Ep. 182 The Unforgettable Commentating of Peter Drury

Hey there, Mark Brown. I have never, ever, ever, ever seen you this excited to spend some time with someone. Oh, my goodness. Hero worship is nothing. Mark Brown. Oh, my gosh.

Wow.

Well, listen, Darren, very quickly, I will not delay. I want to talk to our guests, but for all those who are watching, quickly, couple of quick disclaimers and caveats. Our guest today is a football commentator, which is soccer in the usa. And you may think, wait, what does football commentary have to do with being a better public speaker? Trust me, you will learn in a couple of minutes when we sit down with the individual who was rated by 90 million. Now, 90 minutes is the world's largest football community, okay? And they have rated him the best football commentator of all time. So in a minute, he. You'll get to meet the incomparable Peter Drury. Let's do this. Darren.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable presentations podcast with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown, your life tells a story, and there's someone out there there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time, Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation. Ahas. Let's dive right in.

All right, let's welcome Peter Drury. Peter, how are you, sir?

Hi, gents. I'm very, very well, thank you. How are you?

Well, I am just giddy, as you probably know by now, because I am so thrilled to meet you and I've been following. I've been a fan of yours for years, and anybody who's. Anybody who watches football in Europe, they know your iconic voice. We don't always get to see you. And Darren and I have been talking about this for the last several days, and I'm so thankful to share you with our listeners and our viewers, who are all speakers at different levels of proficiency. But I know you have so much to teach us today, so I'm very thankful. Darren, you're welcome. For Peter as well.

And, Peter, we've never had a podcast where Mark's wife chimed in already in the comment section.

Wow, that's.

That's special. That's special.

Well, she knows I talk to my TV when you're on, and we're so thrilled to have you.

Oh, my. Well, welcome, Peter. Just. Let's dive in.

Oh, my gosh.

So, Peter, how did it all begin? You're. You're a voice the world knows. If anybody goes to YouTube and. Or search on his Name, you'll see him all over the place. How did it all begin for you, Peter?

Well, I guess I've just been very lucky, Mark, really. I, I did what I suppose every sports loving little boy and girl all over the world still does. And that is when I was kicking a ball around or wielding a bass of some sort. I, I used to commentate on myself. We all do that, I guess. I guess in the States, you know, people shout their own name and touchdown and all of that sort of stuff. You know, I, I did that too, but I never really seriously considered that that was something that I would do beyond that kind of childlike experience. And to sort of cut to the quick of the story, I went off to university, as people do, and I came out of university and I became a trainee accountant. I wasn't very good at that and I, I decided to pack it in and chase a bit of a dream and, and since then I've been very, very fortunate.

Wow. So you went to print and then to radio, correct?

Well, yeah, I did, I did a fair bit of print. I got my first really big fortunate break with, with what I didn't know at the time, but I had had since had been and continues to be actually one of the great sports reporting agencies in London in Fleet street, which was, as you may or may not know, at one time, the sort of headquarters of all the great national newspapers. And so I did a fair amount of writing and I loved writing and I still do, but I suppose I was always having a leaning towards broadcasting. And I got my first job with the BBC locally in Yorkshire in north of England after a couple of years of writing. And I was very lucky when I went there because it was a great patch for covering sports. And the big club up there is Leeds United. Premier League fans will be aware of them. And when I was there, they happened to become the champions of England. And so some of my work became known amongst the big bosses down in London, you know, and so I got a break then too and continued to sort of build a career with the BBC, BBC Radio. And then seven or eight years after that, the big commercial network in the uk, ITV had a sort of an iconic commentator who was coming to the end and announced his retirement and, and they came and got me to fill the gap that was left behind and, and I, you know, I've just been lucky so often to be in the right place at the right time.

Well, that's a wonderful story and you just taught me something important, Peter. You were so iconic on the Mic, which you began by writing. And I would suggest those who are viewing and listening right now that good speakers are good writers.

I think there's a lot of truth to that. I do think that in my line of work, and I'm sure yours, there is no substitute for genuinely loving the words that you're using, whether you find the words or speak them having an authentic. I don't know, I don't want to sound pretentious here. There's a danger of sounding pretentious if I go on like this, but I think having a. Having a genuine feel or relationship with the language you're using is really important. And of course, yes, the written word is absolutely as valid in that regard as the spoken word. And people can talk about the way the two run parallel and indeed the way they can sometimes pull apart. You would understand, too. I'm sure you guys speak a lot about writing a speech or delivering a speech. And maybe writing and delivering are two different things because correct me if I'm wrong, but a speech is not well delivered if it sounds too written. You know what I mean?

Amen.

So. So you. So you write. You may write, but you need to know when you're writing to speak or when you are writing to be read.

That's wise. A speech is not well delivered if it sounds too well written.

Maybe. I think so.

By the way, Peter, I'm not being unkind, but I'm actually taking notes because one of my jobs is at the end of our broadcast to review some of the gems you will leave with us. So I want to make sure not to leave anything out. And Darren and I have spent some time. We do teach other speakers about writing and we say write for the ear, not for the eye.

