Sam Matterface: Liverpool Fans Will Feel Aggrieved by Man City Charges

Football commentator and presenter Sam Matterface sat down with Hard Rock Bet to discuss the latest headlines as well as reflecting on his career.

Sam Matterface believes the Premier League has been left in limbo amid Manchester City’s ongoing legal case, which centres on 115 alleged breaches of the league’s financial rules.

City are contesting the charges, but the case could have significant consequences for the club if the allegations are proven. Potential sanctions could include a points deduction, while relegation has also been discussed as a possible outcome.

Matterface, who is known for his commentary work with ITV, talkSPORT and TNT Sports, believes a decision needs to be reached as he expressed sympathy for clubs such as Liverpool, who have narrowly missed out on multiple Premier League titles during Manchester City’s period of domestic dominance.

Elsewhere, Matterface reflected on his own broadcasting career, highlighting Ian Darke as a major influence on his development before he became ITV’s lead commentator for England’s international fixtures.

He also discussed what it is like working alongside high-profile pundits such as Roy Keane, as well as recalling a chaotic 24 hours in New York involving Ally McCoist and Bon Jovi.

Man City case needs a resolution

Manchester City had been found guilty on 115 charges, what should the punishment be?

Well, the honest answer is nobody knows what’s going to happen. Not even the lawyers know what’s going to happen yet, and there’s all sorts of rumours and speculation about what happens next. It’s taking longer than most of my career to get a verdict.

I mean, I’ve been doing the job. If you think I’ve been doing the job for 20 full time, 27, 28 years, and I think five or six of those have been eaten up with this investigation. That’s quite a significant period, isn’t it? So, I think we’ve been waiting so long from the initial charges for the verdict. But when the verdict came, it was stunning. Absolutely stunning.

I was amazed, actually, about the sort of ferociousness of the verdict and the wording from the panel, the fact that they consistently used the word sham, I think was quite telling that was that was that’s hard language to use in a legal document and tells you how they viewed the infractions by Manchester City and how egregious they were.

I think, for me, I worry about the supporters and the landscape that we’re going to be left with after it’s all finished. If you’re a fan of Manchester City, you never, ever believe that your team would be as dominant as they have been over the last 15 years. You enjoyed those experiences and had a great time, and it’s not your fault if your owners have done things they’re not supposed to do in order for you to get there. And I feel sorry for those genuine supporters.

There are a lot of Man City supporters who have been around for a very long time that I have never enjoyed success with and always refer to themselves as a typical city, but they’ve managed to witness a golden period in the club’s history. But I also feel sorry for supporters of the other teams whose memories have been robbed.

I think Brendan Rodgers and that wonderful Liverpool team. They came so close to winning the Premier League and they were beaten to it by the Manchester City team and Manuel Pellegrini that sort of came through the pack. It was Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City and Manchester City came through at the end and Liverpool stumbled a little bit.

I remember talking to Brendan down at Norwich, and I could tell he wouldn’t commit that they were going to win the league. They basically won the league at Norwich. They’d won 5-2, they had got over the line.

There were only a couple of games left. They’ve basically done it. It was done. Then it went down to Anfield for the Chelsea game, Gerrard slipped and it just all seemed to be falling down around their ears, but that wouldn’t matter if they weren’t up against the team that could come steaming through and win every game and whatever. I don’t know.

I think that leaves Liverpool fans really uncomfortable. Obviously, the Klopp era when they were one point behind, they set unbelievable points tallies. You think about those supporters and what they’ve been through and what they could have experienced and didn’t. You think of the Arsenal fans that waited so long for a title, which maybe shouldn’t have been as long as that.

You think of Tottenham fans and Chelsea fans that missed out in the cup finals and winning trophies, because Manchester City just had more. They had more, and maybe they shouldn’t have had more. I’m not sure that I totally agree with the sort of gatekeeping rules which PSR ended up becoming, but I also don’t agree with the fact that you deny a goal or for a toenail being offside or I don’t agree with the fact that you deny it a goal if it hits the arm of your centre forward just before he puts it in the back of the net.

