Gabby Logan: How nothing beats presenting live sport

My earliest memories of sports of would be, I suppose, very, very early on, after dinner, when I was like four or five years old, we would always go into the garden and play something with my dad. Cause there were three of us born within three years. So we would have been two, three and four or three, four and five. And so while my mom was clearing up the dinner, to get out of her hair, my dad would take us to the garden and we'd play rounders or he'd put jumpers for goalposts. We'd make a tennis court out of jumpers. And you know, and we had a big kind of a flat lawn. 

So we were able to do lots of different games. So I suppose as well as, you know, PE in school and your pants and vest, that would have been, that would have been the earliest kind of sport.

 And, and the reason why I call it sport Sue, and not just hanging about after dinner, is because there was this element of competition. (laughs) So we were, we were encouraged to win in those after dinner games. It wasn't, it wasn't just kind of for fun. So, yeah. 

Excellent. And you mentioned your dad there. So obviously he was a very famous footballer at Leeds and went on to be a successful manager, both internationally and at club level. Was football ever an option for you? 

No, no, not at all. I never, it wasn't played by girls that I knew. I didn't see any girls playing. I think that a couple of times we might a tennis ball cause the boys played with tennis balls on the playground, and a tennis ball might've come in our direction, you know, and we tried to kick it back, it was never considered that we were joined in and certainly in PE wasn't offered at all. 

And the only time it came across my radar, that girls would be playing well, first of all, I went to live in Canada when I was a kid and in North America, girls did play football soccer, but that was outside of school as well. So it just didn't really happen. I was really into gymnastics and swimming and athletics and things.

And then when we came back to England, I went to high school and what would now be the year - so year eight, or would have been a year nine - our school decided to enter a 5 aside team into a local tournament. And they got a former Leeds United player to come and be our coach. And, and we did these sessions in doors and a very tight wooden floored indoor sports hall. And we never got entered for some reason. Whether they thought we weren't skillful enough, we just didn't get, we've had a few sessions and then that was it. So that was literally the only time that I ever. I was one of the five that turned up, you know, for the 5 aside. 

Who knows what might have been?

Yeah. I watch the game now and think, I wonder, you know - because I played team sports like netball and things - I wonder if I would've been any good, or I wonder if, you know, cause that was in terms of the physicality and all the attributes that kind of fitness and things, I think I would have been all right. But yeah, I'm not sure about the skills. 

We talk about your dad because he was so immersed in sport, but your mum's quite an extraordinary and inspiring woman as well. So can you tell us a little bit about, about her? 

Yeah. When they met, actually they met very, very young. My dad was playing for Leeds United and he went over to a cafe across the road to get all the sandwiches for the players at lunchtime. And my Mum was the daughter of the woman who owned and ran it, my granny, and she was doing her A levels, but she used to work in there some afternoons and that that's how they met. She kind of handed over the sandwich order to him and he was going to some kind of official function and needed to take somebody. And he decided that my mum would be a good person to take. And, and so that, that's kind of where the, you know, their courting started and she was considering options of where she would go for further education. 

And we're not a family that everybody went to university or anything. And she was looking at going to a college down in Canterbury and my dad didn't want her to do that because they were in Leeds. 

And so she took a course in beauty therapy. I think the course in Canterbury was arts related to architecture. And the course in Manchester was a beauty therapy at the Manchester technical college or something. So she would go over a few nights a week to Manchester, stay in digs and then come back. And so the early part of their relationship, she was a beauty therapist and had her own salon, but her passion was property and architecture. And so she kind of juggled her work with us when we were kids. 

And then as we got a bit older and she had an opportunity to start buying some property and doing out, that's what she did. And she ended up in the early two thousands with a lot of her own personal portfolio property, but also a lot of big size building flats and, you know, achieving kind of what she'd set out, you know, early on to do. So she's always been a grafter, I'm kind of from a family of, you know, the women I've always worked and done, you know, not always particularly glamorous or really exciting careers, but they've always worked. And so she was, she was from that linage so yeah, so she's, she's always been a great role model in that sense in terms of juggling family life. 

