Tim Vickery

After leaving school, he took a series of jobs, ranging from menswear shop assistant, labourer, comedy writer, box office assistant and finally a theatre manager in the West End of London.{{cite web|url=http://www.footballwriters.co.uk/fwa-qa/fwa-qa-tim-vickery/|title=FWA Q&A: Tim Vickery - Football Writers' Association|website=footballwriters.co.uk}} There he met a series of international performance people, becoming fascinated with the Brazilian pre-occupation with football. As a result, in 1994 having trained as a TEFL teacher, he left the UK and travelled to Brazil to teach English, learn the local language and immerse himself in Brazilian football. Supporting himself through his TEFL income, he started writing a series of articles for various Brazilian football fanzines.

Today Vickery is perhaps best known for his work on The World Football Phone-in,{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/wf/ |title=Podcasts - 5 live's World Football Phone-in |publisher=BBC |accessdate=5 September 2010}} which airs weekly, hosted by Dotun Adebayo, as part of Up All Night on BBC Radio 5 Live on Saturday mornings (2.00-4.00 am UK, 9.00-11.00 pm ET).{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0070h86 |title=Radio 5 live Programmes - Up All Night |publisher=BBC |date=30 August 2010 |accessdate=5 September 2010}} On the show Vickery is known as the 'Legendinho' or 'Vikipedia' for his vast knowledge of football in Brazil, and South America in general.

Vickery starred in International Football Factories (2006) with Danny Dyer, a documentary about football hooligans in Brazil.

As of 2008, Vickery is Brazilian correspondent for World Soccer Daily and continues his role on World Football Daily, the video podcast that replaced WSD. Since May 2011, he published weekly news on Sambafoot.com website.{{cite web|url=http://www.sambafoot.com/en/news/19782_brazil_is_not_for_beginners.html |title=Brazil is not for beginners |publisher=Sambafoot.com |date=14 May 2011 |accessdate=14 May 2011}} He occasionally appears on football discussion programmes on the Brazilian television channel SporTV.{{cite web|last=Vickery|first=Tim|title=Brazil is not for beginners|date=14 May 2011|url=http://www.sambafoot.com/en/news/19782_brazil_is_not_for_beginners.html|publisher=Sambafoot|accessdate=13 December 2011}}

Vickery appeared as a pundit on the BBC, throughout their coverage of the 2014 World Cup during which time saw his number of Twitter followers double in size.

Vickery also appeared as a BBC commentator for the movie The Game of Their Lives, based on the famous 1950 U.S. soccer team which, against all odds, beat England 1–0 in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil during the 1950 FIFA World Cup.

Vickery cites as his main journalistic influences the "old style" of Brian Glanville, whose "international consciousness" always appealed, as well as the "social consciousness" of Hugh McIlvanney, formerly of The Sunday Times.{{Cite web |url=http://the-trawler.com/2012/01/30/trawlermeets-the-legendinho/ |title=TrawlerMeets: The Legendinho « the Trawler |access-date=4 March 2012 |archive-date=10 February 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120210085048/http://the-trawler.com/2012/01/30/trawlermeets-the-legendinho/ |url-status=dead }}

Since June of 2023, he writes as a columnist on the Brazilian website [https://premierleaguebrasil.com.br/ PL Brasil].

Originally from Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire, Vickery lives with his wife and two stepdaughters in Rio de Janeiro. In addition to his native English, he is fluent in both Portuguese and Spanish. Vickery has supported Tottenham Hotspur since childhood.

{{reflist}}

• [https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/timvickery/tim_vickery/ Tim Vickery's BBC blog]
• [http://www.sambafoot.com/en/writers/160_Tim+Vickery.html Sambafoot.com]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070209124643/http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/writers/tim_vickery/archive/index.html Sports Illustrated Archive]
• [http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/tim-vickery/blog/ Tim Vickery's The World Game blog]
• [https://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/wf/ World Football Phone-in Podcast]
• [https://premierleaguebrasil.com.br/author/tim-vickery/ Tim Vickery's PL Brasil column]
• [https://twitter.com/Tim_Vickery Tim Vickery on Twitter]
• [https://www.instagram.com/timvickeryoficial/ Tim Vickery on Instagram]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vickery, Tim}}

Category:1965 births

Category:Living people

Category:English radio personalities

Category:English association football commentators

Category:British expatriates in Brazil

Category:BBC sports presenters and reporters

Category:Association football journalists