Jon Champion

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Jon Champion (born 23 May 1965 in Harrogate, England) is a freelance television commentator who works for ITV Sport and Setanta Sports. His late father David Champion was the deputy headmaster of the independent school Bootham School, York.

[edit] Career

Jon Champion began his career as a commentator and reporter for BBC Radio York, moving to BBC Radio Leeds in 1988 and then on to BBC Radio 2 network sport. In the early 90's he joined BBC Radio 5 Live as a part of their football commentary team working alongside the likes of Mike Ingham and Alan Green, and fronting his own radio programme, Champion Sport.

In 1995, while the BBC's John Motson was taking a sabbatical, Champion made his commentary debut on television for Match of the Day, commentating on Coventry v Nottingham Forest in the Premiership. The following year, he made the switch permanently, and became a part of BBC TV's football team. As well as regularly covering the Premiership and FA Cup for the network, Champion also commentated on the World Cup in 1998 - where, among other things, he was trusted as the BBC's commentator for Argentina v England - and Euro 2000.

In 2001, the TV rights for Premier League highlights changed hands moving to ITV, and Champion made the switch too. Additionally, he led ITV's Carling Cup coverage. He has also commentated on many matches across the Premiership, Football League, and UEFA Champions League, and is one of the lead commentators for TWI's international feed of Premier League matches, along with Alan Parry and Martin Tyler. In addition, he was part of the ITV team for the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, and Euro 2004, where he again had the privilege of commentating on one of England's matches at the tournament. In 2006 Champion covered his third World Cup as a television commentator and his second with ITV. Champion was the commentator for two of England's five matches at the tournament, including their quarter-final defeat to Portugal.

However despite covering England, it was a largely disappointing tournament personally for Champion who was given only a handful of live games, largely unattractive ones, with colleagues Clive Tyldesley and Peter Drury picking up the lions share of matches. It seemed clear that Champion was still very much third-choice behind the top two at ITV, leading to rumours that he might leave for pastures new. Indeed, Champion did not renew his contract with ITV after the World Cup and turned freelance. Whilst he remained an ITV commentator, this freed Jon up to also commentate on a number of UEFA Cup matches for five.

Despite this, Champion remains an integral member of ITV's commentary team and, at the climax of the 2006-2007 season, he was the highlights commentator for ITV's coverage of both the Carling Cup Final and the Championship Play-Off Final, dispelling any doubts that ITV were not interested in keeping him.

A big development in Jon's career as a commentator occurred during the summer of 2007 when Setanta Sports announced that they had signed up Champion to commentate for them on a non-exclusive basis. Splitting his time between ITV and Setanta, Champion continued to work on the Champions League, UEFA Cup and Football League with ITV, but now had an equal share of Setanta's 46 live Premier League games with Ian Crocker. On Saturday 11 August 2007, Champion was in the commentary box with co-commentator Craig Burley for Setanta's first ever live Premier League match - Aston Villa versus Liverpool.

Champion recently worked with Japanese entertainment company Konami, recording commentary samples for the video game Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 alongside BBC pundit Mark Lawrenson.

Champion has always been an all-round sports broadcaster having commentated on Test Match Special, Rugby League and Swimming during his time with BBC radio and so it was no surprise when he expanded his portfolio further by being an integral part of ITV's coverage of the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France. Sky's Miles Harrison led ITV's commentary team, but Champion was used all the way through the tournament, commentating on both the semi-final between South Africa and Argentina and the 3rd-place play-off between Argentina and France.

Despite being underrated by some, including his ITV bosses, Champion is arguably one of the best football commentators on television at the present time. Eloquent and with a distinctive commentating voice, Champion sticks to the great commentary tradition of impartiality (although some of his recent Setanta commentaries alongside Craig Burley have led many Arsenal fans to believe that he is biased against them, delighting in any goals they concede and accusing them and only them of being guilty in any on-field melee, regardless of the involvement of the opposition.) Champion avoids some of the excesses of his contemporaries. He is a fan of York City, whom he still visits to support.

Jon lives near Oxford with his wife and four children.

In 2007 a song was released containing the lyrics 'Jon Champion is the original Rainman.'

[edit] Amusing Quotes

A regular figure in Private Eye's Colemanballs, below are a few memorable lines :

"A full-blooded encounter for a number of reasons, many of them illegitimate."
"They seem to be in total, if not complete control"
"Victor Hernandez, like an orchestral conductor directing his troops..."
"Two late goals, both in the last twenty minutes..."
"There’s 30 minutes gone and we’re in the first quarter of the game."
" Given away by Carvalho...... here's rooney, it's a horrible error from the Portugeuse!!!"

As a commentator :

Match Intro - Arsenal vs. Man Utd (Jan 2007) "Meetings between these clubs are never dull, they are often momentous. League championships have been won... tempers have been lost... pizzas have been thrown."

Chlesea Man Utd Rooney goal: *" Given away by Carvalho...... here's rooney, off the horrible error by the Portugeuse!!!!"