Peter Brackley the Voice of Football’s Alternative Side.

Posted on by Owen Ellicott

Image Credit [Joe]

Former football commentator, and lifelong Brighton & Hove Albion fan, Peter Brackley died in hospital on the 14th of October, following struggles with illness, aged 67.

Peter Brackley cut his teeth at BBC Radio Brighton during the 70s, before switching to ITV in 1982. At ITV he helped commentate on a four World Cup finals, two Euros finals, and thankfully due to communications issues with Brian Moore and Kevin Keegan in Seville he would commentate on the 1986 European Cup final. However, where Peter Brackley is best known is for his superb, and joyful commentary on Channel 4’s Football Italia and Konami’s computerised football game Pro Evolution Soccer.

Footballers and commentators alike have been showing their gratitude to what he gave the game, Steven Wilson (Match of the Day commentator) describes him as “the voice of Italian football.”

Football Italia and Pro Evolution Soccer had something in common in that they were the alternative to the mainstream, BBC’s Match of the Day and EA’s FIFA, both were watched and played by a subculture of football fans. They were also both were touched by the playful commentary of Peter Brackley. To be part of the counterculture you must offer something different; Football Italia represented a less serious side of football where spats in the Serie A were joked about, not dramatised like the Mourinho dispute. Pro Evolution Soccer, on the other hand, could never afford the same rights which FIFA could grasp, so they developed a game which followed in with their Japanese heritage of making a game which was a lot more arcade-like. That is not to say either of these are better or worse than their mainstream counterparts, more that to have a market they have to offer the consumer something different. Brackley fitted the role of commentator for these two perfectly, he spoke like he was sitting next to you, and would give a cadence to a goal scoring opportunity which could tiptoe anyone to the edge of their seat.

Football Italia was dropped by Channel 4 in 2002, with the Calciopoli scandal tarnishing the league four years later ending the Serie A renaissance, with some perceiving it never to have returned. Peter Brackley also left Pro Evolution Soccer in 2007, at the advent of next generation consoles, since then the gap in sales between FIFA and PES has grown from 180,000 to 15.37 million. Obviously, the effect of a commentator on the quality of a football match or of a computer game is negligible, but he was the one who gave them both a voice when they were originally outsiders. Footballers and commentators alike have been showing their gratitude to what he gave the game, Steven Wilson (Match of the Day commentator) describes him as “the voice of Italian football.”

Brackley spent his later years working within the Brighton and Hove Albion community, his beloved team. He would write for The Argus, Albion’s paper till he died. He also helped run a theatre production at the club ‘The Goldstone Days 20 Years On!’, where profits went to the AITC foundation a charity set to help those overcome with debt.

Football will sorely miss his good natured enthusiasm he brought the game.