Barry George Davies MBE (born 24 October 1937) is an English retired sports commentator and television presenter. He covered a wide range of sports in a long career, primarily for the BBC. Although best known for his football commentary, Davies has commentated on numerous other sports, including tennis, badminton, ice hockey, ice skating, gymnastics, field hockey, cycling, beach volleyball, and athletics, and primarily in the BBC's Olympics coverage, where he twice (Sydney 2000, Athens 2004) commentated on the opening and closing ceremonies of the Summer Games, and he covered both ceremonies for the Olympic Broadcasting Service coverage of the London 2012 games. Davies was also the 'Voice of the Boat Race' between 1993 and 2004 (until the BBC lost the rights to cover the event), the presenter of Maestro in the 1980s (a series of interviews with retired sporting legends), and the voice that welcomed tourists to London Heathrow in 2012 as they arrived for the Olympic Games. He has covered more Summer Olympics (12) than any other British sports broadcaster. Early life Davies was born in London and was educated at Cranbrook School in Cranbrook, Kent – which also numbers commentators Brian Moore and Peter West amongst its alumni – and King's College London, where he read Dentistry, although contrary to what has often been reported he never qualified or practised as a dentist. He says in his autobiography that his original aim was to become a doctor, but although he did well in his school exams, he didn't quite get the grades required to win a university place to read medicine. Dentistry was therefore a second choice that he "soon came to regret" and eventually he "flunked out" due to spending too much time playing and watching sport. Career Davies started his broadcasting career with British Forces Broadcasting whilst doing his National Service in the British Army of the Rhine as a second-lieutenant in West Germany. Davies' boss at BFBS was Gerald Sinstadt, who, upon their return to Britain, helped Davies get into BBC Radio in 1963, working concurrently as a sports journalist for The Times. Perhaps his most iconic and famous commentary was during the Manchester City versus Derby County league encounter in 1974 when Derby's Francis Lee turned on the edge of the box and unleashed an unstoppable screamer into Manchester City's net. "Interesting - Very Interesting - Look At His Face, Just Look at His