It’s a restful mid-April evening, and the sun has just retired for the night in the Italian capital. Commentators, just like fans, live for white-hot Champions League nights when the fog descends and the mood is palpable. But this isn’t one of those nights. Notes in check, Peter Drury has spent all week preparing for this one. But that doesn’t mean he’s anticipating anything grand here, with Roma entering the tie already three goals down on aggregate.
What follows over the next two hours is the best ‘Italian job’ since 1969. Roma’s 3-0 demolition over Barcelona is capped by defender Kostas Manolas’s scrappy goal, and Drury’s impromptu lyric steals the show.
‘A Greek God in Rome’ was a line with legacy, and while Drury himself is flattered by the acclaim he still gets for it, he often cringes at this narrative around him. “If I start getting arrogant, I’m doomed”, he astutely points out. He’s right.
“I’ve had this ‘poetry’ thing stuck to me, and that’s lovely, but I’ve never said it of myself. I’d be quick to point out that weeks go by without any poetry. So those aren’t moments I want to cling to; it feels like they almost cling to me instead.”
Well aware of the response I may get, I ask Drury to reflect on his most famous pieces of commentary. As I suspected, Drury recoils into a grimace, keen to resist talking about what others consider his landmark lines. He doesn’t want to think of them that way.
“I don’t dislike the question, but I’m going to avoid giving an answer, only because I always think it’s the height of arrogance to quote yourself back. I really feel strongly that the commentator must not own the moment.
“Those are not my moments. I didn’t score that goal in Rome. Manolas did. Aguero scored Aguero’s goal. Tshabalala scored Tshabalala’s goal. I just happened to be the lucky guy who was there watching it.”
Avid, or, indeed, casual viewers of Sky Sports football coverage will have picked up on Drury’s command of language and desire to paint a scene of emotion. However, the former radio man sees TV commentary differently, and always reminds himself that his voice should merely be an accompaniment, not the main event.
“The golden rule in television is not to talk unless you’re adding to the picture,” he insists. “But you find me a TV commentator who’s achieved that, and I’ll congratulate you.
“You get a lot of advice down the years, and the most important is to be yourself; be authentic. Then if it’s not going well, at least you’re being real. And I try hard to adhere to that.”
There’s a reluctance about the 56-year-old as he opens up about the mental strains of a life on tape, as though he feels guilty for even admitting to such strains.
“I don’t deal with that easily if I’m honest. I don’t have thick skin. Frankly, I do try very hard, so if I feel unappreciated it hurts just like anyone else. It really does.
“Others in my industry are thick-skinned, and I sometimes wish I were them, but I’m not, so I just have to deal with that angst.”
What one viewer considers authentic, another may label insincere. It was Clive Tyldesley who said: ‘Love me or hate me — and you’re entitled to do either — like everybody else in football, I’m a matter of opinion.’ Commentators don’t get to explain their decisions. Criticism is everywhere, and there’s no right of reply.
“I don’t do social media,” Drury explains. “So when it tells me I’m wonderful, I try to disregard that because I know that I’d also have to take notice of it when they no longer like me.
“One thing nobody can ever accuse me of is not trying hard enough. So if I get it wrong, it’s not for the want of trying. Preparation is my ultimate comfort blanket because at least I know I’ve tried. Always.”
With any mention of the stresses he encounters, Drury leans forward onto his desk; pensive. He’s almost twitching, begging to provide positive balance.
“None of this means there’s not an ongoing love between my job and I, though.
“I got to commentate on the World Cup final which must be — in terms of narratives — the most remarkable football match ever played.
“The right people were heroic. Messi won it, Mbappe scored a hattrick, and Messi lifted the World Cup. There was a perception to it. There was a story that surely cannot be trumped.”
The irony. There Drury was, eulogising Messi for grasping a lifelong dream — forgetting that he, too, was living his very own. He said that night that Messi had “just pitched up in heaven”. But so, too, had he.
Peter Drury is an English football commentator,
and current lead commentator at Sky Sports.
He has covered the very best Premier League,
World Cup, and Champions League clashes
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