{"id":494044,"date":"2026-03-25T07:25:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T07:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/494044\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T07:25:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T07:25:14","slug":"leicester-tigers-legend-martin-ballard-to-leave-welford-road-after-21-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/494044\/","title":{"rendered":"Leicester Tigers legend Martin Ballard to leave Welford Road after 21 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

After nearly 400 games, he is hanging up the mic for good<\/p>\n

12:50, 24 Mar 2026Updated 05:11, 25 Mar 2026<\/p>\n

\"Martin<\/p>\n

Martin Ballard, believed to be the longest-serving stadium announcer in the Premiership(Image: Leicester Mercury)<\/p>\n

One of Welford Road’s<\/a> most recognisable faces is set to leave the Leicester Tigers after stadium announcer Martin Ballard confirmed his departure from the role.<\/p>\n

Mr Ballard, a lifelong Tigers<\/a> fan who grew up watching the club, has spent 21 years in the announcer role before revealing his exit from the job.<\/p>\n

Martin, who has been a Tigers fan since the 1970s, had already been covering the club for BBC Radio Leicester before stepping into the announcer role, working alongside Bleddyn Jones and his predecessor Van Hopkins.<\/p>\n

He presented a programme when Tigers lifted the inaugural Courage League Championship Trophy in 1988 and went on to cover ten Premiership Finals.<\/p>\n

He took over announcing duties from Sam Rossiter Stead, having spent years listening to predecessors John Allen<\/a> and Tudor Thomas as a member and season ticket holder.<\/p>\n

Mr Ballard said he never imagined he would go on to serve longer in the role than either of them, but up to his final game, he was the longest-serving announcer in the Premiership.<\/p>\n

Statistics from Stuart Farmer show Martin announced at approaching 400 games, including 19 behind closed doors during the Covid pandemic.<\/p>\n

Martin believes his first game<\/a> in the role was a 32-0 home win over Northampton Saints on September 3, 2005 the season Geoff Parling became a first-team regular at Newcastle.<\/p>\n

He also covered pre-season, friendly, varsity, international and testimonial fixtures across his two decades at the club.<\/p>\n

Over that time, he saw 13 Head Coaches and Directors of Rugby come and go at Welford Road.<\/p>\n

Away from the microphone, Mr Ballard made a significant contribution to the club’s media output, launching both the Leicester Tigers Rugby Show<\/a> on BBC Radio Leicester and the club’s first ever podcast.<\/p>\n

His work at the club had begun more modestly, hosting Q&A evenings with players and coaches and pub quizzes organised by Paul Hayes, before he transitioned into the announcing role that would define his time there.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Martin Ballard playing The Dame, powders his nose in the dressing room(Image: Chris Gordon)<\/p>\n

He was no stranger to performing in front of a crowd away from Welford Road either.<\/p>\n

In a 2013 interview with the Leicester Mercury<\/a>, he revealed he was playing Pong the Chinese Policeman in De Montfort Hall’s pantomime production of Aladdin, though it was far from his first time on stage.<\/p>\n

He told the paper his love of pantomime stretched back to his school days, when he first got involved as a performer and writer in amateur shows, and that he had previously played Bill Jukes in a professional production of Peter Pan at the same venue.<\/p>\n

He said: “I’d like to say a big thank you to the many people who have helped and supported me at the club.<\/p>\n

“Finally, thank you to the best fans in rugby. I’ve met and become friends with many of you and I hope to see you for a beer at games in the future.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After nearly 400 games, he is hanging up the mic for good 12:50, 24 Mar 2026Updated 05:11, 25…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[106640,243,174186,2141,46723,5903,101,22815,56,54,55,174187],"class_list":["post-494044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-aviva-premiership","tag-bbc","tag-de-montfort-hall","tag-in-the-news","tag-leicester-tigers","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-the-rfu-championship","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-welford-road"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}