Yes.

But there's something unique about your style where you seem to be able to do both most adroitly and most deftly. And by the way, we have some fans who are live with us. And please feel free to put a comment in or a question for Peter so we can talk about this. One of the things. Darren, please. Up to you.

Go ahead.

I'd just like to. Sir, for people who aren't football fans and don't know of the legend, by the way, Peter, Mark actually has been levitating for the past week. He's so excited that you're here, but I want people to have a taste. What I was so impressed with. I love improv. Comedy's my background, but the way you improvise in the moment and are eloquent, the wordsmithing is amazing. I was blown away and I have a short video clip that I'd like to play here with your permission, Peter, because I want people to see you in action, especially people who don't know you. So let's go to clip.

Andrea, let us do it.

Romans have risen from their ruins. Nonetheless, the Greek God in Rome, the unthinkable unfolds before our eyes. This was not meant to happen. This could not happen. This is happening. Barcelona, extraordinarily eight minutes from elimination. And Defrancesco does not know where to go. Iniesta does not know where to look. It is a Greek from Mount Olympus who has come to the seven hills of Rome and pulled off a miracle phenomenal beyond reason, beyond Roman reality, and in the end, beyond even Barcelona. Who falls? Barcelona fall. Messi falls disbelieving. How did that just happen? Roma made it happen. History. History even for this city. And it's bottomless well of myth and legend and history. Cheko do Rossi with composure from the spot. And then Manolas, the Greek God amongst gods, who came up with a near post flick etched into the memories of everyone who was here, tearful and otherwise to beh. Wow.

Wow.

Watching a masterwork. Oh, I hope everyone saw the genius in that, Mark.

Not. Not every. Not every night's like that, Taryn.

Well, Peter, for our. For our viewers and listeners and those who don't know football, it's important to give some context here that goes back five years. 2018, the European Champions League semi final, leg two. That's a mouthful for those who don't know football, but these games are played too, home and away. And to give some backstory, Peter, help us to understand the significance of Roma and Barcelona at that time in the Champions League.

Well, I mean, Barcelona are one of the great clubs of European football. And as you rightly say, Mark, these games are played over two legs, as we call it. Barcelona had played their first leg and won by three clear goals. So that meant that Roma had to play the second game and had to win by three goals to go through. There's a further complication around away goals and so on. Don't worry about that. We know that Roma had to win by three. And given what we knew about Barcelona, who had also the greatest player in the world in Lionel Messi playing, and not just him, they were an outstanding team. That was impossible. It was impossible. And so if I may carry on into the context of how it felt for me as I turned up for that game, the truth is I was very relaxed there. Was another game on that night that was bigger, you know, between two English clubs, Liverpool and Manchester City. To me, everybody was watching the other game. I was relaxed, it was lovely. I was in the beautiful city of Rome. Messi was playing. There was nothing to complain about, but there was very little jeopardy in the game. And so my stars aligned that night in the sense that, as you would understand, you do your best work when you are relaxed. And so I wasn't tense, particularly. I felt as though I had no audience and I was able just to express myself. So Roma had to score three goals, and it was only after they scored the second goal that it's. A penny dropped inside of me. And there was a sudden realization that if they did happen to score again, this was going to be a thing, you know, the world was going to sort of spin twice as fast on its axis. And they did. And in moments like that, you can only trust your instinct. And mercifully, my instinct was in a good place that night. But also I owed a lot to the television director who cut up a number of sequence of close ups of the various individuals that enabled me to refer to them and happened to fit with my thought process and so on. And it just came together. I must say also that as I left the stadium that night, because I'm not on social media, I find that healthier for me in all sorts of different ways. But I had no idea that it had particularly impacted. And it was only when somebody rang me a couple of hours later and said, you do realize what's going on out there, do you? And I said, well, what I said, I know, but. So I'm always really careful to say, and I really believe that in my game, different perhaps to your game, but in my game, it really isn't about what I do. The commentator is relatively or very, very unimportant. The moment happens, the sporting achievement occurs, whether the commentator is there or not. I'm just a very, very lucky bloke who happens to sit in the stadium with a microphone, watching these special moments happen. So I wouldn't want to sort of conflate my contributions that evening with that of Costas Manalas, who scored what was an historic goal. That was his goal. That was his goal. And so when I came away, my sense was only that I've been really lucky to be in the stadium for an extraordinary sporting moment. But. But I. I can't deny that in the four or five years since, people have asked me more about that moment than anything else I've ever done, because it was the night it all came together, I suppose.

Well, Peter, I want to sit with this for a while and football fans will appreciate this. But as speakers, I need to catch a few key lessons from what Peter has just told us. First, I'm going to submit to you, Peter, even though you're known by many as a football poet, I'm going to submit to you also a football storyteller. And what you do is difficult and impressive. And here's why. As speakers, we always tell stories. We try to tell personal stories. We want to create images for the audience to see what we're telling them so they can relate and can connect and enjoy the moment. We want to give our audience experiences so they must imagine based on our words. Here's why I find you impressive. I'm watching the game, I'm seeing it happen. But your words, your storytelling enhances my experience as a viewer. To me, that's more difficult than someone who can imagine blindly and forgive the word blindly, but they can't see. They are only hearing the speaker's words. In this case, I'm watching the game, but your words still elevate my experience. And I know you will probably ask this question. Now, Peter, come on, did you plan any of that?