I don’t agree with the fact that you can’t challenge and have a little bit of contact as you do so, but you still have to abide by the rules. That’s the way it is. Everybody has to. And when everybody else is behaving in the right way and you’re not, or even when people are not behaving in the right way, and they’re being punished, you have to be punished if you break the rules too, and they’re going to be.

I think the rumours are that it’s going to be massive. The rumours are that it’s going to be a huge deduction. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what it is or how it happens. But what matters is that it’s done quickly, because at the moment, the league is a bit of a mess. We don’t know what each result means. I went to Coventry v Tottenham on Monday night, and in commentary, how many points do they need to stand in the league?

Well, I don’t know. You don’t know. No one knows, because we don’t know how many teams are going to be relegated, because if Manchester City are going to be relegated, then there’s only two places that need to be avoided at the bottom of the table, but Coventry don’t know that yet. So their season planning and their target is slightly different.

It’s all right to say, well, they just have to win every game. That’s what they have to do. It doesn’t work like that. In football, sometimes you have to think, okay, I’ll rest a player for this game, because we’re probably not going to win that, but we really need to target another game. We might not need to win that game if only two teams are going down, we might already be safe. The landscape is not clear.

Arsenal don’t know whether they’re in a title race with Manchester City or they’re just out there on their own with a procession. If Manchester City have a points deduction at the end of January, everyone seems to think that’s the best recipe, well, not really, because if you take away 50 points from Manchester City and you relegate them, then the rest of the games that they play from now until the end of the season, mean nothing.

That means that the games that they played up until that point meant something. They fought for them, and they believed at the time that they were going to get a reward for the points as a result of that, the games were more arduous, the one they’re going to play subsequently, they may as well just play with the kids.

They might sell all their players in January. So whatever happens now, it’s gone on too long. The landscape of the Premier League could be skewed, and people have been robbed of memories. Whether that’s Manchester City supporters who are being robbed or having their memories tainted, or whether it’s Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham fans, Watford fans, who have had their days out spoiled. It’s not a great look for the Premier League, and I hope it doesn’t have long lasting consequences.

Becoming ITV’s lead commentator

How did it feel to become ITV’s lead commentator for England games and did anyone reach out to give you some advice?

I feel very lucky to be able to do the job and to be trusted by several different people to be able to do the job. When I took the job as the England commentator for ITV, I had been doing the job in various guises for about 22, 23 years at the time, and I would say that nothing prepares you for it, especially nothing prepares you for 20 million people watching what you get for doing.

I think that the guys at ITV always had the plan one day that might well be the case. I don’t think anyone expected that to happen at that time, least of all me. I was very surprised that it happened. And the reason for that was that we it was, it came in the middle of the pandemic and it was really hard, really, really hard, because no, I didn’t see it coming, and I don’t think anyone saw it coming at that moment, I don’t think that we really could start in the way that you would like to start, because our first game was behind closed doors.

Our second game was behind closed doors, and every game for the next year was behind closed doors which was not great. But look, you get an opportunity like that probably once in your life, so you have to say yes, and it’s a real privilege to be asked, to even be any sort of member of staff around an England game, in my opinion.

So, to be a commentator is great. When I started the role, it was behind closed doors and we couldn’t feed off the crowd. Also, a different sort of environment. Everyone’s at home, the audiences are 10 times bigger because no one’s allowed to go out. You’re under scrutiny, but that’s what comes with the territory, I suppose.

Luckily, I have people who were very helpful to me and always have been very helpful to me, and I’ve been very fortunate in that regard. Ian Darke helped me a lot when I was younger, Martin Tyler has given me sage advice over the years. John Motson was very good to me. He started working at talkSPORT after he’d left the BBC, and I was charged with helping him do some programmes, I’d go over to his house and we’d record some stuff.

It was very much his programme, but I would just have to be there sort of ask him questions, to jog his memory, to bits and pieces, and he always helped me out, and I remember him writing me a note, which was an inspiration, really, and he texted me during the Euros. Des Lynam was really good to me, during that first Euros in Euro 2020. And all those people that you grow up watching and listening to when they say nice things to you, or they encourage you, or they help you, or they look after you.

I think it holds you in good stead. You appreciate that. I think one of the things that’s really key is that, you know, that me and Guy Mowbray talk about this all the time, is that it’s a very odd position, actually, because unless you’ve done it, you don’t really understand what it’s like to do it.