Oh, it's good to hear that. And are you representatives Wales and, and Great Britain at rhythmic gymnastics growing up? So when were you first aware of that as a sport? 

Well to be honest, I didn't know much about it. And when I came back to leads from Vancouver and I was about 10, I was going to be Wimbledon champion. That was my plan. And I loved tennis so much and I played loads in Vancouver and it was so easy to do sport there because each area community had a recreational centre and for about a dollar, you could try any sport. So you could turn up and play ice hockey, you could do a trampolining, you know, and I was doing all these different sports and absolutely loving it. But tennis, I had my best mate at school was really good at tennis. And so we just played tennis together and she was a member of a really posh private club. We weren't. So she used to take me down there. 

And then she took me to Palm Springs for a week in the spring break for tennis camp. So I was living the life and I decided I was going to go to Nick Bollettieri Academy in Florida cause that's the end documentary. So I made a pitch for that. My parents didn't go with it.

So we came back to England and I thought, well, I'll continue with the tennis. And we turned up in Leeds in the October of that year and it would have been 1983 and there were no tennis courts, literally none. My mum said there are some courts near Roundhay Park in Leeds. Well, they were locked up already cause it was October. You can’t play tennis in October. You can play for two weeks on the other side of Wimbledon, but you know, don't be silly. You can't play then. 

So there was one club, I went to the yellow pages, there was one club in Leeds, which was a squash and rackets club and they did have an indoor tennis court. Brilliant. I could continue. And it was going to cost £3,000 a year to be a member. Oh, barrier to entry. And we do have our discount, for junior members, but you have to play in the afternoon. I go to school. I remember this conversation on the phone is about 10 or 11 going ‘Oh, this isn't happening’. 

And so by accident, I followed my sister who was really into gymnastics, acrobatics and rhythmic from her time in Coventry. And I followed her to gym. I think it was easier for my mum to drop us both in the same place. 

So she, she encouraged me. She said, well, while the tennis is coming back, why don't you just go with your sister? And that was it. I really got, I'd seen my sister doing it in commentary cause they had a really big club and I used to go. At the racket centre they had in Coventry they had rhythmic section on the next court. They were all doing gymnastics. So I'd seen it and thought it was beautiful and enjoyed watching it. So I kind of went along with no expectations and just really got hooked. 

We hear a lot about teenage girls dropping out of sports at that 13, 14 stage. Was that ever an option for you or once you'd found it at that age you loved it? 

No, I never. I knew it wasn't going to be a career. I wasn't gonna make a living out of being a rhythmic gymnast and I wasn't going to even get more than, I've got a little bit of a Sports Aid grant to help with travel and things, but I didn't get any kind of funding. So, but I never thought about dropping out. I knew my, the end would come probably through injury or you know, just age and having to move on in life. But I was as committed as ever at 15 / 16. I had really good friends, because I wasn't that bothered about going out. But when I did have some time they welcomed me, they didn't kind of make it the, you know, we, you never come out, so you're not coming out now. 

So my mum always said to me, actually, I think she recognized how lucky I was with that particular group of girls that they were so supportive. And even though they weren't massively sporty, a couple of them played netball, but they weren't hugely into sports. So, so yeah, so I know I just, I was, as I was as passionate about it, I think through those years as ever. 

And what are your memories of, of performing on the biggest of stages? So Commonwealth games 

The bigger the competition, the more the nerves, that's all. I mean, I always struggled with nerves cause I trained brilliantly and you know, and I liked the idea of competition because it felt like a point to the training, but I just on, on match day so to speak, I just would have to have really work hard to control those nerves. Cause it's such a, a precision sport. So, you know, you have to be so on it. And, and that was a kind of thing that right to the end I kind of had to use all the kind of tools I had. 

