Now that is Fighting Talk!

It is a mild and slightly damp Saturday morning at the beginning of October, 2003. I’m in my car negotiating the tramlines that run along the streets of Amsterdam while touring neighbourhoods in the search for somewhere permanent to live following my return from a two-year sojourn in California. Being the typical Brit abroad, I’m listening to the BBC on the radio, but given the trams’ overhead power lines interfering with reception, the best I can hear is a very crackly 5 Live on AM. 

Through the signal that fades in and out, I realise that I’m listening to the rat-a-tat-tat schtick of Johnny Vaughan, the former Big Breakfast co-host, who appears to be presenting some sort of sports quiz. The panelists are footballer Stan Collymore, the now ubiquitous comedian/actor/game show host Bradley Walsh (who is also an ex-professional footballer), sports writer Will Buckley, and Canadian DJ and sports nut Greg Brady, dialing in from Toronto. From what I can tell through the electrical interference, it’s a high-bantz experience.

It transpires that I’m listening to a brand new show called Fighting Talk, which zips along breathlessly under Vaughan as I try to remember the protocols of Amsterdam driving (basically, don’t, but if you do, give cyclists priority, then pedestrians, and then, if you’re lucky, you). The show ends with a win for Collymore before Vaughan hands over to 5 Live’s afternoon sports anchor and I go about my business of apartment hunting. 

20 years and four permanent hosts on, FT remains a weekend fixture (or, in my case, the Monday morning commute as I catch up with the podcast version) for the duration of any football season when it is on. Its premise is punditry, but not the monotone of Match Of The Day analysis. Instead it is a combination of knowledge and more subjective, often provocative and invariably damn funny opinion, triggered by left-field questions that sometimes only have a passing connection to sport (sample: “Sports people as biscuits”.

Points are awarded - somewhat arbitrarily it seems - for answers and it doesn’t make any difference whether the recipient is a Sport Billy with a Panini sticker book’s worth of trivia in their head, or a professional comedian possessing the sharpness of wit that comes from surviving the comedy club bearpits. And unlike, say, the occasionally po-faced A Question Of Sport, whose sports personalities are invariably anything but, FT works around the absurdities of competitive endeavour. Sport is merely a vessel for the ever-changing panel drawn mostly from sport, broadcasting and the comedy circuit to be quizzed on.

Greg Brady

“So much of sports talk is not interesting,” says Greg Brady, a regular on every FT season since 2003. “With Fighting Talk, though, you get pinned down into actually having an opinion.” Two US radio shows, Pardon The Interruption and Round The Horn provided something of the show’s template when producer Simon Crosse - who’d known Greg for a few years - invited him to be on the very first show. “In 2003, living in Detroit, I sort of knew the format, but radio hadn’t really done the arguing-in-a-pub thing, where you’re rewarded with points. Simon thought there had never been anything like it on UK radio – punditry then wasn’t very pointed.” 

“Everyone on it takes it very seriously,” Greg adds. “No one shows up unprepared. We do know the questions in advance, but not the answers, and it’s not scripted. We’re often surprised with what the other panelists have to say, and that makes for a more entertaining and unpredictable show. Knowing everyone’s answers in advance wouldn’t be the right thing to do. The show should get a lot of credit for the way it has evolved as topics in society have evolved. There are things from 20 years ago we wouldn’t cover now.”

What has kept FT fresh for the last 20 years has been the combinations of panelists, some of whom can be considered regulars (Brady says he’ll do five or six shows in any season) while others have come and gone as other work commitments have permitted. One early fixture was Tom Watt, better known as Lofty in EastEnders, who regularly demonstrated a propensity for being a proper football Statto. The Fast Show’s Simon Day has been another, along with sports journalists like Steve Bunce, Des Kelly and Martin Kelner, athletes Kath Merry and Gail Emms, and comedians like Tom Davis, Neil Delamere, Elis James, Eddie Kadi, Mark Watson and Henning Wehn. 

FT has created a legend out of football manager Phil Brown, coined a catchphrase in Bob Mills’ “I didn’t come here for a lesson on communism!”, and made the final round of ‘Defend The Indefensible’ (DTI as FTers know it) a source of controversy every bit as sour as any VAR decision. It has championed women with all-female panels, and has its own self-styled First Lady, sports presenter Eleanor Oldroyd. It’s topical, but doesn’t try to be Mock The Week/Have I Got News For You topical, even with the wild card of the ‘AOB’ round. And you don't have to be a Top Trumps-collecting obsessive to get the sporting references.

