RICHARD Buckley has travelled the globe to work with some of football’s biggest stars and commentated in front of hundreds of thousands of people - and it’s all spiralled from his love for video games.
Richard grew up in Mapplewell, attending Wellgate Primary School before moving to Smithies and attending Darton College.
He then went on to study at Barnsley College - and that’s when his dream of becoming a sports journalist really started to pick up pace.
Having left to study in Manchester, Richard met his now co-commentator Brandon Smith and the duo are now watched by millions worldwide commentating on the EA FC game - formerly FIFA.
He told the Chronicle: “I wanted to do live sports radio and that’s when I met Brandon whilst at university.
“He mentioned that FIFA were putting a lot of investment into ‘esports’ and they ran a competition in 2017 looking to get commentators into the game.
“We both entered and then won it.”
The duo shot to stardom following the competition and have become the leading English speaking FIFA commentators in the world - with millions of people watching their work.
“The prize for that competition was to go and commentate on a match in Berlin where the winner earned £160,000,” he said.
“Within six weeks of that we worked in Munich, LA and Qatar - all with FIFA.
“We managed to get our foot in the door.
“The most-viewed video we’ve commentated on has around seven million views online.
“And then we’ve also had 317,000 concurrent viewers which is amazing.
“I’ve had the opportunity to commentate on games in France, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austria, Singapore and LA.
“I’ve luckily been able to travel across the world an unbelievable amount.”
His skills have allowed him to work with the world’s leading media houses, broadcasters and brands including Sky Sports, BT Sport, the BBC, ESPN and EA Sports among other rights holders, including the Premier League, Eredivisie, Ajax, Man City, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur and the Bundesliga.
Over the past few years, Richard, -alongside Brandon - have become the voice of the eLions commentary team, where they regularly feature on the England Twitch channel.
And he’s had the chance to work with some huge footballing icons.
He added: “I’ve worked alongside Ruud Gullit twice and he remembered me and Brandon.
“That was a surreal moment because he’s won a Ballon D’or.
“I’ve worked alongside Kaka, Ashley Cole, Laura Woods and Spencer Owen.
“It’s amazing.”
Richard admits he’s lost a lot of his Barnsley accent but he still has a local twang.
“I’ve still got that northern twang but I’ll admit I’ve lost a little bit of my Barnsley accent because of all the travelling,” he said.
“In this role, if all goes well, I want to try and push Barnsley more into the popular eye, whatever that may entail.”
A keen Barnsley fan, at 26 he’s never seen the Reds play in the Premier League - but he’s hoping for promotion from League One this season.
He added: “The season with Valerien Ismael was the closest I think that we’re going to get to playing in the Premier League - I wasn’t born the last time we were there.
“Last year was tough with the play-offs.
“I think that we’re now moving forward and I fancy us this year.
“We’re always going to be in and around the promotion hunt in League One - whether it be the play-offs or even automatic promotion.”
