What has been one of the only constant factors in DC United’s tortuous but fascinating 2003 season besides coach Ray Hudson’s persistent post-match implication that every opponent DC faced was the near equivalent of the 1974 Dutch national team?

Not just key injuries, frugal strikers and letting in late, late goals. You may not even have noticed, but those who failed to catch it have missed out on an integral part of the DC United experience - Tony Limarzi’s live radio commentary on every match, home or away.

In an age where you can switch on the TV and watch virtually everything from the major European soccer fixtures to the Dexter, Missouri, Under 5s Little League (that’s the one that usually cuts into the first 20 minutes of ESPN2’s Soccer Saturday broadcast), it’s reassuring to know that radio commentary has lost nothing of the unique magic which turns many young people in to fans in the first place.

When I was eleven years old my local Boy Scouts branch refused to enrol me in their pack because I had the wrong color trousers. This meant that I not only missed out on learning how to turn a piece of rope into a knotted mess while reciting ritualised, wolverine chants, but that after a year of fiddling with my scarf and saluting to men in brown uniforms it also freed me up once more to listen to Wednesday night live soccer commentary on the radio.

In 1970s England there were few games broadcast live on television aside from the FA Cup Final, European Cup Final, and a handful of international fixtures. So unless you actually went to a game, that left you with the radio to convey the thrill of the live spectacle. And as a skinny pre-pubescent schoolboy living out in the countryside, there were few things more thrilling to me than tuning into the sounds of a distance stadium and having events conveyed through a tiny speaker, kick by kick, by a fervent, fast-tongued man at a microphone.

This season DC United introduced live English language match commentary for the first time to help counter the gap left by the sometimes erratic unavailability of games on television — especially road games, such as the midweek 0-0 tie in Colorado and the Open Cup semi final at the Metrostars (a big congratulations to them on their runners-up medals in that competition, by the way). For most fans the WMET broadcasts and internet feeds were the only way to be there, but for a radio nostalgist like myself they were just as good, if not better, than seeing the game on a big screen.

The secret of good radio commentary is to tantalise listeners and keep them on the edge. In a way, the announcers should make the game more exciting than it actually is. They have you at their mercy, because you are wholly dependent on them to describe what’s going on. You don’t want the inane opinionating indulged in by their TV counterparts - you want plain description and the feeling that if something exciting isn’t actually happening, then goals and chances might well be just a second or two away.

Limarzi, a DC United fan since the club’s founding, carries this off superbly. His old-style radio commentary keeps pace with the play as it unfolds before him from his less than ideal vantage point over the old batting plate in the corner of RFK. On Saturday night against Kansas City his clarion, clipped voice put across both the tension and the frustration of events on the field for those who could not be there, and over 100 minutes of constant commentary the only single flaw I heard was in the first half when a slip of the tongue led him to cite DC’s "lack of compassion". I only mention this because it was the one quality they did seem to be showing — to that old guy Preki in letting him dominate the game for 45 minutes.

"As a fan I know what the fans are listening for," says Limarzi, who holds down a full-time job during the week as an editor on CSN’s Sportsnight. But standing and commentating with his arms on the paint-peeled wooden ledge of the former baseball lookout, he admits, is the part of his working week he looks forward to most. And according to the club, there may eventually be a Monday night coaches’ show and a post-game half-hour analysis to supplement the live broadcast.

Without overtly judging events before him, Limarzi has ways of expressing the emotions of all those in RFK. During a lamentable first half, he tells his listeners, "This is the second match in a row DC United have come out to play for their play-off lives and aren’t really showing the effort." He puts real emphasis on the word ‘effort’ to reflect both our and his own anger and dissatisfaction at the poor display.

He also picks the referee up, correctly, on two questionable decisions; never once loses touch with the plays before him; doesn’t bore the listener with too many pointless stats; and deftly fills in downtime with observational quips. During one break in play he says, "There’s Stoichkov talking to Etcheverry. He’s probably saying to him, ‘If you get the ball give it to me.’ And Marco is probably saying back to him, ‘And if you get the ball, give it to me’." Which was not only funny, but quite possibly accurate too.

As the side dragged themselves into the play-offs, holding on to the ball during what Ray Hudson euphemistically called a "pensive overtime", Limarzi was in countdown mode. While those of us in the stadium may have been nervous, we could see that neither team was much bothered about going flat out for the golden goal. The commentator, though, upped his pitch and pace as he ticked off first the minutes, then the seconds, before joining all 19,000 fans present in letting out four years of pain upon the final whistle.

Amid the relief and the feeling of at least partial achievement, it was nice to imagine Ryan Nelsen’s parents in New Zealand - who listen to every game on the internet on Sunday morning over breakfast - leaping up to hug each other across a plate of lamb chops. And maybe, somewhere in the greater DC area, a small boy had switched over to Tony Limarzi from the World Series and was lying under the bed sheets with a wireless, quietly celebrating in the dark.