When asked to name the favourite match of his career, legendary commentator Martin Tyler did not make the obvious choice.
For more than three decades, Martin Tyler’s voice was the soundtrack to English football.
From title-clinching goals to moments of heartbreak, his commentary became woven into the fabric of the Premier League era.
Born in Chester, Tyler began working with Sky Sports in 1990 and quickly became the defining sound of its coverage.
He was the constant through countless eras, narrating the rise of Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsenal’s “Invincibles,” and the evolution of Liverpool from nearly-men to champions once again.
When he stepped away from the microphone in 2023 at the age of 80, it marked the end of an era. Yet even now, Tyler’s voice remains instantly recognisable and for football fans, often deeply personal.
For all his acclaim, Tyler’s relationship with supporters wasn’t always smooth. Over the years, some fans accused him of favouring certain clubs or reacting differently depending on who scored.
Liverpool fans, in particular, often scrutinised his tone from what they felt was a muted response to Christian Benteke’s stunning overhead kick against Manchester United, to his effusive call of Anthony Martial’s debut goal for United against the Reds.
Tyler has previously dismissed suggestions of bias, saying his approach was always guided by the drama of the moment rather than the shirt on the scorer’s back.
Speaking on All Out Football podcast he admitted
“You’re in the middle of the emotion of it all,” he once explained. “You don’t think about who it’s for you think about what it means in that instant.”
Yet, despite decades of iconic calls from Sergio Agüero’s title-winning strike in 2012 to countless World Cup moments Tyler’s favourite match to commentate on remains one that took place almost 30 years ago: Liverpool 4–3 Newcastle United in 1996.
Speaking to The Mixer, Tyler didn’t hesitate when asked which game stands out the most
“This has been a stock answer for the period of time since it happened,” he said. “It was 1996. It was Liverpool four, Newcastle three, which ended with Stan Collymore scoring the winner in added time. I think Robbie Fowler got two, Stan got two, and Ginola scored for Newcastle.”
He continued: “Asprilla scored, I think Les got the other one, and it really epitomised everything that’s good about football. Both teams were going for the title. Neither of them won it. They almost punched themselves out, really, that night. There was Kevin Keegan hanging over the advertising boards a famous shot when the seventh goal of the game went in.”
That image Keegan slumped forward, devastated yet entranced has come to define one of the Premier League’s greatest nights. Collymore’s late strike sent Anfield into chaos, the noise and disbelief captured perfectly by Tyler’s voice rising above the mayhem.
Nearly three decades on, the game retains its magic. It wasn’t a final yet it embodied the very essence of English football: open, fearless, and gloriously unpredictable.
At the time, Liverpool and Newcastle were vying with Manchester United for the title, and although it was Manchester United that ended up winning the league, for many, that game on Merseyside remains the most memorable moment of the 1995-96 season.
For Tyler, it encapsulated what he loved most about the sport the spontaneity, the emotion, the sense that anything could happen.
“It was pure football,” he said. “You didn’t need to dress it up. It was just two teams giving everything, and the crowd responding to it in kind. That’s what stays with you.”
Tyler went on to recall how he was working alongside Collymore on the radio nearly 20 years later when the pair encountered Faustino Asprilla.
“I’ve told this story a few times, but I’ll share it with you again,” he said. “2014 World Cup first game in Brazil, in Sao Paulo. Stan’s working for talkSPORT.
“Unusual for a ground they had a lift up to the top high commentary position. So Stan and I are going up in the lift to start our work, and the lift door opens up at the gantry level.
“Staring us in the face to come into the lift is Faustino Asprilla, and he goes to Stan without thinking, like he goes, ‘You cost me my Premier League winners medal’.
“They just both burst out laughing. I thought that it meant that much that an instinctive reaction goes back to that game.”
A reminder that football’s greatest power lies in its unpredictability, and that the role of a commentator, as Tyler so often proved, is simply to give those moments the words they deserve.