Generally, it’s just talking about football. It’s talking about football to your mates, but your mates just happen to be 20 million people, which is a bit weird, but it’s a brilliant job. It’s great fun, it’s really great fun. I don’t think I would ever, ever believe for a minute I could ever be a footballer, ever, not for a second. I would love to have been, but I wasn’t good enough.

But this is about as close as you can get to being involved in the game without being involved in the game. I love the match, I love the game, I love the sport, I love the people that are involved in it. I love the supporters and the fan culture that goes alongside it. So, to be some part of it is really, really a real honour.

Is there a commentator WhatsApp group?

There is. There’s several, actually. There is actually one that started a few years ago, and it started by the great Tony Jones, I think, who started it, where we all sort of got together just to sort of clarify pronunciations, so that we’re all saying the same thing. Then there was always a sort of joke every now and again.

Peter [Drury] will put a message in the group or Guy [Mowbray] will put a message in the group or I’ll say something, saying, ‘Right, this player has come to the Premier League. They say, “This in Italy, this in France, what are we going to say?”’ And then, everyone looks around and goes, “Who’s going first?” And it’s the first one. I was doing quite a lot of the Community Shields, so there was a lot of responsibility on me for three or four years. Luckily, Darren Fletcher’s doing that now, so he has the responsibility to decide.

What it takes to become a commentator

We often see commentators notes on social media, what does your preparation look like, and how far ahead of kick-off are you preparing for a game?

I mean, it. I‘m not going to say it’s easy, it’s not. It’s not working down a coal mine either. I worked in McDonald’s for six years, and I loved every minute of it, but I prefer doing this. It’s a lot more fun. But it is hard work, and it should be hard work, right? Because at the end of the day, you’re broadcasting to a lot of people.

You’re trying to satisfy a lot of people. You’re not going to please everybody all the time. And that’s just life. But, you know, for a game, like, I mean the hardest game I think I did at the World Cup was England against Norway. and I think I will probably end up doing three days of homework for that.

You get 90 minutes, maybe 120 minutes. The worst time is when you have to use most of it because the game is so bad, or because there’s just nothing happening. That was a tough game to do. Probably the toughest of that World Cup, I mean, the hardest game probably ever was the Slovakia game where Bellingham scored the overhead kick until he scored that. And it completely changed the beauty of football, right?

So, England are having their worst performance in living history. This is going to be worse than Iceland. They’re going out of the European Championships. They weren’t expected to win in 2016 when they went out to Iceland. It wasn’t expected they were going to win it, but in 2024, they were supposed to be up there as one of the contenders, and they didn’t look like it.

They looked like they were heading home very early and. You have to be very careful about how hard you go, and we’re always conscious not to do that until we’ve got a resolution, because really and truly, you know that football can change, and we’re criticising their performance, but not going so far as criticising the team, too much.

Gareth Southgate obviously had been an absolute brilliant asset to English football. This would have been his last game, had he had gone out, and then Jude Bellingham comes up with one of the most magnificent moments that I’ve ever seen in English history, which was that wonderful overhead kick days after his 21st birthday, and I thought, “Wow, this guy’s going to be an England legend”.

And he’s turned out to be that way. Minutes later, extra time, Harry Kane scores 2–1, everything’s over, I don’t know how it happened, but we’re through. I remember saying at the time, “Don’t ever write off this team’s propensity to come back from adversity.” And I meant it then, and it was all on display again when we did the semi-final of that when Ollie Watkins scored in the final seconds.

It’s one of those games where it was going England’s way for a long time, then it went the Dutch’s way. But Ollie Watkins scored that goal at the end of that semi-final. and no one saw it coming. It happened. I think I just said, “Is there one more chance for England or something like that, or it’s going to extra time unless something could happen now. Here’s Saka, onto Watkins. Bang.”

Then that’s it, the whole joy and explosion of everything. It was really weird for us because during that match, some reporter had tried to start talking to Lee Dixon while he was working on Romanian TV or something come over, and started walk down and started putting a microphone in his face while he was working and Lee pushed him away, and he had almost turned into a bit of a scrap in the stands.