I can give you a straight answer to that question. I'm afraid it's not a yes or no answer. It's a bit more nuanced than that. But you must not. You can't. This goes back to writing for speech. You must not. In my view, sorry, there are no rules here. This is only my opinion. But I don't write. Prepare anything that happens between the first whistle and the last whistle of the game. That is to say, don't try and pre imagine any of the unpredictables, because if you start writing for a goal that might be scored, what would I say if so and so scored a goal right at the end of one of the match, then that goal won't occur quite as you imagined it, you know, and, and so whilst you might get somewhere close to telling the story, you'll just miss it round the edges, you know what I mean? So nothing from first to last. You know, certainly that goal that we've just seen in Rome, I couldn't possibly have written because it would have. It wouldn't have been a part of my imagination. I couldn't have believed that that was going to happen. It would have been a waste of my time. But the. What I would say is that there are certain things that happen around the football match which you'd Be crazy not to prepare for. You know, I appreciate I'm talking to an American audience here which, which maybe does things in different ways, but in, certainly in the English Premier League, you know, we have on television the moment when the teams gather underneath the stand and they're in the tunnel and they're about to walk out and the crowd goes crazy and all of that. I know that's going to happen. You know, I would be stupid not to think it's what I call a set piece. You know, it's obvious that that's going to happen. Equally at the end of the World cup final, somebody is going to step forward and lift the World cup and some dignitary is going to hand it to him. And you know that that is stuff that you can prepare, but a. The bits you can prepare, you need to be very careful that it doesn't sound as though you're sat there reading a script. And my personal trick for that and others can tell me whether it works or not is that my handwriting is appalling.

Yes, there's hope for us all.

It's absolutely terrible. So I scribble it in my terrible handwriting and that means that I can't just read it. I just see a few clues. I pick out a word or two and I hope that that means that it doesn't sound as though I've got it in clear black and white in front of me and I'm just reading it out and so I'm sort of pausing and working it out and so on. So the pre. Prepared words, if you like, are only sort of 3/4 prepared. They leave space for something that might not happen, for a close up of someone you might not have anticipated for. Just breathing and the rest of it you have to trust to look after itself. And you know that, that, that trusts to instinct. Which isn't to say, by the way, Mark, I'm not, I don't want to seem disingenuous here or, or even to hide anything from you. That's not to say that just when I go for a walk the previous afternoon I might think of a word and that doesn't become part of a script, but I might scribble a word in the top left hand corner of my notes and think that word might be handy or I might have a, a prompt or two along the way because there's only so much nonsense that sticks in my head. So, you know, so those, those spontaneous moments are spontaneous. But you know, if there's, if, if you watch as much sport as I do, and as so many of us do, you know, there are only so many adjectives to go around. If you think you've got a fresh one, that's gold. So down it goes.

Well, you know, Peter, I have three thoughts and you just put me in a mindset. You mentioned the additives to go around. Please, Darren, don't let me forget. I gotta go back to that because there's three thoughts here for speakers wanted to be aware of 1. Preparation. Peter, you do prepare before the game. You said between kickoff and the end of the whistle. You can't predict that, but you prepare yourself around it. And there's two more things. One is the extemporaneous speaking that takes place during the game. As presenters, there are times we're called upon to be extemporaneous. During a Q and A on a panel, we can't prepare all our remarks. And three, there was the customization of the remarks. Now, how did you do that? Let me explain. I did some research, Peter, you mentioned Roma and Barcelona. Played two games. First in Barcelona, Catalans, and second in Rome. And the first game you said, when they're in the tunnel, they're going to walk out and you can prepare for them. Here's a customization piece from the Roma Barsa leg one. When you said, and I quote, another kaleidoscopic cacophonic Catalan carnival, do you recall saying those words, Peter?

Not specifically. Okay, but yeah, listen, I can imagine I might have said that.

Well, I'm going to drill down on customization here for a reason. Please catch this. Kaleidoscopic to me, an image of vibrant color, cacophonic, the sound inside the camp Nou Catalan specifically refers to Barcelona and their physical location on the continent. And carnival speaks to the atmosphere. Now, Linda Marie Miller, one of our friends, is a total fan of rhetorical devices and she mentioned anaphora and of course, the alliteration. You combine that, but every word you use in that five word sentence, another kaleidoscopic cacophonic Catalan carnival gives me, the listener, a visual of what's happening at the arena. So my question is, how in the round world do you think of all of that in one phrase?

