ITV’s lead football commentator and Talk Sport radio broadcaster Sam Matterface is the latest guest on the official Brighton & Hove Albion podcast.
Sam, who began his broadcasting career on hospital radio in the early 1990s, has been ITV’s voice of football since 2020 and is a regular visitor to the Amex to cover Premier League matches for TalkSPORT. He is a huge admirer of the club’s progress in recent years, having commentated on Albion for the first time at Withdean when he worked on local radio at Portsmouth.
“I think it’s been an amazing journey, the speed of the trajectory [since the move to the Amex] has been crazy," he said in conversation with our podcast hosts Paul Hayward and Glenn Murray.
"Everything that Tony Bloom and his team have touched at this moment in time appears to have turned to gold and that must be a great experience to the supporters.
“If you think of those hard-earned supporters that did go to Withdean and were the ones at the Goldstone in those last few days, protesting and trying to get people to notice, how must it feel for them now to sit in their seat in this wonderful arena and watch this football club rise. I think the Amex is the most welcoming arena in the Premier League, it has that tone. Inside when the game is going the atmosphere is great but around the city it makes you want to come back.”
Sam talks with great fondness about last season’s final home game against Manchester City. “I thought it was brilliant, a wonderful spectacle and great atmosphere too because they knew the European journey was going to start.”
He also discusses how Albion can bridge the gap between the top four and Champions League. “Newcastle showed there is a route back in there if you do the right things and Brighton have been doing the right things for a long time," he said. "They have had a dip but I think they can ride that out, there is a high degree of possibility that they will get there.”
You can listen to Sam’s fascinating chat with Glenn and Paul and all our previous episodes of The Official Brighton & Hove Albion Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.