We were like, “What’s going on here?” Then the Ollie Watkins moment happened. Then the security said, like, “You’ve got to go now, because we’ve got to get you to Berlin because we’ve got whatever on.” So, we’re being shepherded out at the stadium, we start running, Ally is like, “Come on, we’ve got to go, blah, blah”.

We’re all a bit dizzy by it. We’re into the car, we get bundled into the back of this sort of people carrier, we start moving down the motorway and Ally’s like, “Come on, guys, we’ve got to stop here.” And Dicko’s like, “Yeah, we need some beer.” So, we stopped at a petrol station, got to grab a beer, sat in the back of the car, and went, “I can’t remember where we’re going. We’re going to Berlin or going to Leipzig for the next one” I can’t remember.

Either way, we’re going on a massive journey. We’ve got to grab a beer, and that was us. We just enjoyed the rest of the night, but it was so weird, because it happened so quickly. But you didn’t ask me about that. You asked me about homework.

It’s nonstop. It’s every day. I don’t have a day off. I never have a day off. Never. And even if I do have a day off, I will be doing something because you can’t take your eye off ball for longer than a second, because if you do, you’ll miss something, especially I do sort of twin jobs, really, with the ITV stuff, TNT stuff and the talkSPORT stuff.

I’m a commentator, but also occasionally hosting. You’ve got to be across it all. You’re never across everything, you can’t be, it’s impossible, because there’s so much that happens in the world of football now, but you have to do your best to be as much as you can across the landscape. I enjoy that part of it.

That’s not a problem for me. I like watching football, reading about football, and talking about football. It’s part of my day. It’s part of what I’d do anyway. So, I quite like that. But, you have to accuracy’s really important. When you make a mistake, and I have made some mistakes, obviously, and make quite a lot of them, everybody does, and you’re human, so you will. But when you do, it really, really upsets you, really, really upsets you, especially if you’ve done lots and lots of work, and you’ve prepared everything the way you wanted it to go.

I mean, I had an episode even last night, where I got two players confused because a substitute came on, two players very much the same. We were doing what we call off-tube. So, you’re watching it on a TV instead of being in the stadium, and I’d prefer to be at the stadium of course. Everyone would, but it’s a much different experience trying to do it off the television and it is not as easy.

I think there was a replay, comeback, and then a player wasn’t where they were supposed to be, and two players had crossed over and I’ve got the wrong one and it could have been a big incident. It wasn’t a big incident, but it wasn’t a defining incident, but I was not comfortable with it for a long time. But it happens. That is going to happen. That’s not something that happens very often. But when it does, it pains you. But Stuart Pearce, who I work with at talkSPORT, is really good. Whenever something like that happens, and it probably happens probably once, twice a year, he’ll say, “What can you do about it now, fella?” I’ll say, “Nothing.” He went, “Exactly, so move on.”

Ally McCoist, Laura Woods and Bon Jovi

What is it like working with Ally McCoist?

Ally McCoist to be around is exactly what Ally McCoist sounds like you to be. Like to be around when you listen to him on the radio or you work with him in a commentary booth or you listen to him in a commentary booth, he is absolutely infectious.

He’s got a wonderful enthusiasm for life, football, for music, for socialising, for people, for fun, for everything. He’s like a magnet. He really is. You want to spend time with him. Obviously, we’re all travelling around America over the course of the last seven or eight weeks at the World Cup, and Ally joins me and Lee Dixon for the semi-finals in the final. We have a great night out on Monday night, and we’re going to the game. We’re on our way to this stadium in Dallas, and there’s a huge queue to get into the Dallas Stadium, the security queue getting to the Dallas Stadium is so long that I think it probably would have taken us three hours to get through it.

McCoist says, “Trust me. I think I’ve got another way”, and we’re like, “How can you have another way?” He goes, “Just trust me, just trust me.” So, we scurry around the whole thing, we go around. We’re all like, “Ally, if this doesn’t work,” and we’ve got to go all the way back down, we’ve got to go to the back of the queue”.

Ally says, “No, trust me.” And he told me afterwards, he was actually a little bit worried. He was sweating inside, because he was saying to himself, “If this doesn’t work, I’m in massive trouble.” Anyway, so we’re walking up to go to try and find this special Ally McCoist entrance. And as we walked round the corner, the whole place opened up, and there is this security entrance, which is reserved for broadcast.

