Bill Leslie (born 1971) is a British football commentator.

Biography

Bill Leslie was born in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

in 1971. Leslie's first broadcasting experience was with London radio station

Capital Gold The Capital Gold radio station started in London in 1988 on Capital Radio's AM frequency, after the Independent Broadcasting Authority had urged stations to end simulcasting (broadcasting the same programmes simultaneously on AM and FM) and t ...

, working initially as a football reporter and secondary commentator before taking the lead role on Jonathan Pearce's departure to the BBC in 2002. His first television commentary experience was with Channel Five – covering the 2002 UEFA Under-21 Championship. Leslie transferred to Sky in 2003, initially to work on coverage of the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

and soon after helped launch

Football First ''Football First – Match Choice'' is an interactive television programme on Sky Sports that shows extended highlights of every Premier League match played on the day, except matches shown live on BT Sport BT Sport is a group of pay televis ...

in 2004. He commentated on the first "Game of the Day" between Bolton Wanderers and

Charlton Athletic Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, south-east London, which compete in . Their home ground is The Valley, where the club have played since 1919. They have also played at The Mount in ...

at the start of the 2004–2005 season. Following the departure of

Ian Crocker Ian Lowell Crocker (born August 31, 1982) is an American former competition swimmer, five-time Olympic medalist, and former world record-holder. During his career, he set world records in the 50- and 100-meter butterfly (long course and short ...

Setanta Sports Setanta Sports is a sports television company based in Dublin, Ireland broadcasting throughout select Eurasian. The company was formed in 1990 to facilitate the broadcasting of Irish sporting events to international audiences. The company previo ...

in the summer of 2006, Leslie took over the role as Sky's principal commentator on the Football League. He was also given the role of commentary on Sky Sports' now limited Scottish football output. He covers all

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

's home matches and all Scottish Cup matches which Sky Sports show live. Key matches covered so far outside of the

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

and

are the 2007 Scottish Cup Final, Scotland's home victory over France in 2007 and the Championship Play-Off Finals from 2007 to 2016. He was also part of the commentary team for the UEFA Under-21 Championships in 2007. Leslie's live

debut for the

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

coorparation came in the clash between

Birmingham City Birmingham City Football Club is a professional football club based in Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, it was renamed Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905, and Birmingham City in 1943. Since 2011, the first te ...

and

Aston Villa Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa Park ...

in the 2004–2005 season. The match was shown on the now defunct Sky Sports PayPerView service

PremPlus PremPlus (originally Premiership Plus) was Sky Sports' first and only pay-per-view channel which was dedicated to airing live and interactive football from the Premier League. The main presenter on PremPlus was Marcus Buckland with former Arsena ...

. He commentated on the first game of the Premier League season:

Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

West Bromwich Albion West Bromwich Albion Football Club () is an English professional football club based in West Bromwich, West Midlands, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football. The club was formed in 1878 and has pl ...

, and various other live matches. He has commentated on all of

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

games except those involving

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

. Leslie can now most often be heard as lead commentator on Sky Sports coverage of the

EFL Championship The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the E ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leslie, Bill British association football commentators British sports broadcasters Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Sportspeople from London 1971 births