Martin Tyler: ‘I put some air in my lungs, shouted Agüero’s name and kept going’

Donald McRae - TheGuardian - 16/02
Veteran commentator tells Donald McRae about describing that 2012 title winner, his desire to meet Lionel Messi and coaching in non-league
Martin Tyler in his local cafe. ‘There’s a lot of luck in this,’ he says of commentating. ‘The luck is being asked to do the game.’ Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
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Martin Tyler in his local cafe. ‘There’s a lot of luck in this,’ he says of commentating. ‘The luck is being asked to do the game.’ Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
Interview

Martin Tyler: ‘I put some air in my lungs, shouted Agüero’s name and kept going’

Donald McRae

Veteran commentator on describing that 2012 title winner, his desire to meet Lionel Messi and coaching in non-league

‘I get asked to shout two things in the street,” Martin Tyler says wryly on a drizzly afternoon in Surrey. “The first is ‘And it’s live!’, which I do, while the second is the Agüero moment which I don’t do because you need to go somewhere special for something truly extraordinary.”

A moment that perhaps best captures the addictive drama and madness of the Premier League came in May 2012 when Manchester City needed two goals in extra time to beat QPR and win their first league championship since 1968. When the ball fell to Sergio Agüero, and he struck the winner that meant City had clinched the title on goal difference from Manchester United, Tyler’s gloriously strangled cry of “Agüeroooo!” echoed around the world.

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The 78-year-old commentator has now found a private space at the back of a cafe in Oxshott to reflect on his public role in voicing the unstoppable rise of the Premier League. For 33 years, until Sky Sports chose not to renew his contract last summer, Tyler’s commentary had been the soundtrack of many footballing lives.

Tyler is too grateful to football, for his past work at Sky and his current freelance commentary, to resent the requests to emulate such delirium in the street. “The joy is still there,” he says, “and the luck of having a football life that continues – like the added time now being increased in...
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