Stephen Robert Bower is an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

football commentator, one of the main voices for

BBC TV BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 19 ...

Match of the Day ''Match of the Day'' (abbreviated to ''MOTD'') is a football highlights programme, typically broadcast on BBC One on Saturday nights, during the Premier League season. The show's current presenter is former England international striker Gary ...

, culminating in being part of the commentary teams for the 2010, 2014, and 2018

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

s. Bower commentated on

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

's historic draw with

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

and

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

's 4–1 win over

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

amongst others. He can also be heard on

BT Sport BT Sport is a group of pay television sports channels in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe and BT Group, they first launched on 1 August 2013. The channels are based at the former International Bro ...

covering the

Europa League The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It ...

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa ...

, and the

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...

, NBCSN covering the Premier League in the US, and

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

covering international matches. He is the lead presenter on world feed

Premier League Productions Premier League Productions is an IMG produced company with studio shows and commentators for worldwide viewers of Premier League association football. English-language broadcast team The company has a group of UK based commentators, pundits, and pr ...

and presents Premier League football for Amazon Prime Video UK. Previous work includes

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 ...

ESPN UK BT Sport 4 is a British sports television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery EMEA and the BT Group. It is part of the BT Sport group of channels in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and is predominantly focused on sports from North America. ...

, and MUTV.

Early career

Educated at

Calday Grange Grammar School Calday Grange Grammar School (abbreviated to CGGS; also known as Calday Grange, Calday Grammar or simply Calday due to the difference in spelling to the nearby village of Caldy) is a non-denominational, academically selective grammar school, f ...

, Bower began his career in 1991 at

Radio City (Liverpool) Radio City is an Independent Local Radio station based in Liverpool, England, owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Hits Radio network. It broadcasts to Merseyside, Cheshire and parts of north Wales. As of September 2022, the station has ...

, where he presented sports bulletins on the weekday breakfast show. He then began providing commentary and presenting on the stations coverage of local football teams

Liverpool F.C. Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and has p ...

, Everton F.C. and

Tranmere Rovers Tranmere Rovers Football Club is a professional association football club based in Birkenhead, Merseyside, England. The team compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1884 as Belmont Football Club, they ado ...

matches In May 1996, Bower was appointed Head of Sport at

Piccadilly Radio Greatest Hits Radio Manchester & The North West is an Independent Local Radio station based in Manchester, England, owned and operated by Bauer as part of the Greatest Hits Radio Network. It broadcasts to Greater Manchester and North West Eng ...

Manchester 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 Salford to the west. The t ...

, at the time the youngest sports editor in UK Independent Radio. He also presented various sports programme, and match commentary on Manchester United, Manchester City and Bolton Wanderers. In addition, he gave coverage of

UEFA Euro 1996 The 1996 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 96, was the 10th UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial football tournament contested by European nations and organised by UEFA. It took place in England from 8 to 30 ...

for

Independent Radio News Independent Radio News provides a service of news bulletins, audio and copy to commercial radio stations in the United Kingdom and beyond. The managing director, Tim Molloy, succeeded long-term MD John Perkins in November 2009. Perkins had been ...

, while in 1998, he gave full match commentary on all England and Scotland matches during the

1998 FIFA World Cup The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the football world championship for men's national teams. The finals tournament was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for the ...

for the entire EMAP radio network.

MUTV

From September 1998 to July 2007, Bower was senior commentator and presenter at Manchester United Television (MUTV) where he provided commentary on

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 ...

, Champions League,

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

and

League Cup In several sports, most prominently association football, a league cup or secondary cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament t ...

matches for the full 90-minute delayed broadcast with a co-commentator (including the historic treble winning season of '98-99). He also gave commentary and on-location presentation on pre-season tour matches live around the world in places such as Australia, United States, China, Japan and South Africa, not to mention Reserve and Youth Cup matches (live). He conducted after-match interviews at every game with players and manager, plus special exclusive sit-downs such as with David Beckham on signing in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

Sir Alex Ferguson Sir Alexander Chapman Ferguson (born 31 December 1941) is a Scottish former football manager and player, best known for managing Manchester United from 1986 to 2013. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest football managers of all tim ...

on announcing his retirement and Roy Keane on 'prawn sandwich' fans. The Roy Keane interview was recorded as part of the series, ''Roy Keane Plays The Pundit'', but was never broadcast due to Keane's reported stinging attack on his fellow Manchester United players. Bower's role also comprised studio presentation, which included fans' phone-ins and special shows such as with

Joel Glazer Joel Glazer (born March 31, 1967) is an American businessman and sports team owner. He is part of the Glazer family, who control First Allied Corporation and HRG Group, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League (NFL), and Manche ...

on his family buying Manchester United. His work as Head of Presentation made him responsible for all presenters and the overall look of the channel. In the Autumn of 2000, he and long time co-commentator from his days at Piccadilly, 1968 European Cup winner,

Paddy Crerand Paddy may refer to: People *Paddy (given name), a list of people with the given name or nickname *An ethnic slur for an Irishman Birds *Paddy (pigeon), a Second World War carrier pigeon *Snowy sheathbill or paddy, a bird species *Black-faced sh ...

were given their own show by MUTV entitled ''Crerand and Bower...in Extra Time''. During this time, Bower was the England reporter for talkSPORT radio during Euro 2000 which saw him conduct daily interviews with manager and players, and offer on-location studio presentation. He also provided studio presentation throughout Euro 2004 for talkSPORT radio in addition to full match commentaries on England qualifiers and Champions League matches. Bower's MUTV commentary work, alongside Paddy Crerand, can be heard in the 2004 film ''The Day After Tomorrow''.

Setanta Sports

In July 2007, Bower made the move to

where he was a commentator and presenter. His work included live

games, live

matches, live

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, clay ...

matches, live World Cup qualifiers, commentary and presentation of live Blue Square Premier (conference) games, including play-off games and a final at Wembley. He also worked on FA Cup matches including build-up to the final, as well as coverage of live England under-21 and under-19 matches, and coverage of the FA Youth Cup (including the Final).

Freelance work

Following Setanta Sports' UK division entering administration in June 2009, Bower began working for

in August 2009, mainly focusing on European football including

Portuguese Liga The Primeira Liga (; English: Premier League, also written as Liga Portugal 1), also known as Liga Portugal Bwin for sponsorship reasons, is the top level of the Portuguese football league system. Organised and supervised by the Liga Portugal, ...

and

Eredivise The Eredivisie (; ''"Honour Division"'' or ''"Premier Division"'') is the highest level of professional football in the Netherlands. The league was founded in 1956, two years after the start of professional football in the Netherlands. It is c ...

, but also domestic competitions from time to time. His first commentary for the network was the pre-season friendly between

S.L. Benfica Sport Lisboa e Benfica (), commonly known as Benfica, is a professional association football, football club based in Lisbon, Portugal, that competes in the Primeira Liga, the top flight of Portuguese football league system, Portuguese footba ...

and

A.C. Milan Associazione Calcio Milan (), commonly referred to as AC Milan or simply Milan, is a professional Association football, football club in Milan, Italy, founded in 1899. The club has spent its entire history, with the exception of the 1980–81 ...

He has been heard commentating for

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 ...

and on

for the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

Early career

MUTV

Setanta Sports

Freelance work

Commentating Credits

References

External links