Michael Clarke  

  Broadcaster / Sports Commentator

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About Michael...

Michael, 33, is an experienced presenter and football commentator, who has been working in the industry from the age of 15. 


His voice has been heard across the BBC (Radio Ulster, Radio Foyle, BBC TV), Virgin Media Sport, Premier Sports, U105 and he has also helped launch and sculpt the development of several community radio stations including Carrickfergus FM, Lisburn's 98FM, Bangor FM, FM105 and Cuan FM.


It was at Carrickfergus FM where Michael took his first steps in radio. During his time there Michael quickly established himself as a presenter and became a regular contributor to their bi-annual broadcasts. In recent years the success of his programme has afforded him the privilege of interviewing numerous celebrities, giving debuts to new talent (broadcasters/artists/
bands) and unearthing great stories from around Northern Ireland.


By the time Michael was at university, he had already gained experience working with both the BBC and U105.

Having attended various BBC Blast trainee courses Michael went one better and won a BBC competition to become BBC Sport Northern Ireland's 'Young Sports Commentator of the Year 2010' chosen from an expert panel including veteran broadcaster Jackie Fullerton. 

As a result of this achievement Michael was picked to commentate for the BBC on two live televised 

football matches at the prestigious international youth tournament, The Milk Cup. 


The two matches assigned to Michael were an opening tie for Manchester United as well as the Premier Section semi-final which featured eventual tournament champions Etoile Lusitana of Senegal.

Despite being better known for his on-air work Michael is also very passionate about radio production and this was best showcased over 18 months at U105 as a broadcast assistant, aiding the presenters and taking your calls - odds are you might have spoken to him without realising!


Michael is an avid user of Social Media and this was recognised by the founders of the Northern Ireland Social Media Awards. He was nominated in Category 16 for 'Best Use of Social Media by a Northern Irish celebrity or personality' and having made it all the way into the final, he finished a respectable 4th (Stephen Nolan won it).


In September 2011, Michael was 1 of only 20 people in the UK to be selected from over 650 applicants to take part in the BBC Aim High training academy in England. 


Michael successfully completed the bootcamp in October of that year.

During the week, Michael works as Station Manager at Lisburn's 98FM . 


He dedicates a lot of his time to training new presenters, programming the output and indeed broadcasting his own show. 


You can hear him every Fridays at 1pm when he hosts The Score, a sports talk show which mixes lively debate and listener participation with interviews with some of the country's biggest sporting stars.


Michael has become a familiar figure for football fans in Northern Ireland through his work as a commentator and reporter for
BBC Sport NI.


Each week he can be heard providing live commentary, updates,summaries and interviews from the Irish Premiership and domestic cup competitions throughout the season across Radio and TV.


He has also covered the League of Ireland on Radio Foyle's 'Friday Night Football' alongside Derry City legend Liam Coyle.


In September 2015 Michael was named as the new Secretary for the Northern Ireland Football Writers' Association taking over from Ian Callender who held the role for an impressive 32 years.

As Secretary Michael has had the privilege of helping to organise the Association's 50th anniversary dinner in City Hall, Belfast, in May 2016 and more recently was a guest at the official opening of the redeveloped National Football Stadium at Windsor Park.


Outside of sport, Michael has been a regular contributor on 'Sunday Sequence' and has appeared on other BBC programming including 'Talkback' and Radio Foyle's morning 
show 'Breakfast' as a newspaper reviewer.

He is well experienced as a guest speaker, giving regular talks to students from the likes of Ulster University and the South Eastern Regional College about the radio industry and he has 
also compered a variety of events. 

Having previously hosted radio discussions around education and employment, he was selected to host the Further Education showcase in Stormont in May 2015 - a further sign of Michael's ability to discuss a wider range of topics beyond sport. 

Michael was invited to sit on a panel at the Belfast Media Festival to discuss the future of radio alongside leading figures in broadcasting across Ireland with BBC, RTE, Cool FM & Downtown all represented.


The talk was held in The Mac theatre and was chaired by Noel Thompson in November 2016.

With his commentary career continuing to develop, Michael joined the Final Score team on BBC One NI in December 2016 and has since become a regular fixture on the programme. 

In June 2017, he covered his first Northern Ireland game for the BBC (Radio Foyle) as Liam Boyce scored his first international goal to steer  the green and white army to victory over New Zealand.

He was chosen as BBC Sport NI's voice for the UEFA Women's U19 Championships in August of that year.

Following on from that success, he has provided commentary for the UEFA U21 Championship qualifiers, FIFA Women's World Cup qualifiers and most recently the world-famous Super Cup NI, formerly known as the Milk Cup.

Michael has covered 19 live games for BBC Sport NI at the tournament over the past two years, including the Junior and Premier Section finals. He is pictured here with B Italia captain Christian Cerretti. 
In March 2019, Michael was chosen to deliver live commentary on a men's senior cup final for the first time - the Co. Antrim Shield final between Crusaders and Linfield.

The match was a seven goal thriller, 
which Crusaders won in dramatic fashion.
Since then his commentary career has gone from strength to strength, being added to Virgin Media Sport's European commentary team in the Republic of Ireland in September 2019 and covering the Women's Irish Cup Final for BBC Sport NI in the same month. 

Michael's commentaries for Virgin Media in the 19/20 season have spanned Champions League and Europa League football, with matches featuring sides such as Atletico Madrid, Sevilla, Bayer Leverkusen, Roma, Lazio and Borussia Monchengladbach. 

2021 saw Michael continue to establish his presence across the footballing spectrum in Northern Ireland, assisting the Irish Football Association with several live streamed matches.


On top of covering youth international competitions such as the Victory Shield and European Championships qualifiers at U17 and U21 level, he was also selected to commentate once again on the women's Irish Cup final, having worked on the league decider the month before for the BBC.

During the year Michael reached and surpassed 400 live matches for the BBC. Covid had hampered the progress of Super Cup NI, formerly the Milk Cup, in recent times but they hosted an invitational tournament for Manchester United who competed against three Irish League academy teams. 

Keith Gillespie joined Michael on the first of the three games broadcast on BBC iPlayer. 

2022 has been another successful year so far for the in-demand commentator. Being asked to cover several high-profile end of season finals, another notable achievement was getting the nod to front the majority of BBC Sport's worldwide coverage of the Centenary Shield tournament from Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland.


Michael presented programmes and commentated on the action on-site from Belfast and Buncrana. 

He was enlisted by Premier Sports to provide live UK exclusive TV commentary on Northern Ireland's most recent Nations League campaign and was also used by the broadcaster for one of Linfield's European fixtures. 

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