Well, I guess, Mark, that's kind of. It's kind of used to frame it like that. I guess it is because I love those words and because one of the challenges of my job, and presumably yours and Darren's, is to find ways of expressing myself. And maybe I'm. I don't want to say easily bored, but. But I do want to say that I get Tired of the same. And we watch a lot of sport and, and, and I, I enjoy attempting to articulate something that's happened before differently from the last time it was articulated. And of course, the challenge then for me is that the next time I go to Barcelona, I can't call it kaleidoscopic and cacophonic again, you know, and that will probably happen. But, you know, I do love a part of the exercise. You know, I spend many hours, as you rightly say, around the 90 minutes, preparing statistics, in fact, who scored how many goals and when did they last meet, and all of that sort of stuff that you hear from, from sports commentators, and those are the nuts and bolts of what we do. But my favorite part of the exercise is the. What are you actually going to say insofar as you can be ready for that? So I guess the night before that game at Barcelona, I probably would have sat down with an empty page and thought, what am I going to say as they walk out in the nuke camp? And that's what I came up with. But I do give that a lot of attention because as I say that, that is a set piece and I'm conscious. Again, I'm not necessarily talking to an audience for the sport that I principally cover, but we have within it things that we call set pieces. A free kick, the ball is dead, people are in set positions, and you can practice that. You can rehearse that. A penalty kick where the goalkeeper is going to be standing on the line, that the goal is that shape, you know, there's not. There are no moving parts. You have that as a sports person to deliver. And so as a broadcaster, there are certain moments when there are no, as it were, moving parts. It is a given. And so to me, there's no excuse for not being absolutely ready, because it is a given.

Well, before Darren takes over, two quick thoughts I want everyone to catch. You invested a lot of time to prepare for that moment. You knew you could and so you did. And the other is, please don't lose this, my friends, the customization. You use the word Catalan and those who understand Barcelona will know that a Catalan team. But you talked about a Catalan carnival. So we got the atmosphere carnival, we got the kaleidoscope, the visual, we got the cacophonic, the auditory, and the customized for your audience so we know it's Catalan. To me, that is brilliant writing and brilliant delivery. And the lesson for us as speakers is, can we use language that meets the needs of all the senses and not only paints a picture, but Delivers an experience.

Darren, I wondering, how long have you loved words? Because I know Mark is a word aholic. It seems like the language and the words has always, has that always been part of you Peter?

Yeah, well, it has Darren, to be honest. And I've got no sort of qualification to prove it and I'm not, I'm not a great reader. People do say to me you must read books, you know, as though they're going out of fashion. And actually to my shame, I don't. I'm not especially well read and I wish I was. I probably spend too much time watching sport. But from a very, very early age I did always love words and my teachers used to say it of me. And listen, let's be clear, that has sometimes been to my detriment. I've been too wordy, too flowery and I guess there'd be people who would say that sometimes I still am and I would plead guilty to that. I remember having a very strict English teacher once in my teenage years who said I've just read it, you know, a full, a four page of your writing and you know it's full of words but it said nothing and that's absolutely fair. And I used to try and use it as an excuse for getting around the lack of knowledge. And you know, as a teenager you think you can, you, you can fool people and you can't. You think you know everything and you know nothing. And you know, I used to write a history essay and the first without knowing any of the facts and think that if I could write three pages I'd get a B. And of course I got to the end and you know, the teacher said, well you haven't told me anything here. And so the words, words can be very, very empty if you, if you don't choose them nicely. And I'm being long winded around answering your question, but the simple answer is yes, words have been a part of me for forever. But for better and worse.

Well, hopefully you're not full of words, full of so called Shakespeare words, full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Darren Linda's comment.

Linda Marie Clanging cymbals.

Linda Marie, a friend of ours says can you please write a book for speakers entitled A Book of Handy words to add excitement to your speaking.

I wish someone else would write it and give it to me.

There you go. You have in your preparation just watching that clip and I know that's an extraordinary opportunity. However, you still had to prepare for that. You still had to the Roman Roma.

Like I can't even rise from the ruins. Roma has risen from their ruins. Sorry, go ahead. I know this. It's okay. Big fan.

Do you have technique? A way that you prepare a certain amount of time, a certain way. You look at, okay, this city's playing this city. What do you come up with for your keywords?

Well, honestly, that one I really didn't prepare because, as I said to you before, that was a match where what happened was impossible. And so it wasn't worth preparing. And so I guess I grasped at some fairly superficial knowledge that was in there somewhere. As I say, you know, the guy scored the goal. And to start with, I wasn't even sure who scored the goal. When I worked out who it was, it was clear he was Greek. You know, what did I know about him? He was Greek. And of course, you know, the two great sort of ancient cultures are Greek and Roman. And that's kind of all I had to go at. So I went at it. And by the way, you know, you played that clip that lasts maybe 90 seconds. That has utterly exhausted my complete knowledge of Greek and Roman culture. That's all there was. Don't ask me question two.

But notice, though, what impressed me there. Peter, it is probably the most popular clip in the world. You've ever done in the last. In your career. You've been here 30 years doing this. It is probably the most popular clip in the world. But when you think of Manolas, the Greek God in Rome, you know, who was ascending from the seven hills and pulled up a miracle. Just the way you pull in the culture, you tie it all together and it just seems to have flowed from it, just flow from your lips. How do you even rehearse that? It's a rhetorical question, but.