“You won’t hear the same four people every week,” points out Greg. “At the beginning it would have taken a little time to establish its rhythm – ‘Have we got the right mix?’ ‘Have we got people who know their stuff, can talk about their sport, about other sports, and if they’re not from the sporting world, contribute as entertainingly as possible?’” Over time, he says, the panels have broadened out, but there remains a cadre of panelists who’ve returned regularly, simply because they enjoy it. “The only reason panelists give up FT is when they have other things in their career to take up their time,” Greg adds.

That sort of longevity - and the support of a hardcore fanbase (who are also members of an enthusiastically-engaged Facebook group), is down to the chemistry woven by producers Crosse, Mike Holt and Charlie Copsey. “The balance of guests is usually really good,” says another FT veteran, comedian, author and hotelier Ian Moore, now in his 14th year on the show. “That’s down to the three of them - Simon, Mike and Charlie,” he adds, pointing out that they get the best out of the competitive mix of comedy and sporting professionals, each with their own knowledge, preparation and style of banter.

Former Fighting Talk host Colin Murray with producers Simon Crosse and Charlie Copsey
Picture: BBC/Facebook

For Greg Brady, interacting with the panel presents an interesting challenge: with a few exceptions of when he is London, for most editions of FT he dials at six in the morning from Toronto, where he presents the breakfast show on the city’s Global News Radio 640 station. “A Fighting Talk for me will start at 6am Eastern Time, which being a Saturday means it will have been the sixth day in a row of being up at that time.” But that’s not the greatest hurdle - when he dials in, he’s up against a host and three other panelists he can’t see. “It’s the ultimate blind date, sparring over who is the most promising golfer on the Ryder Cup Team, or a Robbie Williams song as a car – a typical Fighting Talk curve.” He wouldn’t have it any other way, however. “Over here [in North America], talk shows are like arranged marriages, but with Fighting Talk there is so much freedom to go with the flow of the fun or opinion. The mix of the people you get with FT is what makes it.”

Colin Murray in the FT driving seat
Picture: BBC/Facebook

Johnny Vaughan cast the dye in his single season as FT’s inaugural presenter, bringing the gently laddish charm that made The Big Breakfast required viewing in the 1990s. He was followed by Christian O’Connell, then Colin Murray in his first stint, Josh Widdicombe and Georgie Thompson alternating, and then Murray again for a second run between 2016 and this summer, and the end of the 22-23 football season. Guest presenters over the last 20 years have included Sir Terry Wogan, World Of Sport legend Dickie Davies, Jimmy Tarbuck, football commentator Jonathan Pearce and comedian Justin Moorhouse (who won the 2014 season as a panelist). 

For the start of its 21st year tomorrow, the show has a new host: 5 Live breakfast presenter Rick Edwards who, he says, has been a huge fan of FT since that first season with Vaughan at the helm, a fact, he says, “does age me.” Having begun his career as a stand-up, Edwards should be a snappy host, though as a former panelist, he knows the pitfalls. “Over the years my performance as a guest has been patchy, and I am really looking forward to bringing that inconsistency to the host’s chair. I can already feel the power going to my head. The bosses will regret giving me the keys to that sound effects box.”

Although he won't be on the first show of the new season, Greg Brady is looking forward to an early opportunity to be on FT with Edwards. “It might take a couple of episodes to get in tune with the ad-libs, the mockery and the opinion, but he’ll get there. It’s a little like the Rolling Stones saying that it’s only rock and roll – you’re born to be wrong a lot of the time in sport, so Rick will have to balance the possession time, who is the funniest – even if they’re not obviously funny people – who has the best knowledge, what would make good radio, what will draw out the punditry.”

Rick Edwards
Picture: BBC

Johnny Vaughan, whose production company World’s End makes the show for 5 Live, said: “The Fighting Talk team are thrilled to have Rick at the helm for the next part of the journey. Over the years we have been so lucky that each host has brought with them their own unique style, passion and humour and that is what has helped make Fighting Talk Britain’s longest running, favourite sporting entertainment show. We are delighted that Rick is now part of a glorious Saturday tradition!”

Fighting Talk returns to BBC 5 Live at 11am on Saturday 2 September. An extended podcast version will be available via BBC Sounds