I remember seeing a sports psychologist towards the very end. They used to send one to Lilleshall, to chat to us and I actually decided I was going to be a sports psychologist after meeting them, and got tools to kind of help calm the nerves and things. But the only time I ever experienced nerves, like again was when I did strictly years later

Gymnastics has come under the spotlight recently for having quite a toxic training environment. Is that something that you saw or experienced? 

No. Nothing like I've read about and nothing like I've seen in, in Athlete A obviously the Netflix documentary. I mean, I can believe that there are extremes that happen in, in the sport. 

I mean I had coaches who were tough and to who wanted you to, you know, fit a certain criteria and you know, and gymnastics is a sport that has a strange kind of body expectation where you're almost fighting puberty the whole time you're fighting your body's natural development. And that was hard. You know, I think I probably did have a certain amount of kind of ‘controlled’ eating disorder. 

If that makes sense. I never got ill because I didn't want to be ill, but I wanted to keep my body looking a certain way. So I really kind of was very controlled about what I ate and what I drank and how I, how I lived my life. I didn't like having no energy, so I didn't want starve myself, but I did understand, you know, kind of that I think I was always rational almost about it, which sounds a bit perverse, but, but that's not, you know, that's not a healthy way to be obviously. And I think if I've known about nutrition, as much as I know now I'd have been in much better place. 

I think then the idea was when you either ate or you didn't eat it, wasn't a case of eating the right things. So, so there was that element to it, which I think did prevail a lot through a lot of my peers. 

And there was the other part of it is I guess, being told you're not good at something and having to do it again. You know, that's a hard thing to hear and you did hear that a lot. And I think that probably made me quite resilient and you know, it gives you a certain amount of rigor, but you can coach in a way like that, that is healthy. You know, it doesn't have to be abusive or you don't have to get the best out of somebody shouting at them doesn't always work, you know.

Sometimes ignoring somebody can be damaging, you know, and there were certainly coaches. We had a Russian coach who came along and she had a brutal way about her, just literally, she just wouldn't even pay attention to people she thought had no talent, which was harder almost than being shouted at. 

So yeah. So I do, I do understand that the sport can kind of lean towards that. And we all heard about these stories about Eastern European gymnasts and the kind of things they were put through. So I think in any sport and we've seen all kinds of different stories come from other Olympic sports as well in any sport when it becomes so damaging to an individual and the enjoyment, why did you start doing it? 

I mentioned, you know, my first experience was after dinner, having, you know, from in the garden that that's why we all start sport. We start because there’s an enjoyment. There's a joy that comes through as and and you've always got to have some of that there, even at the very, very top of your game, I think. 

And why did you eventually stop competing? 

And I got quite bad sciatica before I went to the Commonwealth games and I was managing it and taking quite high, strong painkillers. And I came back and I knew I'd have a bit of a break after that. Cause it'd been a very intense period of training. I had to train right through Christmas, Boxing Day, because it was at the end of January and, and you know, doing A levels it's quite hard juggle. 

And I came back expecting to take a few weeks off and the back, just not using it, made it worse and it kind of seized up. A I would literally get up in the morning and have to lie back down again or just crumbled to the floor. And it was, it was very painful. 

And I think at that stage in my life, I was kind of juggling my levels, last year of A levels, looking ahead to an Olympic games, which seems now very out of reach. And I knew there were two girls who were going to still be better than me. And it was two places only. And I, I think I came to a decision that actually my longterm bodily health was probably more important. 

And as I said, at the very beginning, I knew it wasn't going to be a career that I was going to earn a living from. So it didn't feel like I should put myself through six months of really hard rehab or risk damaging my back with an operation or anything like that. So I kind of went over to the other side of, you know, of sport and just tried to get back to enjoying it for its own sake. 

And what did you miss most when you came away from that level? 

I would say to say that the thing that I really acutely missed at the time was the purpose, the sense of competition, the preparation, the whole joy, the buzz of performing. 

I thought, Oh my gosh, I've done the best thing. I'm only 17, 18, and I've done the best thing and what am I ever going to do that's going to give me that.

