Will Bass, matchday commentator and media assistant

What is your connection to the club?

 I’m the matchday commentator and assist with social media and other media activities.

What does the role involve?

I came in solely as a commentator two years ago, but last season did a lot of the social media side and manager interviews, too. This season Tom’s come in and we share a lot of responsibilities and I’m focussing more on the commentaries again, although still carry out social media duties and put videos of goals and highlights together.

How did the position come about?

I was studying Sports Journalism at University and my Uni had a partnership with the National League where jobs could be shared. I saw one come up as match commentator at Dartford. I had very little experience in match commentary, but it was my local team and I thought, ‘why not give it a go?’

I went down and met Fred, the media guy at the time, and went in for a first game, did a trial run and they were happy with it. I’ve been doing it ever since!

Were you a fan, before? 

I used to go to games with my dad, so went whenever I had the chance. Since I got involved in the club, my granddad goes every week now, he has really got into it.

What makes a good commentator?

It’s obviously just me on air, so it’s important for there not to be huge gaps in time where there’s no talking. Just being able to fill the time, especially when there’s a drink break, or player down injured and to ensure that I’m chipping in with little comments and I’m keeping people interested, even if the game’s not very interesting.

It’s important to keep people entertained and making sure that it’s always an enjoyable listen, regardless of how Dartford play.

Have you had a favourite moment or game as a commentator?

There’s been a few good ones. When I started doing it, we had a really good run for the play-offs. Last season, we had a last-kick winner which was nice to commentate on. It was 96 minutes gone and I’d been waiting for a proper last-minute goal because we hadn’t had one. I think that’s the only one we’ve had while I’ve really been doing it. So that was nice to commentate on.

I think as a match, the win over Ebbsfleet on New Year’s Day was a good one, because we’d beaten them on Boxing Day and I was ill and gutted to have missed it. So, when I came back for the game on New Year’s Day, I thought, we weren’t likely to repeat it, but we ended up going one better and that was under the lights and a really big crowd. So that was really exciting!

What’s your take on this season so far?

I think there’s got to be a lot of patience involved. It’s a very young team, but I think there’s some real talent in there and some players that we’ve seen come in that maybe would have been less known, have really stood out.

But it’s not going to be consistent in terms of results, because it is such a young team and it’s going to take time. Hopefully throughout the season they can gel as a side more.

We’ve already seen some performances that have shown that we can really compete. At the top of that was the performance against Chatham, but we’ve had a few poor results since then. But even the game at Worthing in the FA Cup, we were desperately unlucky. We had so many chances. They are one of the better sides in the division above and we really competed.

It shows this team’s not a million miles away and it’s just a case of getting a bit of consistency and getting these players to gel a bit together, and maybe one or two more bodies through the door and we can hopefully be right up there this season.