Former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher has revealed his 'real Irish accent' and football fans are amazed at how well he's hidden it.
Gallagher was one of English football's most respected referees and he was involved in the top-flight between 1992 and 2007.
He regularly appears on Sky Sports News nowadays, but a recent interview with Off the Ball exposed his thick Irish tones.
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Gallagher was born in Dublin, but has spoken with an English accent in his public appearances.
The show's presenter is even take aback and the 63-year-old explains per Daily Mail: "Ah, well it's because I'm speaking to Irish people.
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"My best friend Alan Wiley [a former referee] gives me no end of stick, because I have to crank it down a bit with English people. It's quite ironic when my dad was alive, god bless him.
"One of my friends asked me: 'Why do you talk Irish to your dad and English to us?'
"I went: 'I don't!' I thought they were talking about Gaelic you see but they said: 'No your accent changes'. I said: 'Well you wouldn't understand me'. And they don't.
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"When I first started on Sky TV they were very, very conscious of certain words I couldn't pronounce and I had to watch the BBC news.
"Words with 'th' I'd find very, very difficult so I'd have to practice. I'd be dreading them saying was it a 'Thursday' match and they were trying to explain to me there was an 'h' in the Thursday and it wasn't T-U-R-S."
Topics: Football News, Football, Premier League