 And so I, I was a bit of a kind of loon for the first year. I was literally going to the swimming pool and swimming for exercise, then looking at the clock, thinking, could I be a swimmer? Is that quick enough? You know, and then I do cross country for school and think, well, I was halfway down the field today, but maybe I could be a cross country runner. 

You know, I was always looking for that next sport. And actually if I'd been perhaps around somewhere, maybe if I've been near a rowing club, or if I've been near a velodrome, I might have gotten a bike or, you know, cause I, I could have potentially have done those kinds of sports that weren't as technical. If you like, as you know, swimming is obviously is a very young sport. So I was, I was kind of in the wilderness, like looking for this non existent sport that might give me that joy again. And I did feel like for, for a couple of years, gosh, that's, that's it, you know, I've, I've done the best thing and I've got another 80 years of life. 

So I knew sport gave me, still gave me joy to watch and you know, like always wants to keep fit, but yeah, there isn't, there isn't anything quite like that experience. I think live telly has given me a few moments of adrenaline for sure though. 

And do you feel that experience at a top level of sport then helped you when you were interviewing athletes at those bigger bets? 

Yeah. Yeah. Oh definitely. And I feel from other lots of other perspectives in my life, obviously my husband was an international rugby player. My dad was an international footballer and a manager. And so I know what it's like to be the child of a manager who gets sacked. You know, when you come home, your dad's cars and the drive to school and it shouldn't be, you know, there's a reason for that. You know, I remember walking in the house one day and seeing his car and thinking he's got the sack. We knew it was coming with. We felt it might be coming, but there's those kinds of experiences. 

There's, you know, there's living with somebody who kicks for his country and has a really bad day at the office where he misses 70% of his kicks and, you know, thinks the world's going to end. 

And, and so, although of course you have to kind of ask the right questions of your pundits and put people kind of, you know, who are up there through a certain amount of scrutiny, there's also human side to every sporting performance. And there's a family behind that. And there's, there are people who care about that individual. So I think all of those give me a certain insight, I guess, to, to what the performers are going through, the athletes, the sports people.

You talk about your family, are you okay to talk a little bit about what happened with your brother? 

Yes, of course. 

A devastating time for your family. So personally, how did you get through that? And I guess you’dstopped your sport not long before, as well as an avenue. 

Yeah, I think so. He died in 1992 and that Olympics was the Olympics that I'd had in mind that summer was the Olympics that I was thinking would be the one that I would go towards. So it stopped about a year before that. And he died of a condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which is just sudden death effectively. So we had no warning at all that he had a congenital heart defect, which meant that from the outside and ostensibly his fitness was just beyond, you know, he was at the top 00.1% of people. He was a footballer, had signed for Leeds United, could run all day long, played sport all the time, but his heart was enlarged and basically was about to give away and to pack up on him. 

But there was nothing, you know, no signs at all, never breathless. And so when he did die, he died in the, in the garden, playing football with my dad, he was just kicking the ball about and keeled over. It was absolutely cataclysmic, you know, just there was a sledgehammer kind of coming down and shattering the family into a million pieces because there was all the kind of, you know, there's no preparation. 

There's no sense of, you know, even if somebody dies suddenly at 78, it feels young, but they’re still 78. When a child dies so young, obviously there's such a fallout amongst the whole whole family. So it did in many ways define the kind of rest of our youth and certainly defined the way the family has kind of gone on from those years and leaves its mark in many ways. 

And you are about to then head off, you were on a gap year, to go to university. Did you consider not going at the time? Was that an option? 

Actually, I was at the end of my gap year cause he died in the May. And so, so I was going off to dome in the, in the autumn and I kind of put my gap year, which hadn't been very fruitful in terms of any travel or anything. Anyway, I was doing about six jobs in London and I came home and just stayed at home really then. So I kind of took over the running of the family cause my mum was in a very, obviously you can imagine she, she just kind of stopped. She was immobilized. And my dad was managing Wales and after a few weeks he went off with Wales and, and so I just, my mum had a property business I was kind of running around wallpapers for her and dropping things off to build this and things like that. 