Well, you don't, Mark, you don't. And again, I would say too, and this is not any sort of false modesty, I was helped along the way. If you watch those clips back and turn the sound down, you'll see that there are a sequence of pictures which I followed. Ah, you know, so all of the stuff, yeah, obviously they didn't necessarily lend themselves to the Greek and Roman thing that I fell upon. And so. So that was just something that came off the top of my head. But all of the. What was it? Defrancesco, doesn't know where to go, Iniesta doesn't know where to look. All of that sort of stuff, that was just a sequence of pictures. And by the way, I had no communication with the director. I was literally following the pictures as they came up, but I was in a flow and I had a, a momentum and mercifully it came together. And I would say to you, and again, this is not false modesty, this is just realism that happens one in a million. You know, if, if I describe 100 goals, three or four of them, I mean, not many would be on the scale that this one has happily been for me, but three or four of them, I might come away. So I'm really happy with that one. That's a good, you know, that's gone together and, and I'm happy with the words five or six of them. I, you know, when I get back in the car after the game, I'm thinking, oh, that wasn't up to much. I could have done that better. I wish all of that sort of thing. And the other 90 are just another goal. You know, they're just another goal. And so it's, it's really important to understand that, that when you hit some sort of utopia, as maybe occurred that night, that doesn't turn you into a. Some linguistic genius forever. It was just the day the planets aligned or whatever, or I was blessed in some sense. So it's lovely to reflect on that. And I'm not denying myself it, but that was a day when it just fell into my lap and I was lucky to be in the right state of mind. And I'm sure this does play also into everything that you're doing. And I really appreciate that what you're doing is helping people to speak better publicly. And I do think that preparation is absolutely key. But preparation doesn't necessarily involve writing down the best lines or anything like it. If I was prepared for that moment in Rome, it was because I had a full grasp just through instinct and being around it. I had a full grasp of the meaning of the night and of the meaning of the moment and of, of the context. And that. That was instinctive. It wasn't, it wasn't something that I needed to write down or, or, or especially concern myself with. I suppose if I was going to flatter myself at all, I would say I was on top of my subject, kind of whatever occurred within the context of my public speaking that night, I was in a position to deal with it. So if, if I was going to give myself any sort of a big tick, it would be that, I suppose I was in a comfortable space where whatever happened, it would be okay. And I suppose you would agree that when you're speaking to an audience of any size in any environment, that's a, That's A useful place to be.

You did say you were in a flow. How do you get yourself in a flow? You're doing these games, two, three a week. How you get into a state of flow and be up for the moment. I believe every presenter needs to understand this.

Yeah, that's interesting because again, like everybody, you have days when you. When you feel as though you're in really good, bright form and days when you don't actually, you know, again, this is like being a sports person, you know, that they don't always play the game of their lives. Even the greatest have, you know, days when it just doesn't work. You know, again, you would say this about public speaking. Timing really matters. The timing, the timing of a sentence, the timing of a word, that the moment you take the breath. And a lot of it is quite. And again, I'm in danger of getting overly pretentious here because I don't necessarily aim for this, but a lot of it is quite musical, isn't it, that sort of timbre of a sentence, or the way the words fall and so on, you know, and when your timing is in. Again, I'm on dangerous territory when I get to American sport, but I guess when you wield the baseball bat, there are days when you see the ball coming and it's big and large and you, your timing is great and you belt it 100 miles. And there are days when, even if you're the greatest in the world, you just don't connect. And it's the same, I think, with what we do. And so I can start a football match and I can think, oh, I'm sluggish today, I'm sluggish today. And in the back of my mind I hear myself saying, I hope they don't score yet, because I'm not ready for a moment. And then hopefully you warm up as the day progresses. So that ideally, if there is a big sort of climactic moment, you're ready for it when it comes. But by the way, the danger in my business, and it may be in yours, is that if you get a slightly dull day, if nothing happens and nothing happens and nothing happens and you reach half time, there's not been a goal, there's not been a moment and you can fall into a kind of semi slumber and then bosh, right at the end, something happens and it catches you out and you're a bit dozy about it and you don't deal with it in the way you want to. And I, I suppose if you're speaking at Some great gathering of the great and good. And you've been sat there for four hours thinking, oh, this guy's dull. And it's going to be, it's going to be my turn in a minute. The same sort of dangerous thing might come. So there's a lesson there to try and be switched on all of the time. But that's a utopia.

And do you have a process when you know, games coming up? Do you have a process of. What's the Peter Preparation process?

Ooh, alliteration. Darren, I'm impressed.

