Caroline Barker (born 1981) is a British sports journalist and broadcaster who works in television and radio. She currently presents mainly for

BBC Radio 5 Live BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that broadcasts mainly news, sport, discussion, interviews and phone-ins. It is the principal BBC radio station covering sport in the United Kingdom, broadcast ...

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...

, Sky Sports and Premier League Productions. Barker was the first female presenter of Match Day Live for Premier League Productions.

Career

Barker first worked for BBC Essex, before joining BBC London 94.9 in 2004 as a sports reporter. While at BBC London, she worked as cover for sports reporters on

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content. ...

and BBC Radio 4. Beyond sports news, Barker presents the award winning ''Sportshour'' for

and was presenter of ''

Sportsworld ''Sportsworld'' (also known as ''NBC SportsWorld'') is an American sports anthology television program which aired on NBC on Saturday afternoons from 1978 to 1994. Format The program presented a wide variety of lower-profile and offbeat sporting ...

'' for the

until 2015. Since 2014, she has regularly presented on programmes across

, covering on the '' 5 Live Sport'', ''5 Live Drive'' and ''Weekend Breakfast'' shows. She has become a frequent panellist on BBC 5 Live's sports comedy show '' Fighting Talk'', winning the programme's "Rookie of the year award" in May 2015, and in the same year, led 5 Live's coverage of the Women's World Cup. She has since hosted the 2019 Women's World Cup for 5 Live. Barker is known for her love of fancy dress and appeared in a parrot costume during a live edition of ''Fighting Talk'' broadcast from Cardiff. Barker has also acted as stand-in host of '' The Totally Football Show'' podcast in the absence of regular host, James Richardson, her first appearance being in February 2018. She now hosts ''The Totally Football League Show'' and football coverage for Sky Sports. A fan of her hometown club Chelmsford City, Barker has long been a supporter of

non-league football Non-League football describes football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is specifically used to de ...

. She is the presenter of '' The Non-League Football Show'', which she created for London 94.9 in 2006, moving with it to 5 Live in 2012. She is a director of the National League and was a founder member of the Non-League Footballers Association. From 2009 to 2011, she was a director at Chelmsford City. As well as football, Barker is also commentator and analyst on netball, leading BBC coverage of the 2018 Commonwealth Gold winning team and for Sky Sports live coverage of the

2015 Netball World Cup The Netball World Cup Sydney 2015 (NWC2015) was the 14th edition of the INF Netball World Cup, the premier competition in international netball. It was held from 7–16 August, in Sydney, Australia, which secured hosting rights after defeating ...

. She is lead commentator for Sky Netball. She hosted the

2018 Champions League of Darts The 2018 Paddy Power Champions League of Darts was the 3rd annual staging of the tournament, organised by the Professional Darts Corporation. It took place from 22–23 September 2018 at the Brighton Centre, Brighton. The defending champion M ...

and

2019 Champions League of Darts The 2019 Paddy Power Champions League of Darts was the 4th annual staging of the Champions League of Darts, organised by the Professional Darts Corporation. It took place from 19–20 October 2019 at the Morningside Arena, Leicester. The defendin ...

on the BBC alongside Mark Webster and Paul Nicholson. She also covers the NFL International Series for BBC Sport. In addition to her broadcasting, Barker founded and was director of digital content company JibbaJabba.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barker, Caroline British journalists 1981 births Living people People from Chelmsford BBC sports presenters and reporters BBC Radio 5 Live presenters Netball commentators Chelmsford City F.C. non-playing staff