And I definitely wants to go to Durham and, and I was glad I chose a university that wasn't far away from the family home in Leeds, so that I could get home quickly and, and be around if I needed to. 

Cause I, my little brother was only six at the time, but my sister had been living abroad. So the family was, you know, kind of all going on its journey. So it was important to me to be able to get home. And as much as a comfort for me to just go sit on his bed or, you know, just rifle through his wardrobe and touch his clothes and be around his things. 

So it was, it was a really, really hard time, really hard time for everybody. And as I say to this day, you know, the, the, the ramifications are still there.

And you went to, you studied law at university. Was that a passion?

I've watched (before this interview actually) watched you on the Rose of Tralee (we can gloss over that but it’s quite entertaining!) but you talk about wanting to do sports media, sports, journalism even then, and that's before university, isn't it? 

((Laughs a lot)) 

Yeah, I think because I'd gone to Blue Peter as a gymnast, I'd wanted to go into TV. When I was 15, I went on Blue Peter to advertise the gymnastics competition that I was involved in for Great Britain. And I loved it. I loved the studio. I thought this was amazing, but I didn't know anybody in my family that worked in broadcasting. You know, my dad obviously a come across journalists. So I would tap into that or, you know, what should I do? How do I get into telly? And of course they said, just get lots of experience in all kinds of forms of media. And, and so when somebody sent me that clip I was surprised I said that because actually I just wanted to go into telly. 

I didn't know what, because I didn't see women doing sports presenting. You know, Des Lynam was that was the presenter of the time, you know, the sports presenter at the time and Bob Willis and, you know, Coleman, all those people. So I, I kind of, I suppose I wanted to try and do something in the sports world, but yeah, that, that surprised me when I saw it that I actually said that, because I thought I'd have to be either Jeremy Paxman or Zoe ball. I thought they were the two careers that I would take. 

And you discovered radio at university. So you've got radio experience at university. What, what did you work on there? 

The radio station in Newcastle, which is only about 15 miles from Durham, what what's called Metro FM. It's like the capital of you know, of the city. And in my gap year. I'd met the programme controller at a friend's party and I said, Oh, I'm coming up to Durham and I'd really like to work in broadcasting. He said, well, I'll give you some work experience. And I rang him the minute I arrived in Durham and I had a car so I could get over to Newcastle. So I'd go over every couple of afternoons a week. And I've learned to compile the news bulletin to work in the newsroom. 

And then he said to me, right, I want you to start news reading. So by the Christmas I was doing my first bulletins reading and by the January he was paying me to do it. And so I did a few shifts a week and then I do weekends. And then eventually he gave me a show and, and it kind of went on to the point where, when I graduated, I got the breakfast show. That was my job. It was my first job. 

So it was, it was like doing an apprenticeship while I was doing my law degree, but I still, I still kind of really, you know, really enjoyed my degree. And I went to Edinburgh with a play. The Edinburgh Festival. I was the president of the union society. And I did stuff with the college. I was deputy president of the college. So I did immerse myself in college life, university life, Durham’s a collegiate system.

So that was all really important, but I had this other second life going on at the side. So, your big summer holidays when you're a student go from the beginning of June practically, right the way through to the middle of September, and I just work every day on the radio station. 

I’d live in somebody's student house that, you know, cause a lot of students keep the house over the summer, so I just rent somebody's house. Or my then boyfriend lived in Newcastle. So I'd stay at his parents' house and I just carried on working really.

And then not long after leaving university, you've got an opportunity at Sky. How did that come about for you?

 So I was in my first year post university doing the breakfast show and I kept hanging out with the sports team at the end of every show. The breakfast show’s amazing. You have to get up at four, but you finish at nine. So I was, you know, I, it was perfect job for a 22-year-old cause you've got so much energy. You know, like now the idea of getting up at four every day fills me with dread. I feel sick in my stomach thinking about early mornings like that. And I’d go to the sports team at the end of the shift and I'd start chatting about Newcastle United and we talk about sport. So the boss said to me, you're always hanging out with the sports team. I thought it was getting told off, you know, I was like, Oh, sorry. And he was like no, no, no. So you really liked sport and you’re really passionate about it and you always talk about it on the show. Why don't you do interviews for us at St. James's Park at the weekends on Saturdays or home games? 