I think, well, listen, the kind of what I call the nuts and bolts preparation is six or eight hours at a desk just doing all of the statistical stuff. So that's, that is stuff that you just need to do. Those are the basic building blocks. And then I do try to afford myself an hour or two for what I've referred to as the set pieces to make sure that, that I get those right. Because as I say, I don't think there's much excuse for getting those wrong. Those should be a given. But then the day of the game is really important to make sure that your head's in the right place. And the most important, this doesn't really refer to what, what you're dealing with, but the most important thing in sports commentary is to know who they all are. You know, to know, to be able to identify. So actually, the hour before the game kicks off, when they're out on the field warming up, I have my binoculars and look at them all and make sure I know which color boots they're wearing so that I can identify two similar goals, guys, one from the other, and all of that sort of stuff. And the last hour of, of kind of getting into the zone, being absolutely ready and, and comfortable. It's about, I think, making yourself comfortable. You, you, you know, be in a position where you think there's nothing that you can't deal with. And if it's very rare that you reach that point because ultimately what are nerves? Nerves are the supposition that it might go wrong. And we all feel nerves and we're all to some extent driven by fear of failure, you know, by, by the prospect that it could go wrong. But if you can get that under control and then find yourself that sort of comfort bubble of preparedness, that, not this, that, that inner knowledge that I know as much about this subject as I reasonably can, and it's likely that I know more than most of my audience because it's my job to. So I should. Sure, then then that is a position of comfort which gives you your best chance to relax, and relaxation gives you your best chance to do it. Well, I think.

Wow. Go ahead, Darren. I'm just going to ask questions.

Question on. You talked about getting in your headspace and then that one hour before. One of the things we teach speakers is don't eat. Don't eat anything at like an hour before unless it's water tea to warm your throat. But if your body is processing food, that's gonna zap your energy when it's game time. So what does Peter do to kind of get yourself in the physical and mental states?

I failed the exam already, Darren. I'm afraid I eat sweets.

Hey, if it works, apparently it's working.

So energy, no energy. You get energy for sweet. But me bouncing off the wall.

I take your point. I guess I. I think your advice would be very good to someone maybe who's especially who's new to public speaking, because we all do know what it's like to have a stomach that's churning through nerves and terror and. And so on. Having a heavy pie in your. In your stomach when it's churning probably isn't the best thing to do. I take that. Equally, I would say, and maybe again, we differ here, because I basically, once I'm sat on the television gantry at a major stadium, that's me stuck for two hours. So the worst thing that can happen to me is that I suddenly feel hungry halfway through the second half and I wow, I'm lacking energy and I. I need to make sure I can top up because I panic if I get to that stage and there's 25 minutes of the game still to play and I can feel my stomach rumbling and I can feel myself weakening. I hate that. So if anything, I probably slightly overeat before a game because I'm. I'm worried. And I would also say, without wanting to go too far down this road, that once I'm on the gantry, I can't get away to do what we all have to do once in a while. And so you don't want to fill up with too many cups of tea.

Just enough to warm you through. Well, Peter, if you permit me, I'm going to do something we have never, ever done on a podcast before. You said earlier there are only so many additives you can use to describe a play. So for the first time anytime in the last three years, we're going to play a game with. Peter is our only contestant. And here's the name of the game, the Name of the game is adjective alternatives.

Oh, wow.

It's adjectives alternatives. So I'm going to give you a phrase and give me a Peter Drew rendition of a similar phrase from a, from, from a football game context. Oh, that was a good pass.

Oh, what a beautiful delivery.

Ah, okay. Excellent. That was a really poor referee decision.

I'm not sure he's got that one right.

Excellent, good. And by the way, you can use nouns, phrases or other adjectives. Okay, that was solid defending.

That's a fantastically robust challenge.

Robust, I love that.

Okay.

Oh, what a bad goalkeeping error. Ah, give me a noun. Give me a noun for this one. Give me a noun. What's a bad. Go keep. What do you call that?

You see, I'm, I'm only prevaricating here, Mark, because I, I. One of the things I was also taught was not to use a word that you would use in a real context. So I might have been, I might have been tempted to say, that's a catastrophe. But, okay, then there would be people who would say to me, a catastrophe is a landslide that kills 20 people. You know, and it's really interesting, the language of sport so often borders because it's, it's a word of. It's, it's a, it's an area of hyperbole. And so if I say that's a disaster. Well, sorry, no. A disaster, I'm afraid, is a guy with a gun in a Californian primary school. That's a disaster. That's a catastrophe. And so you've got to be really careful. And actually, we talk about people, don't we? We talk about people shooting. We talk about them going into battle. We talk about them and understand that for most people that's fine because they understand there is a clear distinction between sporting language and the language, if you like, of the real world. The words are the same, but the difference is clear. But there are people out there who you have to be wary of and who you have to respect, you know, because people who have seen what a real disaster is, what a real war is. Yeah, I find those words difficult. So actually, a goalkeeper letting the ball through his legs for a terrible goal, I tend to. Having now bought myself a minute to answer your question. That was brilliant.

Brilliant. Love that.

I tend to, in those moments, rather than say, that's terrible for the goalkeeper, I tend to find the humanity in the moment and say, poor guy, poor guy. What an awful moment for the goalkeeper. I tend to think of his mother.

