UCFB student gains lead commentary role at Football League club Wycombe Wanderers

A UCFB sports media student, still in the middle of his studies, has already landed a role commentating with a Football League club.

Charlie Goff, who studies BA (Hons) Multimedia Sports Journalism, is working as a lead commentator with Wycombe Wanderers away from his lectures.

Despite the fact that Charlie is in his second year, he already has plenty of experience in the field of commentary, working as a co-commentator for BBC Three Counties during his first year at UCFB.

Then, only a week before the start of the 2025-26 EFL League One season, he became the lead commentator for Wycombe sound, following Wycombe Wanderers home and away.

“I was more than happy to do it,” he said, “It was just more about trying to get the experience this year. It’s not going to be perfect, I know that. I know I’m still learning.

“The last few years have been a really good learning curve, especially learning off a co-commentator and being a co-commentator first and learning off individuals that have had plenty of experience in that, and then learning off them to then become a lead commentator. I knew it was going to be a little bit of a different scenario.”

He added: “You have to do more talking, you have to do a lot more research as well. But no, I think I’ve stepped up pretty well and I’m really enjoying it so far this year. And yeah, it’s a different angle to go at, but no, I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, to be honest with you.”

He then went on to talk about what the experience consists of, working as a commentator when he isn’t studying his BA (Hons) Multimedia Sports Journalism degree.

“It starts really the day before,” he said, “a few days before in terms of making notes, researching other teams, going on various different apps, looking at stats, looking at figures of players, top goal scorer.

“And even when I do my commentary notes now, I’m making notes now, even though you know sort of various stats and bits and pieces, you do still need to do a little bit of research on Wycombe but various other teams it’s difficult to find out various different stats about certain players. It’s a lot of detail.

“Then coming into the actual game day itself, I get here an hour and a half before, get the team news and then write down the changes, how many changes have been made, and then onto the game really.

I’ll do 10 minutes before the game, just describing the atmosphere what’s happening around the ground and what it was like coming in, and then once you’re underway, the game goes really quickly. I mean, you don’t even have time to think about these things happening; you’re describing the crowd, you’re describing managers’ reactions as well, and once it gets underway, then fingers crossed it’ll be a good game.”

He finished: “One piece of advice that I’d give for anyone that wants to have a career in commentary is just go into a club and start with interviewing fans, interviewing players, even if they have a local radio station.

“Just start at that level and then you soon build your confidence talking behind a microphone.

“You soon build the confidence and then you just take that that confidence and then just keep putting yourself out there and eventually you will get noticed.”

UCFB has many sports media-related degree courses, as well as degrees focusing on fields such as sports business and sports coaching. Find out more about them and take the first step towards your dream career in the industry.