I was like ‘Oh my gosh, this is an actual job. It's a thing I can go’. And they were brilliant the sports team, the commentator was amazing. And I used to have such a laugh and loved it so much and became kind of, you know, really passionate about the team. It was the Kevin Keegan team that nearly won the league. And the last day of the season was in May obviously was the day when Newcastle officially threw it away because Man Utd won Middlesborough. 

So they had Sky had two teams doing both matches cause. And they had a helicopter with a trophy because they didn't know where it was going to go. (Well, I think we could have all told them - as if Brian Robson’s Middlesborough were not going to be beaten by Man United… anyway). 

And so I was at St. James's Park. And so was Richard keys. Do they were doing the live match from there. And unbeknown to me, he'd given his business card to a camera man and said he was making a documentary about women in sport. And he wasn't, he said, look, I'm not making that he said, but I want you to call me because I want to introduce you to my boss at Sky. And I think they'd really like you. 

And he just kind of handed me over if you like to this boss at Sky who rang me, well I rang him, and he said, we'd like to you to come down for a screen test. So they flew me down, like, you know, they bought a flight and I went down and they picked me up from the airport and I got into the studios and did a screen test and, and then they offered me a job. And so it was a real kind of, a proper kind of ‘movie moment’ – you know, one of those moments where you think this feels like a film I'm like, I've kind of, I've got my, my chance is just, you know, the kind of thing that you really imagine would be a wonderful experience and it was.

It was just so fantastic to kind of get, because I was really getting to the point where I was okay, I've got it. I want to do something else. And I can't stay in the Northeast forever. I really want to go and cut my teeth in some kind of proper telly. 

And because I was doing a little bit on a local show for Tyne Tee's called ‘Gabbing with Gabby’ where I take famous people up for dinner. But it was pre-recorded stuff. 

So then I got, I got the chance and, and Sky was amazing because I got to do hours of live telly and there's nothing like experience to get experience. And I think it's all right, doing stuff on YouTube or filming yourself on a camera, but actually doing live telly is very, very important if you want to work in live telly. 

So I was doing it, but also not doing it with a massive audience. Cause it was a six o'clock news programme and a 10 o'clock programme. So most people at six or 10 of watching a certain news program, that's a BBC one. They're not watching the lower levels of Kky as it was at the time. You know, it was kind of, you know, sky three or whatever, you know, I think my mum rarely watched it. 

So it was so I also, we were living in an age with no social media. So even though I'm sure there were blokes watching it, I think it ‘what’s a woman telling me the cricket scores for’. I didn't know. I didn't know they were saying that because they didn't have social media to send me some trolling or, you know, so although I've had a fair amount of that and over the years, that that was a lucky for me, that, that young, very, very kind of raw age, where I was learning and cutting my teeth and learning my skills, I didn't have to deal with that. 

You know, it was, if you wanted to abuse somebody, then you have to actually write a letter. And most of those people can't be bothered. So the only letters I got were very sweet ones, sending me chocolates and things like that, you know, from, from slightly strange addresses.

I even got a pair of tights, one sent in the post. Not sure what that was about?

People don't send gifts in that way. I remember having some chocolates in my house and my mum's a chocoholic and I haven't got a sweet tooth and she said, ‘Oh, I can just do something sweet after dinner’. I said, well, I've got these chocolates and she asked ‘Where are they from?’ Somebody sent me them, she said, ‘Oh, even I'm not sure...’ 

So it was, it was a fun time and it could have been a lot different I think if I'd been cutting my teeth in this day and age. 

I hear you had an early boss who said, he thought you'd never present live sport. That didn’t put you off at all. You weren't put off?

