For eight seasons, Ross Fletcher was the voice of Derby County on our airwaves. We caught up with the popular broadcaster 12 years after he signed off from Pride Park
Ross Fletcher is a name many Derby County fans will remember for his effervescent, enthusiastic and highly charged commentary of the Rams’ football matches.
Initially the ‘apprentice’ pitchside reporter as part of an experienced line-up of Colin Gibson, Ian Hall and Graham Richards, Ross honed his craft, eventually becoming the Derby County chief reporter for eight seasons.
Over that period, Ross covered 450 games as the fortunes of the Rams ebbed and flowed – from memorable highs to crushing lows.
During those eight seasons, he also enjoyed a stint on BBC East Midlands Today, combined with a spell at the BBC’s International Channel, TV BBC World.
Alongside the role of Rams’ commentator, Ross immersed himself in studio production and was also a weekday news presenter for BBC Radio Derby, which he anchored and produced while also hosting his popular weekly soccer-phone in.
In 2003, Ross was the winner of the Gold Gillard BBC Local Radio Award for Individual Sports Coverage.
It was also in Ross’ tenure that the station was awarded the prestigious Sony Radio Academy Gold Winning Team for UK Radio Station of the Year, a highly coveted radio prize won in 2007, 2010 and 2011.
Loughborough-born, Ross became involved with BBC Radio Derby part-time in 1996 at 16 years old, with no radio experience whatsoever. Two years, later he embarked on a three-year degree at Sheffield University, achieving a BA (Hons) in Economics.
‘I was working really hard balancing both mediums while commuting from my Sheffield home to Derby,’ says Ross. ‘In my second year at university I was working three full days at BBC Radio Derby.
‘As a freelancer at the station I covered the Saturday sports show before the Rams fixtures, combined with mid-week sports shows and bulletins. I was steadily building up my broadcasting resume while also pursuing my university course.
‘I was paid £10 at the time, which just about covered my rail fare and sandwiches for lunch!’ he laughs.
‘This was what I had to do to make it work, I was leading two lives.’
Over this period of working tirelessly between an academic role and part-time radio work, Ross stood at the crossroad; he had a career decision to make.
Remarkably, on the Saturday morning of his final degree exams, Mike Bettison offered Ross a permanent role with BBC Radio Derby and from that point, there was no turning back and a glittering broadcasting career began.
As well as becoming the voice of Derby County in the years that followed, national and international sporting assignments presented themselves.
Ross took on the mantle of sports bulletin anchorman with the UK’s leading sports stations, including stints with BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Radio 4, and BBC Radio 2.
In August 2008, he covered the Beijing Olympic Games from China for BBC TV and radio, and over the next two years was sports presenter for one of the UK’s most watched regional daily television news programmes, with an average quarter of a million daily viewers.
Football apart, Ross went on to cover the tennis at Wimbledon, the Rugby Union European Cup Final of 2009 and the GB team at the Special Olympics.
This protégé of BBC Radio Derby Sport was fast becoming a household name across many air waves, with several media credits already in the locker.
However, that familiar voice which those both in Derby and countrywide had grown so accustomed was not destined to be a permanent one.
With a successful career mapped out before him as news and sports broadcaster for BBC World TV amongst others, Ross suddenly disappeared from our national and parochial airwaves and our television screens from early 2012.
So, what became of Ross Fletcher?
It just so happened that around this time, with Ross’ career in the ascendency, that over the Atlantic the Seattle Sounders Soccer Club were in need of a lead presenter and play-by-play announcer for all of their Major League Soccer fixtures.
The conduit was Arlo White, a former colleague of Ross’ at BBC Radio Derby, who was then the Seattle Sounders matchday commentator, having secured a position with NBC, the National Broadcaster in the USA.
Arlo and Ross had kept in contact over time and the former recommended Ross for the vacant Sounders commentary position.
Following a successful interview in late 2011 contracts were signed in the New Year of 2012.
‘The transition was pretty smooth between British football and North American soccer,’ Ross recalls. ‘Though much credit has to be given to the Sounders people who told me to call the game as I would in the UK.
‘And they gave me every opportunity to do that. The reason they brought me in was because they wanted me to bring my style and my language to their team, which was great.’
To his credit, the BBC style of commentary employed by Ross in his earlier Derby County days had never deserted him; the Sounders league-leading TV ratings increasing significantly as a result.
‘I found the biggest transition was moving from a predominantly radio commentary career to a television commentary, but I had to make the jump at some point,’ explains Ross.
‘I remember Arlo telling me to get ready to read commercials during the game. I’d been used to the BBC without commercialism. All of a sudden, whenever there was a break in play, a floor manager would be passing me cue cards from any number of the Sounders’ sponsors and the producer would be in my ear telling me to read it.
‘That naturally took a bit of getting used to as it was so different to what I had known before, but it soon became second nature.’
At the close of 2015, Ross left the Sounders and moved onto Fox Sports in Los Angeles for a two-year stint as a freelance broadcaster and commentator.
This spell at Fox Sports included live coverage of UEFA Europa League football, the Bundesliga from Germany, as well as FIFA U20 and U17s Youth International Football tournaments - broadcasting to a national audience of 83 million homes in the process.
His next move was to the National Hockey League with NHL Seattle, who at the time were in the process of becoming a brand-new NHL franchise, later becoming Seattle Kraken.
It was here when Ross was assisting with video production and digital broadcasting that the offer came from the executive producer to host pre-game intermissions and post-game shows.
This proved yet another challenge, with Ross having to immerse himself in a whole new deck of players and an entirely new sporting discipline.
‘I had covered the Nottingham Panthers years before,’ says Ross, ‘but ice hockey in the USA was on another level altogether.’ Here, Ross was the launch host of the multiple Emmy award-winning Kraken pre-game TV coverage.
Earlier in his career, Ross had six weeks on location covering the FIFA World Cup from Moscow, Sochi and Ekaterinburg, which included researching, scripting and producing short films of local people and also the travelling fans.
Indeed, it seemed there were times when Ross was never home, his suitcase always in demand.
Seven Olympic Summer and Winter Games saw him on location in Tokyo, Pyeongchang, Rio, Sochi, London and Vancouver as content producer and location reporter.
Now, twelve years into what was to be a three year stay in the USA, Ross and his wife Katie have two American-born children, Lara (nine) and Thea (seven), who seem happy and content with Seattle city life.
So, has Ross ever considered returning to our shores?
‘England will always be home,’ he replies emphatically. ‘You never know where life is going to take you with all its twists and turns.
‘Keep on following your dreams and trying new adventures, that’s a big part of the joy of life for me. That’s the best way I can put it.’
Ross still keeps a firm eye on English football results and his first point of interest is of course Derby County, with Burton Albion a close second and as far as the Rams are concerned, he is enjoying what he is currently seeing after the recent turbulent years at the club.
‘It’s been great watching from afar how the local community has risen up to support the Rams and their push for promotion,’ concludes Ross.
‘Seeing huge crowds at Pride Park and the joy on everyone’s faces as they clinched a return to the Championship brought back a lot of good memories for me from the time Derby were promoted to the Premier League under Billy Davies.
‘It’s a special city and a special club, and with the steady local ownership solidly in place, I’m confident that more good things will happen in the future.’
For a youngster whose interests lay in drama and broadcasting, Ross has since travelled some distance over since first becoming a radio wordsmith.
That 13-year-old local boy who just a few seasons later would be cutting his teeth covering football in Derbyshire is now a true global newscaster.
