Ian Darke

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Ian Darke is an English football and boxing commentator. Darke is one of Sky's 'Big Four' football commentators alongside Martin Tyler, Alan Parry and Rob Hawthorne. He is also the main commentator for Sky's big boxing matches. Darke worked for nearly ten years on BBC radio covering boxing, athletics and football, before moving to Sky Sports in 1992 to commentate on the newly-formed FA Premier League. He was the number two to lead commentator Martin Tyler and was the main commentator for Monday Night Football. His excitable style of commentary perfectly matched Sky's dramatic broadcasting of the new Premier League.

In 1995, as Sky's boxing coverage expanded greatly (to the point where the sport virtually disappeared from terrestrial screens), Darke swtiched permanently to be their main boxing commentator, his role on Monday Night Football being taken by Rob Hawthorne.

Nearly ten years later, with boxing promoter Frank Warren taking his fighters to ITV, Sky's boxing output was significantly reduced, freeing up Darke for a return to 'live' football (although he had commentated on matches for an international audience, and had been heard on Sky covering some Champions League matches). This coincided with Sky's new policy of rotating their main commentators. Previously, Martin Tyler covered all the 'big' matches; now, Darke was given matches such as Arsenal v Manchester Utd and the Champions League semi-final between Chelsea and Liverpool.

In recent times, Tyler has regained his undisputed number one spot, but the continued rotation still gives opportunitites for other commentators and Darke has enjoyed a prolific season with commentaries from the Premiership, Champions League and Football League, as well as maintaining his boxing commitments.

From the start of the 2007-2008 season, fledgling sports broadcaster Setanta started broadcasting live coverage of 46 Premiership games in addition to existing SPL rights - and from 2008 will commence a four-year partnership with ITV covering the FA Cup and England matches. This naturally led to much speculation regarding which commentators Setanta will try and sign up, with Darke's name prominent among the names mentioned. However Setanta signed up ITV commentator Jon Champion, putting an end to any uncertainty over Darke's position. In addition, Darke enjoyed a strong end to the 2006-07 season, commentating live on both the League Two and League One Play-Off Finals, suggesting he is still a key figure on Sky Sports. Darke does commentate on live Premier League games for TWI and the Premier League itself, meaning that his work can be heard in places like Singapore and Australia every weekend.

Darke is a fan of Portsmouth F.C. and writes a weekly column in Portsmouth's local paper The News entitled The Darke Side.