John Helm (commentator)

John Helm (born 8 July 1942 in Baildon, West Riding of Yorkshire, England) is a British sports commentator with over 25 years of network television experience, mainly with ITV. Now he is the voice of international broadcasts of the FIFA World Cup and other events. Helm has also frequently covered other sports - in the main golf, cricket and particularly rugby league both for ITV and other broadcasters.

After working his way up through local and national newspapers, where he began his journalistic career in 1959, he broke into broadcasting on BBC Radio Leeds and was chosen from a number of local radio broadcasters to cover the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch, New Zealand. After this, he joined national BBC Radio Sport, then broadcast mainly on Radio 2's old medium wave (frequencies now used by Five Live).

His association with the BBC ended in 1981 with a move back to his native county and ITV company Yorkshire Television, replacing Martin Tyler as the regional station's football commentator. At the end of his first season he was rewarded with a berth on the ITV team for the 1982 World Cup in Spain, covering all of Scotland's matches and the second round group featuring Italy, Brazil and Argentina.

When ITV's regional system of football coverage was largely abolished in 1983, Helm found himself fourth in the network pecking order covering matches for The Big Match and Midweek Sports Special. Martin Tyler and Peter Brackley were chosen above him to cover UEFA Euro 1984 in France, while Brian Moore headed for South America to cover the concurrent England tour of the continent.

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