About me
Michael, 36, is an experienced presenter and football commentator, who has been working in the industry from the age of 15.
He has worked for many of the UK and Ireland's top broadcasters including the BBC, Premier Sports, TNT Sports, Viaplay, Virgin Media Sport and U105.
It was at his hometown radio station Carrickfergus FM where Michael took his first steps in radio, quickly establishing himself as a presenter and being given his own show.
He also has a strong production background, perhaps best exemplified through his work on BBC Radio 5 Live, for whom he produced the Patrick Kielty show every Saturday morning until a new opportunity saw Michael move to Salford. More on that shortly...
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.
Over the next few years Michael became a familiar figure for football fans in Northern Ireland through his work as a commentator and reporter for
BBC Sport NI, across radio, television and the iPlayer, covering everything from international football to title deciders and the prestigious Irish Cup final.
After successfully working on Northern Ireland's Nations League campaign for Premier Sports, he continued as lead commentator for their Euro 2024 Qualifiers on Viaplay.
It was during the campaign in June 2023 where he reached an impressive career milestone, covering his 500th match, and a career highlight came in October as he was there to cover Northern Ireland's 5-0 victory over Bulgaria on their way to topping their Nations League group.
Michael spent a decade as the Station Manager of Lisburn's 98FM, where he dedicated a lot of his time to training new presenters, programming the output and hosting his own very successful show.
The Score, which started as a radio programme, became a podcast and it was Northern Ireland's #1 Irish League podcast with Spotify verifying that it was in the top 10% most shared shows on its platform globally.
In recognition of its popularity and credibility, SEGA and Sports Interactive added The Score as a media outlet in their Football Manager games, which was played by over 14 million people in the last year alone.
Having previously commentated on the Champions League and Europa League for Dublin-based broadcaster Virgin Media Sport, Michael was enlisted by TNT Sports to be a pitchside reporter for the 2024/25 UEFA Conference League campaign.
This afforded him the privilege of reporting on Larne's European adventure, which culminated in a historic first win for a team from Northern Ireland at the main stage of a major European competition.
Michael was on hand to conduct the post-match interview with Tomas Cosgrove, scorer of Larne's winning goal against Gent at Windsor Park on 19th December.
Michael signed off from his BBC NI duties at the start of 2026, presenting Sportsound on Radio Ulster for one last time, ahead of a permanent move to England and the opportunity to work on Premier League football for BBC Radio Manchester.