Really?

Yeah. How is she feeling now? You know he didn't do it on purpose. And it's not really a disaster. It's a goal at a game. You know, we're playing a game here. And so I tend to, to get away from the terribleness of the moment.

Okay.

Partly because I'm an old softie and I don't like, I just think, I, I think, poor guy, poor guy. And I say, oh, what an awful moment. He wants to, he wants the ground to open up and swallow him.

There you go. That's it.

Yeah, yeah.

I've heard people say that's a howler before. Okay, come on, real quickly. That was a subpar performance.

Ah, they may feel they've let themselves down here.

Very good, very good. Okay. It's a smart play, smart play.

Oh, there's lots for that. Those little one liners to sort of. That's sweet, you know that? Yeah. Oh, tasty. I like. Delicious. You know that?

Sort of like that. Now see, I don't know any Americans. That was. I've heard you say that's a delicious ball. And I think you mentioned somebody had a powerful strike last week and you call it a bullet and a half or something. You didn't say bullet, but it was like a thunderbolt and a half. He added a half to it. Like, wow, that was a great strike. Okay. He played, he played that ball nicely.

Yeah. Oh, that is a sublime connection.

You think of this, the deft touch with panache. A sublime connection. I mean, and they seem to flow from your lips almost spontaneously. Can we practice finding additive alternatives?

I think so. Because honestly, again, I don't want to sound as though I'm bigger myself up, but I think it is, I think it is only practice. It is only practice and doing game after game after game or speech after speech after speech. And in my case, genuinely, I, I do it because otherwise I become bored with myself. I get bored anyway. The sound of my own voice. I don't particularly enjoy hearing myself back because I'm bored of me. And to alleviate the boredom of myself, I need to say something different. And you know, there are certain. Obviously a goal is a moment is the moment. Those are the moments that are remembered. But there are, there are functional moments within a football match, hundreds of them, where the defender just kicks the ball away. There are only so many ways of articulating. He's cleared it, it's gone, he's got rid of it, you know, and, and, and I'm not pretending that I succeed every week, or indeed any given week in necessarily finding a new Way to say it, but when I do, mentally I think, oh, that was nice. I've said something different for a change.

Well, here's my last. I'm going to let Darren take over, but here's my last question for you and to those who are watching and listening. This speaks to a lesson Darren taught based upon a line. There's no such thing as a practice speech. Here's a context. It is Barcelona against Roma in 2018 and in the UK, Liverpool and Man City is a bigger game. And the concept of showing up big. I heard you say in an interview that you didn't think anybody was listening, but you still came up and gave it everything you had in the moment. You didn't think it was going to be a big deal. Here's a lesson that I learned from you. The concept is show up big every time and give 100%. What do you say to our speakers who are been done the same talk over and over again for the last eight years? What would you say to them as advice with that concept in mind?

Do you know what, Mark? I learned the same lesson that night.

Tell us about it.

Yeah, because there would have been a temptation, if you like, to bring my B game because that's how it felt actually going to that game. But I was going to the B game and I got lucky that night. We don't need to go into all that again. But. And it showed me that anything can happen anytime, you know, and wouldn't you regret it if you had a night when suddenly when you thought you were the sideshow, you had the opportunity to be right in the heart of the big time and you let it slip away. And I think that is a really good moment. And those of us who broadcast sport, we all have those nights or those days. And I'm sure many of your speakers can identify this. When you think, I've not got the big gig tonight, someone else, and maybe there's a little bit of professional jealousy, maybe, you know, maybe you're, you're just not feeling great about it. But in sport we say you don't know where the story is going to be today. You don't know. You don't know that it's not going to happen on your patch. It might seem improbable, there might be a 3% chance in the morning that by the evening it's happened for you, but that that chance does exist and you would really regret it if you weren't ready.

And real quickly, my last comment is this. I hope we all catch this, Peter Said, I'm going to do the B game. I'm going to be okay. And two minutes of that B game has become the most recognized bit of commentary in the world. Which means for you and me, as Darren says, there's no such thing as a practice speech. Give 100% every time. Show up big Darren. Thank you, Peter.

And as we start winding it down, Peter, how do you pick yourself up after you, let's say, had a bad game? Because speakers have bad speeches and we look at you as the legend and we're like the legend. He never messes up.

