat was going to, that we were going to talk about Kulosevsky's goal against Sheffield United. It was Sheffield United. Sheffield United. Yeah, and he just, on his right foot, he's rifled it in. And this was on the beautiful run that we had at the start of Angie's reign. I would, if someone would call me during that time, I wouldn't answer it with a hello. I'd answer it with a, Kulosevsky! Like, and I just realised that was your voice. I had no idea. Oh, there we go.

34:12You were channeling me. That is awesome. Do you know the Shepmate guys, by the way?

34:17Rob Daly:Yeah, of course. They do. These are Australian commentators where they sort of pretend or do. You tell me. Yeah, they mime commentary, but they'll be mega funny in it. They've kind of blown up on Instagram and TikTok and everything. So they did me and Clive for the Europa League final, but they'd done this before when Kane broke the record. And then I was on. Miles, who's one of the twins, said, oh, you jump on our podcast. And he tells me that a running joke in his house is him and his brother will flush the toilet. And one of them will go, okay. I'm like, that doesn't even make sense. So I'm loving, I'm loving these alternate uses of the commentary.

35:01That's good. That is fantastic.

35:03Rob Daly:What's your favorite bit? And it's an obvious question, right? So journalism 101, but what is your favorite moment? And you have to recall one if you can. Yeah, I mean, obviously, Bilbao was the greatest four or five days ever. Like it was just the most unbelievable, like going out there, spending the time with Clive, going to the fan park, being with Ben, commentating on the team win, flying back, the parade, Brighton. That period was just like an amazing five days of work where it was just like head down, making loads of stuff happen. fantastic. And then I think, you know, it's tricky to pick your own workout.

35:43You know, it feels a bit cringe as I do it. You know what I mean? But I feel like, obviously, when Harry Kane scored his record-breaking goal, that kind of, that was a moment that definitely, like, the commentary definitely connected with people in some way. They really did like it. Mistake. Boy, Pierre. Kane! He's done it! It's the record! And he's got it! Against the champions! Rob, it just had to be, didn't it? Harry Kane on hand to break the legendary Jimmy Greaves' record. What a smile, what a player. Congratulations. And now Harry Kane's name stands alone. The greatest scorer in this club's history is one of Spurs own.