Commentator Ian Crocker on 30 years as voice of Scottish football

The Herald Scotland

26-05-2025

For Ian Crocker season 2024/25 will end the same way as so many have in recent years. Stuck behind a caravan on a single carriageway of the A9 on the road north to Dingwall for a Premiership play-off.
The first-ever play-off between Aberdeen and Dunfermline marked his first exposure to Scottish football.
That was 30 years ago this week and Sky Sports' lead commentator marked the occasion by prepping for the first leg draw between Livingston and Ross County. The voice of Scottish football, that's his life now.
'I started doing the prep for the latest play-off last week and it said that the first one was 30 years ago,' he tells Herald Sport.
'I wondered what date that was and realised it was Aberdeen v Dunfermline, my first game in Scotland.
'Colin Davidson was at Sky then and I started doing bits and bobs for them. Grampian TV were actually covering that game live and didn't have a commentator, so Colin put me forward for it.
'That was the start of something. I never thought I'd still be talking nonsense about Scottish football three decades later.'
Born in Dorset, Crocker's slow creep north began as a tannoy announced with West Ham United, the team he supports. Working in an office job for the BBC his broadcasting breakthrough came with Capital Radio in London. Working with Jonathan Pierce and Steve Wilson - now BBC Match of the Day commentators – he moved to Birmingham to cover the Midlands beat when big Ron Atkinson, Barry Fry and the late Graham Taylor were in their managerial pomp. His final, life-changing move took him to Scotland with Sky Sports and Setanta.
'I always worked for Scottish bosses through the years. A guy called Andy Melvin, who used to be at STV years ago, was deputy director of Sky Sports and he asked if I would fancy doing the SPL as it was then?
'I thought, 'why not' and by 1998 I had worked my way up the country from Dorset, where I was born, to London, to Birmingham to Glasgow. It's been fantastic and I do love it.
'We all know what it's about. The passion of the players and the fans.
'I get a bit of stick on the socials, but when I actually meet people out and about people are pretty kind in terms of remembering lines I used, which is quite humbling.
'But that's your job. If there is going to be something major happening in football you want to come up with a line that kind of covers it. And hopefully I have managed to do that a few days over the years.'
Big games tee up big memories. His first calling card in Scottish football came when Martin O'Neill's first Old Firm game as Celtic manager ended in a 6-2 thrashing of Rangers, Henrik Larsson chipping a sublime effort over Stefan Klos for the goal of the game.
'I said, 'that is sensational', which it was. To this day people still come up to me and shout that at me.
'I was actually walking through Glasgow Central one day when this guy came up and started shouting 'that is sensational' at me, much to the bemusement of commuters in the station at the time.
'I had a similar one when Rangers beat Celtic in the cup final in 2002 and Peter Lovenkrands scored the winner in injury time.
'Just before Neil McCann hooked the cross in I said, 'is there going to be a twist in the tale?'
'Obviously there was - which is great. But I must have said that line a hundred times when absolutely nothing happened. It was good that it came off for once…'
While Weymouth and West Ham were his first – his only – footballing loves fans in Scotland find it infuriatingly difficult to set suspicion to one side. After any game involving Celtic or Rangers his inflection, enthusiasm for goals, or description of opponents is scrutinised with a forensic intensity for evidence of latent bias. After moving the family home to the banks of Loch Lomond five years ago he has learned to live with it.
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'It does make me laugh when I see one tweet saying, 'ah he's a Rangers man' beside another saying, 'no, no, he's a big Celtic man.
'A lot of the time you get people saying, 'you sounded more exciting for their goal than ours.'
'It's total and utter nonsense. Sometimes you might not go full pelt on a goal because you are wondering who scored it or it's an own goal.
'It's part of the territory, it will never change and you get used to it.
'I tell people I support my hometown of Weymouth or West Ham they look puzzled and say, 'yeah but what Scottish team do you support?…'
Over the three decades, colleagues became friends. He keeps in touch by text with Davie Provan, the former Celtic and Scotland winger who provided intelligent and insightful co-commentaries until he retired to Spain. Andy Walker, the former Parkhead striker, became another pal through work – the pair working together at yesterday's game between Newcastle and Everton at St James' Park.
'Me and Davie just got on from day one. I hate commentators who crush each other, which seems to be a more common theme these days.
'After Davie, Andy Walker took over and we just became good friends.
'Both of those guys are just very good at what they do. The actual analysis is harder than the commentary because I'm just shouting out names while they have to figure out what's right and what's wrong and why a goal was disallowed.'
Wary of any accusations of being a little too close to former Celtic players, he quickly name checks a legendary late Rangers figure as the manager he had the privilege of befriending and plugging for teamlines on the morning of games.
'Walter Smith used to say, 'ring me at 8.30am' and he would fill me in on injuries and why they were injured etc.
'I'd probably still be on the phone to him at 9am before saying, 'right I have to go to a game now.'
'Walter was different class to deal with and Craig Brown was the same with Scotland and Preston.
'The chats with Walter were fantastic. These days it's a bit harder to get managers to give you the team and I kind of get that with the pressure they're under these days.
'But I always felt if Walter could trust me that was a decent recommendation but, lovely a guy as he was, I wouldn't have wanted to cross him.
'I bumped into him at a game at Rangers a couple of years after he retired and I saw him in the tunnel where he said to me, 'one of the worst things about not being involved in the game anymore is that I f***** well have to listen to you on the telly now….'