((laughs)) I must have had a really thick skin! So, I would do these bulletins and in between the six and 10 o'clock bulletin, we'd get dinner, we'd watch the match if it was on match on and rewrite some stories for the 10 o'clock bulletin. My boss was always there till about eight and I'd always be knocking on his door saying, ‘Oh, well, what are you going to give me some live sport. I'd like to do the football.’

And you know, so I remember him one day saying to me, Gabby, even a tight rope walker has dull days at work, you know? And I was like, no, I'm not having a dull day. I just want to do live sport. 

So he gave me the ice hockey. That was my first sport. I did ice hockey for a season, which was great because the mechanics of doing live ice hockey are not dissimilar to doing any other live sport, as I've discovered, you know, obviously you've got to learn the rules and you've got to learn about the personnel, but actually once you live on air and you're working out what the story and the narrative of the match is and what you should talk about, it's, it's not a kind of a long way from doing a live football match. 

And again, it had even fewer viewers. So my first match was up in Ayre because he Scottish Eagles and one of the teams in the league and, and we had a fire alarm go off and I was left presenting on my own. Even the camera man got left so I went on an presented in an empty stadia was so all those kinds of experiences that you need to be able to handle it, live television, I got in, in spades. So it was great a great season, but I still wanted to do football. 

And then the other boss at Sky told me that if I wasn't on his screen doing it by the age of 28, I wouldn't be doing it at all. 

Implying perhaps that after 28 I'd be clapped or something and I wouldn't be allowed to kind of like, you know, show my face on telly. 

So I, I had this real urgency then I think, I mean, there was a bit of an urgency with me anyway, cause my brother had died. 

So I think I was living this kind of carpe diem times 100. And, and then my agent at the time, who's quite an old school agent called John Holmes looks after Gary Linekar. He said, ‘why are you always in such a hurry? And I said, if somebody told you at 22, you wouldn't be on telly after 28, you might be in a hurry too!’ And he was like, ‘fair point, ignore him’. 

So yeah, it was, I mean, I suppose then you, then you start trying to prove people wrong, I guess. Don't you? 

Clare Balding said, having parents who are very well known in racing helped her to be more accepted when she started her commentary. Did that help you? Your dad's history? 

Yeah. I wasn't married and my surname was still Yorath and he was still managing, I mean, I interviewed him on Sky a few times, you know, and he was managing Sheffield Wednesday. Yeah. 

And so he was very well known to a lot of the people who are coming in my studio sitting in, you know, and sat and chatting to me would say, how's your dad. Is he all right? 

And so that not only helped I suppose, other people feel that, okay, she might know something, it helped me feel quite relaxed in that environment, which could be quite intimidating. I think. So at the beginning, for sure that that, that would have been, I agree with Clare, I suppose it's more other people's perceptions, you know, that they, they get over one hurdle at least that you might genuinely be interested. 

I mean, the number of people used to say to me, do you actually like it? I’d think surely with a law degree, there are other things I could do if I didn't like it, you know, I'm not, it's not, it's not this or kind of, you know, stacking shelves. 

I would hope that there were some other things, if I really hated it, I could do so. Yeah. You have to, you know, because I was saying something the other day I was talking to some women who had something to do with the Princes trust and you know, it's a very smoke and mirrors career, you know, you look, it looks all glamorous, but you know, the number of times you find yourself changing in toilets and, you know, having a makeup done with, you know, sat on a toilet seat or, you know, kind of being in a, you know, some very dodgy kind of hotels eating Pringles at two in the morning because the restaurant’s closed, you know, that's, that's the reality of being a sports broadcaster in life on the road. 

And if you thought it was all just five star hotels and you know, a very glamorous job, then you know, that you'd be disappointed very quickly. 

You went to work then to the BBC and worked in a whole range of different shows and formats. Is there a favourite type of show that you like to present? 

I think nothing quite beats live, because it's the adrenaline, you know, talking earlier on about getting that. It's not just you on a, on a pre-recorded show. I think it's, everybody's slightly less kind of heightened. So, so you might be treating it as a live show and trying to get it, nailed it. But if everybody knows they could stop and redo something, it has that slightly kind of, you know, there's less of a sense of urgency. 

