By James Paterson and Lorcan Read

One of the most famous Premier league commentators of all time, instantly recognisable by his legendary soundbites such as ‘AGUEROOOOO’ and ‘HE’S DONE IT’, a stalwart commentator on Sky for over 30 years, and, for many in our generation, the voice of FIFA, the 1509 had the absolute pleasure of interviewing OG 1964 Martin Tyler in recent weeks. 

We started the interview talking about his experiences within the school, and a particularly notable one involving a back injury and English A level.

Q. what was your most memorable classroom moment or teacher?

A.  I’ve got to go deeply into the recesses of my memory! I remember Mr Mallison, from whom the library is named, when I got a B in my English A level, which was above the expectation. It wasn’t littered with As in those days. It was a very democratic system for a state school, which it was at the time, he [Mr Mallison] said to me you must have worked really hard. The story I didn’t tell him, which I’ll tell you, is that I did a reset exam. Having played football on the Saturday, I had damaged my back, and I was on painkillers, and the invigilator knew this, and I was allowed to put on my form about the painkillers. And I have to tell you, I had no pain. We will never know if that little PS at the bottom got me that B. But he [Mr Mallison] was a lovely man, and I was more pleased that I pleased him than I pleased myself. That would be one real memory.

Q. What did you think of the teachers, and who were some of your favourite teachers?

A. I had a lot of respect for them, there were a lot of post-war ranks for them. We had captain Bishop, who taught me French, we had Lieutenant Colonel Burns, and Lieutenant Colonel Bowie, who was a deputy head. I came at 56, 11 years after the war ended, and that went through into the CCF, which I didn’t enjoy, I enjoyed the scouts. As soon as I could get out of that though, I became a librarian, which was the third thing. I enjoyed reading books, and this gave me a connection to reading and writing.

Mr Tyler also spoke a little bit about the Houses and House system within our school, and how its changed. He was in Austen House (to the surprise and happiness of Lorcan, a member of the mustard coloured House)

Q. What house were you in?

A: Austen, we had a chant for this actually. Austen house Austen house, that’s the house for me, house four is far superior to one or two or three, [Hamonde], Nettles, Beckingham all think they’re mighty fine, but best of all is Austen house ‘cos Austen house is mine. They were only four houses, Hamonde, Nettles and Beckingham. Captain Bishop came up with that I’m fairly sure as he was the housemaster.

Hopefully Mr Fishpool will read this article and use the Austen House chant for future Austen events!

One of the most supported and popular clubs in the local area is Woking football club, who currently sit In the Vanarama national League, the top non-league football division. Mr Tyler was assistant manager at the club between 2018 and 2022, and remains involved with the club. He speaks to us fondly about the club he has supported during his time at the RGS, and its local rivalry with Guildford City club.

Q. What sports did you play for school?

A. I was told I had to play rugby for school, because school had like 4 or 5 rugby teams at every age group, so you know the fourth 15 need me and I was told I had to play, and I said no. I went to watch Woking that was my Saturday afternoon, I was a Woking fan, everyone here was Guildford City, of course they don’t exist now in the form they existed then. They were a proper professional team, [they played at] Joseph’s road down by the cricket ground. There’s still a bar called the Guildford City Supporters club I think. Woking never was the biggest club, everybody supported Guildford City and there was 4 or 5 of my friends, we went to Woking all the time, and I had to fight my battles, not literally but verbally. Its lovely to know that people are supporting Woking now. I’m going now, I help out with the academy.

Of course, a topic everyone is going to want to hear from Mr Tyler is football. As it turns out, his career at school was somewhat legendary, and the old traditions of playing football during breaktimes in whatever area was available seem to stretch back generations.

Q: Did you play football for school at all?

A: There wasn’t any football, they took that away from me. My son did, he captained the school actually because he played, it wasn’t much it wasn’t very good. I was thinking this school, it’s a lovely school, but without football it’s rubbish.

About football during breaktime and lunchtime: I have to tell you the story, one year and I can’t remember which but I’ve got it somewhere in my house, I kept a record of it, on top court, (where the staff car park next to the art department now is), there used to be a goal chalked on the wall on the back of the chemistry lab, and then there was a goal with just cones where the slope was. In one season I scored 1012 goals, and I wore through five pairs of shoes I think because we didn’t change we played in our school shoes. I was sent home with a cut eye because I wore glasses, so I’ve probably got a scar or two from that. But [the goal was] to get to 500 [goals] by Christmas, because we played, this is about school dinners as well, we played at break, and then because I didn’t go to school dinners after the first term because they were awful, I brought sandwiches. So you could play the first games at school at lunchtime, and then that lot went off to have their lunch and then the ones who had their lunch came back so I just stayed and I played all the games. And then I did go on to play up front in senior football after that so that was something in me, that more than commentating. I got to the last day before we broke up before Christmas and I was on 998, so I had to go and round up players to play because they want to go home. I said “We’ve got to play”, and so we got a game, and I got a penalty to get the thousand, and I said we can go home now! So terribly selfish, and second term I got 512 so that’s alright. A lot of the goals were [scored with] a tennis ball, and the goalkeeper would throw it and I’d just back head it into the chemistry lab. But I never played football for school, because there were no teams. We started our own team on a Sunday, which we couldn’t call the school team but we sort of did just to get the fixtures, and we had one or two good players.

Continuing with the football theme, something which Mr Tyler is most recognisable for is his work in FIFA. He talked to us about the way in which he recorded his lines, and how demanding some of the work was. He was even kind enough to give us a little demonstration on the way he recorded his lines (and I’m sure Mr Pressley was just a little confused on why Mohammed Salah’s name was being shouted in the next room across)

Q. How did recording the lines for FIFA actually work?

A. It’s funny because I always believed that, sort of my job is improvising its not scripted. So they’d tell you you’ve got to do free kicks, so you’d go “Oh what a great free kick!”, “Oh that’s a fantastic free kick!”, “Here’s the specialist for this, and he’s done it again!”, so you end up having to do ten of those, and it really taxes your thinking. Some commentators like, for example Clive Tyldesley is a fine commentator, and he wrote everything out, and he’s very different to me he wanted all the information beforehand, I just turned up like I turned up to see you. I don’t know whether that’s because of the RGS education or not! (laughing). It was fun to do but it was very taxing.

Q: Did you have to do it every year to update it?

A: Refresh yeah, I had to do the goals in four different intonations, not the goals the names of the scorers, so take Salah. I’d go Salah. Salah! Salah!!!, SALAH!!!!!!!!! And you’d have to do that 5000 different times. We’d do a session on everything else, and then Alan would go well let’s have a crack at this and see if we can do a couple hundred tonight, and I’d do it until the sound man said look your voice is starting to sound a bit tired now and you won’t sound so good as some of the ones you did earlier. But I was always game for it because it was part of the fun of doing it, but you’d come out, you talk about getting a headache when you’re not feeling very well, but my head ACHED. Like it was like my brain was going what have you done to me for the last 6 hours, it was constant and it was much more focused than commentating.

Unfortunately, we were unable to include everything that Mr Tyler said to us in the interview, as the article would have turned into a book. However, it was an extremely interesting and informative interview, giving a glimpse and a snapshot not just into the life of a renowned and accomplished commentator. It also gave us a glimpse into the life of an RGS boy during the early post-war era, a snapshot into the atmosphere, the day-to-day activities, and the life of an RGS boy from a different era.