I do, Darren, and you're right to, you're right. And actually, funnily enough, this is, this is one that comes with years as well. You know, not so long ago I could really beat myself up and feel miserable for days and days if I got something wrong or I felt I was being criticized. Criticized fairly or unfairly, and both occur, by the way. You know, you've got to be able to accept that people will criticize you and they might be right. And when you're young, you tend to be defensive and say, how dare they say that about me? Because you're trying to make your way. And actually I reflect now on some of the criticism I've received and they're absolutely right. So I would say be prepared, take on the fair criticism, but be prepared to be robust in the face of unfair criticism. Because it's unfair, you know, you know when you've delivered and it's fine, but equally, you know when you maybe haven't. And I think it's good to be self critical. It's good to listen to the people you trust. Don't listen to the noise. Forget the noise. Listen to the people you trust and let them tell you. And don't be too hard on yourself. We're human. We are human. And we get it wrong. All of us get it wrong. You know, Tom Brady gets it wrong, Lionel Messi gets it wrong. They all get it wrong. They lose the ball, they get sacked, they, you know, and if you are doing something live, if you are doing something where there is no take two, then once in a while you're going to get it wrong. And if you are going to speak publicly, scripted or unscripted, for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour, an hour, two hours, somewhere in the middle of that hour you're going to say something that you wish you hadn't. You're going to stumble over something you'll get, you know that's going to happen and there's no point being cruel to yourself about that. It's just a part of the human condition. And that's it, really. That's it. You were brave enough to be the one who stood up and, you know, so be proud of that. Yeah.

And my final question, as Mark starts gathering his notes, just to recap the wisdom you've dropped here, I'm going to bring it back to your world. I appreciate you being with us and helping inspire from a different perspective. Love that you're a wordsmith again. It's been beautiful watching Mark out of his mind this week with excitement to have you here. Amen, says Andrea, his wife.

Yeah, she knows. She knows how crazy I am about Peter Drew. I'm a big fan, Peter. I'm a big fan. So.

So let's say, Peter, someone new to your industry who wants to be a legendary broadcaster, sits down with you to have coffee. What advice would you give them?

It's. First of all, if they wanted to be a legendary broadcaster, I would say don't do it, because I think if you set out to do it just because you want to be well known, you're missing the point. Honestly. And insofar as I have some sort of D list notoriety, I would say that is. That's the aspect of my job that I enjoy the least. I much prefer anonymity. And if you just want to be well known for the sake of it, fame for fame's sake is no fun. And ignore it. Remain yourself, humble, authentic, and do it because you love the sport and you love the words. Honestly, honestly. Don't we live in an age of kind of plastic fame, of reality television and all of this thing where young people, I'm afraid, are. Are lured into fame for fame's sake? And I really find it so unhealthy. So do the job because you want to love doing the job. Be authentic. Don't do it because you're pretending to be somebody else or you're following in somebody's footsteps. Do it for your. For your own good reasons. But setting out to be a legend, whatever that is, is a setting out on a journey that almost nobody ever reaches the end of is setting yourself up for disappointment. And I really don't want that to be a negative message. The positivity of the message is that just enjoy it because it's a wonderful thing to do.

You know, Peter, really quickly, that reminds us, we have speakers who enter the Toastmasters Peace Contest every year. They want to be the world champion. We have people who send us emails. I will be the next world champion and their focus is on that trophy which we were blessed enough to win a gazillion years ago. But we always tell them deliver your message to the audience and let the trophy follow. So I really appreciate your advice. Darren.

Bam.

And Peter, how would people find you? I know you said early on you're not into social media. Do you have a website, anything or.

No, don't do any of that stuff.

Good for you.

Yeah, I really don't. I consider myself very lucky that I managed to get established before social media hit the world. I won't bore you, I won't preach on my feelings on social media because this is not least because it's an argument of all I've already lost. I understand that and I also understand that social media has an important part in the world these days. So you just have to accept that I'm a dinosaur.

Well, I am thankful that I got hold of you through some other means and I count myself blessed beyond measure for this time we have spent. Darren.

So Mark Brown, what do we have for keepers?

Jesus. So much he talked about chasing your dream. If you really believe in it. He said you must love the words you use. A speech is not well delivered if it sounds too well written. You do your best work when you are relaxed and there is no excuse for not being prepared. You just need to do your preparation. Anticipate set pieces for successful auditory language opportunities. Preparation is the key and get a full grasp of the context and the meaning of the moment. I like this. Stay on top of your subject, do the research. Remember timing matters because speaking can be musical. Be honest. There are days you don't connect but state of mind always matters. Know your audience and your playing field and be very careful and respective respectful with the language that you use. Practice, practice, practice because you don't know what's going to happen. Be prepared to face criticism and be self critical. But listen to the people you trust and do it because you love it. Darren, you got a few yourself.

You nailed it, Peter. Any final thoughts for our listeners? Thank you so much.

I've learned a lot from this so I thank you you two, honestly what an interesting conversation and I'm very lucky that a guy I all I do is shout footballers names. I get invited onto a cerebral podcast like this that talks about really important stuff. So I consider myself immensely blessed as well. So thank you very much.

Well I am thankful to you Peter drury, rated by 90 men as the best football commentator of all time. Honored to make your acquaintance and I thank you for serving us. Darren, take us home.

All right, well, hey, thanks again for being here. Join us next week. We, we never know who's going to show up. Mark Brown, thank you for reaching out and it was great to see you like a high school kid all excited. It was beautiful. So, Peter, sincerely, thank you for your time. Thank you for doing what you do and being great at what you do and seriously being an inspiration for all sorts of. Even Andrea Brown says, well done, my bride.

Thank you.

All right, thank you guys. Really enjoyed it. Thank you.

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