'I have only love for the haters': Carlton Kirby opens up about his opinion-dividing career in commentary
The TNT Sports commentator on his ‘Partridge’ years and surviving the wrath of those who don't have any time for his Kirbyisms
Has there ever been a more divisive commentator than Carlton Kirby? His puns and mixed metaphors have earned him legions of fans, but also hordes of detractors-making the 64-year-old something of a Marmite character on the mic. A veritable globetrotter, Kirby describes himself as "a bit of a journeyman" - although he's starting to feel most at home in the south-west London suburb of Molesey, where he lives with his wife and two teenage children in a rickety Tudor cottage.
Kirby grew up in the Sheffield suburb of Hallam in the 1960s, where he rubbed shoulders with Jeremy Clarkson and Michael Palin. His brother dated the sister of head boy Seb Coe, and Def Leppard were the school band. "I think there was something in the water," says Kirby, who stepped out with a supermodel and lived on a desert island before finding his calling through motorsports and cycling at Eurosport.
What was your first job?
A paper round in Sheffield. It's how I got into cycling. I only had seven papers to deliver but I was doing the hill farms, so it took me a couple of hours. I got really fit but crashed my Hercules Jeep so many times. My dad said the tyres were too thin, so I put fat tyres on, had a fork forged and put in straight bars. I'm still convinced I invented mountain biking.
What was your first memory of the Tour de France?
When I was 16, I got a summer job working in a biscuit factory in a place called La-Haye-du-Puits in Normandy. We would watch the Tour in a café with all the locals on our lunch break. Then, of course, one day it passed through. All the villages went mad and the factory closed. I remember seeing Bernard Hinault, who was in his pomp then, on a time trial bike - just ready to set off with his graded specs, looking fantastic. He was so charismatic. He was Elvis to me. I fell absolutely in love with it all.
Did you always want to be a broadcaster?
Yes. At Lancaster University, I joined the radio society but left with a dry degree in management sciences. I got a job for a marketing magazine in Carnaby Street, part of the Haymarket Group. Michael Heseltine, the owner, sacked me with the immortal words: "Men of renown never wear brown". And there's me in a fetching brown corduroy shirt with an amber cravat.
What did you do next?
I wrote about the lifestyles of the rich, famous and odious for Middle East Money magazine. I was so bored. So, aged 26, I did a postgraduate diploma in radio journalism at the London College of Printing and started dating a lovely student from the College of Fashion. She became a supermodel in the Eighties-the face of Diet Coke and a Vogue cover star. Then I got a job at BBC Radio Norwich and a door opened in the research department at Look East. I became the gatekeeper for all the weird stories from Norwich - from miniature earwax sculptures to sink holes. I was the original Alan Partridge. After a run-in with my editor, I got a broadcasting gig on the United Nations development programme on Funafuti Atoll on the tropical island nation of Tuvalu.
How long did you spend in the South Pacific?
I only lasted 14 months. I was bored after a week, completely divorced from the Western world. I'd met everyone on the island after 10 minutes because it was only a square-mile. I had no telephone and there was no internet. A mail plane came on Wednesdays. I had no idea that Pat Cash won Wimbledon or that the Berlin Wall had fallen.
How did you keep busy in the middle of nowhere?
I won the Tuvalu coast-to-coast cycling race-the Coconut Cup. I beat Ari Leppäniemi, a Finnish engineer, in the 350m race from the airport terminal to the diesel generator. There was a hotel opposite the radio with a bar, where we used to drink coconut milk with gin left behind from a royal visit. But I got stir crazy. In the end, I paid a Swedish freighter to take me off in the middle of the night. After 12 days we arrived in Fiji, then I flew back home.
"I got a job at BBC Radio Norwich and became the gatekeeper for all the weird local stories – I was the original Alan Partridge"
Carlton Kirby
How did you get into sports journalism?
An opening came on the sports desk at TV-am, where I wrote the racing tips for a certain Jeff Stelling. When he went to Sky, he tipped me off about Eurosport, which had just started. My first gig was voicing the Dakar Rally in the mid-Nineties, then, through the ASO connection, started on the mountain-bike Tour de France.
Where were you living at this point?
I couldn't afford anywhere in the UK but property in northern France was incredibly cheap. I bought a beautiful 300-year-old farmhouse in a village in the Pas de Calais. I'd drive my Sirocco to Dover, jump on a booze cruise, then get in my Renault 4 on the other side. I lived in France for three days a week and then went back to hot-bedding with another journo in Battersea.