I don’t even know where it was and it was completely empty, and he just went, “Here you go, lad stick with me!” And then we were just laughing off. It was an absolute lifesaver. The other great thing about him is he’s always happy for a pint. He’s always happy to organise a post match debrief.

The day of the World Cup final. Well, actually, it was in Dallas. We were in Dallas, and were just chatting with me, Laura [Woods], and Ally, we’re having a chat. and he said, “I went to Bon Jovi last week, I went on my own. They’ve got another couple of dates coming up, Thursday, and next Sunday.”

I went, “Well, we can’t do those, because Thursday night is our ITV wrap party, we’ve got to go to that and then on Sunday night, we’re at the World Cup final”. Anyway, between the three of us, we start plotting this hare-brained scheme to leave the World Cup final, get some sort of mode of transport as quickly as possible. Laura’s pregnant, by the way, and we wanted to get to Madison Square Garden to see Bon Jovi.

Anyway, everyone else is like, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, you’re going to finish the game, you just want to go and chill out, it’s the last night with everyone”. Anyway, He jumped in this car, we’re leaving in the car park, Laura rings me, says to me, “Where are you?” I said, “where in the car park” and she said, “I don’t know.” I went, “Okay, I’m going to stand on top of the car and see if I can see you, and if I can, I’ll come and get you” and there she was.

We whip round, we pick her up, we put her in the back of the car. She’s like, “what’ s going on? We said, “Oh, we’re not sure we’re going to make it to Bon Jovi.” She gave us all her big pep talk and told us to lift our mood, “we can do this.” Ally is like, “Yeah, we can, yeah, we can.”

We go driving through the streets of New York straight after the World Cup final. We sneak through the whole of the city, we get to Madison Square Garden and we jump out of the cab, we run up the stairs, and as we walk up the stairs, Bon Jovi was singing “Bed of Roses”, and we’re like, “This is fantastic”.

We get an hour and 20 minutes of him. Straight into “Livin’ on a Prayer”. It was just superb. And then there’s a video of Ally and Lee Dixon singing, Living on a Prayer in Madison Square Garden. That was our final act of the World Cup. It was absolutely terrific. But those two drove that on, it was brilliant.

Roy Keane is the perfect teammate

What is Roy Keane like behind the scenes, is he more chilled out and relaxed compared to how we see him on TV?

Well, I won’t say chilled out, No. Roy’s arguably one of the best teammates you can have. He really is. He. If he is in a team with you, he looks after you. He believes that if you share a dressing room with someone or in our case, a Winnebago on the side of a car park and a football stadium, then he is like “We’re all in it together”.

He’s always been like that, but certainly over the last sort of five or six years, I’ve been lucky enough to get to know him, not to the point where he will ring me and ask me to go for a coffee, but he’ll know if I haven’t asked him to go for a coffee. He’s just a brilliant fellow. He’s got a wonderful acerbic wit. He is very, very funny. He’s clever. He loves football.

He goes to football matches that you wouldn’t believe he goes to, and he goes football incognito half the time and just goes and watches matches. He’s very much an enthusiast of sports still, as you would expect, but I don’t think people expect him to just turn up at Salford on a Tuesday night, but he will. He’ll go to a lot of the games actually in and around the Northwest because he’s just interested in the game.

He’s got a great analysis. He’s brilliant on a night out, even though he’s probably not had a drink for about 20 years, he’s still the life and soul of the party. It’s just an excellent team. The blend of those ITV pundits and staff that we’ve got is quite unique, really.

I’ve been part of it for six years. I think they’ve been together a little bit longer than that a couple of years more, maybe, but, you know, Mark, Laura, Wrighty who is just an unbelievably beautiful human being, Ally, Lee, Roy, it’s just a brilliant group of people, and everyone gets on so well, and we have so much fun, plus the people that are behind the scenes as well, the producers and the bosses, it’s just a brilliant blend.

And I think, actually, that comes across on the TV, and I think there is the reason we’ve probably done so well in terms of viewership over the last couple of major tournaments is down to the fact that I think people were used to seeing those familiar characters now and knowing the relationship between those familiar characters.