It is always a fascination among viewers: who do the voices who describe and explain football to us support?
Clive Tyldesley should have been a Bury supporter. The ITV commentator's first childhood home was next door to Dave Russell, the Gigg Lane club's manager at the time.
But like so many, the voice of so many of the game's most iconic moments in the past 25 years, followed in the footsteps of his father and watched Manchester United home and away during some of their darkest moments.
When the commentary booth came calling, however, Tyldesley found his attachment loosening. In the days when the media could share coaches with teams, and players could become close friends, he instead found himself wanting those he knew well to prosper - an approach that still applies now.
“I was a huge Manchester United fan," Tyldesley says in a feature-length interview for Mirror Football. "I'm from Bury, so I should have been a Bury fan because we lived next to the manager when I was born. We shared a semi-detached house with the manager of Bury Football Club when I came back from the nursing home. My uncle Dave lived next door for the first five or six years of my life.
"But my dad was a United fan so as long as I was old enough, five or six, he took me to Old Trafford on a regular basis. I saw Best, Law, Charlton in the flesh. I also saw some really rubbish teams in my teens. I supported them home and away in the second division.
"Then I got this opportunity to move inside track, to do this job that was my only ambition in life. I was the same age as the players I was covering and I was spending my entire life with Forest players, working for the local radio station, and even travelling on the team coach with Liverpool and Everton when they were the best two teams in the country.
Now watch the full interview with Clive Tyldesley on the MirrorFootball YouTube channel
"These guys are friends to this day so everything was shaped by this change in my life where from supporting a club with an intensity and passion, I was now friends with a lot of the people I was commentating on. To this day who do I support? My mates. The manager of England was at our wedding. Do I want England to win? Yeah, I do. For Gareth."
He added: " It seems to be accepted more and more now but a lot of journos and broadcaster openly support their team. The first TV game I did was Manchester City 5, Manchester United 1 and I was delighted. I’d been a real home and away supporter of United three or four years earlier."