How hard was it to break through into cycling?
Back then, the Midlands mafia controlled it all: you had Phil Liggett doing ITV, Hugh Porter on the BBC and David Duffield at Eurosport. They were the three kings. But I kept plugging away. For the Tour in 2012, I was doing all the background stuff for Eurosport. Then David Harmon lost his job, and I was parachuted in for the Vuelta. Soon, I was part of the Midlands mafia.
Do you have a favourite anecdote from those early years?
There was a Dutch commentator at Eurosport who knew sod all about cycling. When the regular guy was taken ill, he needed to step in for Mont Ventoux on the queen stage of the Tour. He thought it was his big chance. The riders came out of the woods, by Chalet Reynard, and past the sign that says 'Col Ouvert'. And the guy says in Dutch, "And here it is, the mighty, the one and only, Col Ouvert." The producer was livid.
You're a betting man. What's been your biggest win?
Best win was £10 at 66-1 on the nose for Milan-San Remo, when the French guy [Arnaud Démare] won after Fernando Gaviria crashed. I also backed Tom Dumoulin for a top 10 in the 2015 Vuelta at 66-1. I had a fiver on him winning at 1,000-1, so I came close to a huge pay day. Sean Kelly thought I was crazy but I had a feeling.
Do you prefer commentating mountaintop finishes or bunch sprints?
Anybody can call a mountaintop finish because it's in slow motion, while a sprint is probably the most difficult call in all of sport. You've got to say what's happening, what the plan is, who's helping who, who's moving where. My time calling speedway helped. Nobody ever screamed them home like me - but now it's a style that's everywhere.
And your most memorable moment?
The biggest, most cathartic moment for me - when everyone went, "Bloody hell!" - was the iconic Iljo Keisse win in Turkey. He crashes on a corner with an 18-second lead, gets back on the bike, chain comes off, gets off the bike, puts the chain back on, then holds off a charging Kittel and Petacchi by a metre and a half. "Joy for cycling fans globally! What an effort that was!" I screamed.
What are your main strengths as a commentator?
As you've probably gathered, I have an ability to carry. At Milan-San Remo, I do the hard work to get the viewers over the plains before the action starts. I find the banal and ordinary interesting. It's where I earn my crust.
There's an online petition to get you cancelled. How do you cope with the haters?
I have only sympathy and love for the haters. Anyway, that petition has been going for 10 years and it's only got 2,500 signatures! Sometimes it gets nasty. Then again, a Carlton Kirby fan club wrote my name on the road during the Tour, so there's also a lot of love.
What's been your diciest moment covering the Tour?
I came very close to being beaten up by one of Oleg Tinkov's henchman after scratching his massive gold coach with my wing mirror while getting off the Galibier. [Sean] Kelly said, "Just f***ing drive!" so I put my foot down.
What are your hobbies outside cycling?
I still row - a bit with the Molesey club on the river, but mainly to keep fit with an ergo in the garage. I absolutely love walking in the Derbyshire hills. I'm also a very good chef, and a good artist and photographer. My dad was an artist, my sister's an art teacher and my brother's a renowned Hollywood set designer.
What would be the epitaph on your gravestone?
"Joy for haters globally. What an effort that was!" Yeah, that's it, I think.
Quick-fire with Kirby
What was your first bike? Hercules Jeep. Second was a violet Carlton Corsa.
Biggest cycling bugbear? The traffic.
Rim or disc brakes? Rims 100%.
Best Grand Tour? I have the most fondness for the Giro.
Best Monument? Am I allowed to say Strade Bianche? If not, Flanders.
Pogačar or Vingegaard? Pogačar.
How many Tours can Pogačar win? He's young enough to get 10.
Dogs or cats? Cats - we have two, Steve and Bob.
Favourite sport to watch? Shinty-Scottish hurling.
Favourite sport to commentate on? Nothing beats a Grand Tour. But 24-hour motorcycle or car races have something amazing about them, too.
Most sprint wins in 2026? Matthew Brennan. He's getting better and better.
Final meal before death row? Tinned salmon and cucumber sandwich on rye bread.
Rider you respect the most? Cadel Evans - a quirky but lovely man.
Six Days or World Championships? The Worlds are special, but I do love a Six Day.
Favourite Kirbyism? "It's fun. It's mental. It's fundamental."
This feature was originally published in the 2 April 2026 print edition of Cycling Weekly magazine – available to buy on the newsstand every Thursday (UK only) while digital versions are available on Apple News and Readly. Subscriptions through Magazine's Direct.
