In the latest episode of our new BBC Sounds podcast, The Commentators’ View, BBC Radio 5 Live’s Ian Dennis and Conor McNamara discuss how computer games can influence their commentaries.

When Dennis was working at BBC Radio Leeds, popular computer game Championship Manager helped him commentate at a game between Tottenham and Leeds United.

“It was Mark Chapman who got me into Championship Manager/Football Manager when I lived with him in the late 1990s,” said Dennis. “I remember doing a game with Norman Hunter when I was at Radio Leeds, and it was Tottenham against Leeds United at White Hart Lane.

“Tottenham needed to try and get a goal late on, and they brought on Gary Doherty, – a big central defender, ginger hair, Irish, but he also had the ability to play up front as well.

“So Norman was saying, ‘I don’t understand this’, but because I’d been playing Championship Manager I could say, ‘Well actually…’.

“At that point he was a utility player, he could play both at the back and up front, so I knew he was going to go up front.”

Indeed, while the game helped Dennis, fellow commentator revealed the Ireland international was part of the reason he had to “give up playing that game”.

“I stopped playing Championship Manager when I started working as a commentator,” said McNamara, “because in the game, Gary Doherty could sign for Sunderland and be a really prominent player, and in your head you think, ‘he played for Sunderland, he scored loads of goals for Sunderland’.

“That distorted reality! I had to shut that out of my life and concentrate on the actual real world!”

Listen to the full episode on BBC Sounds