And, and so, although I enjoy doing those, those kinds of recorded programmes, and when I say live sport - Match of the Day is live and it's a good show to do from the point of view, it's iconic and it's this, you know, very much in the shop window show, but it's quite formulaic. 

You know, you, you've got your match edit, you talk about what you've seen and you move on and you know, so you know what you're going to be talking about, whereas live sport, you just don't know. 

So that kind of is top of the heap, I guess. And we're working on things like the live athletics world championships or Olympic games, all those things, you just, you just don't know what's going to happen. You don't know when you're going to need to fill for 20 minutes what you're going to, you know, so it's that thinking on your feet, which I really enjoy the most. And I guess of all the shows that aren't like sport, then SPOTY is the one that I feel incredibly proud to be a part of because it’s such a, an iconic (I’ve used that word too much today) . But it is that show that, you know, feels to me like the show that when I was a kid, you know, they were kind of, they were the ones that brought us all together. That even my mum who wasn't particularly into her school would want to watch, 

When you think back to SPOTY very recently we had that shortlist when it was only men on the short list. Do you think that happened again now? Do you think we've changed enough that that wouldn't happen? 

I'm fairly sure it won't happen, but I think it's very, you know, there's, there's lots of arguments for and against kind of being proactive. We've had these conversations a lot this summer, obviously to do with race and to do with pushing people into positions because we want representation, not when I say pushing them into positions, but making sure there's an opportunity to be, there is one thing. I think it's a difference, isn't it between not being racist and being anti-racist and actually creating an environment where that's not just possible, but actually what we're going to do this because otherwise this could take too long, you know, this, this situation. 

And I think with regard to women on the SPOTY shortlist, I think like there were a lot of people, when Johanna Konta was on the list and she'd got to the semifinals of Wimbledon. There were a few people kind of going well, she didn't win Wimbledon, you know, and it was that kind of, and I think, well, you know what, she's, she's pushing further than any woman has done for a while. And we have to kind of keep putting women up there and putting women in, in the shop window because actually they've been held back for 40 years or longer in the case of some sports. But you know, you look at football and obviously the game wasn't allowed to be played in this country for a long time. 

So, so of course you have to kind of, you know, give a little shove in the back and just try and get up to the same speed it's gonna take a while. And so we need to do what we can both with representation. Anybody who's underrepresented. I think it kind of cuts across a lot of, a lot of areas. 

And looking back at your career over the last 25 or so years, is there anything you would do differently? Is there anything you would change or that you regret at all? 

I don't, I don't have masses of regrets. I think things happen for a reason. I, I spent a long time ITV before I came to the BBC and I, I really enjoyed that. I didn't enjoy the way it ended and I was very glad to be given an opportunity by the BBC, which was kind of like almost starting again in terms of the people I worked with and all of that. 

I think, you know, when I was really early on at Sky, I was, I was going to do my coaching badges, football, coaching badges. And I wish I had done them because I think it would, that would give me further insight into the game at the time I thought, Oh, I'm too old now. 

I think, Oh God, what was I thinking? 

Why did I, you know, why did I, and a friend of mine used to play locally in Richmond and she was like, you should come down. She was a Russian lady. So I went through her accent and she's like, you should come down with me and play. There you go. She was amazing. She was living in Vancouver and she was always covered, but she was always covered in bruises. And I was thinking, Oh, I'm not sure I want all those bruises. I've done my time being injured in sport. But maybe, maybe that, you know, I would have been, I don't know, maybe it would have entrenched me a bit more and giving me another insight into the school. 

And what do you think is the secret to being a fantastic sports presenter? What, what tips would you give? 

I think, I think if you're, whatever your subject matter is, it's the passion that you have for, it has to be real. And you talked earlier on about, and you know, when I talked about kind of enjoying it and I think it's, as I said before, it's not, it's not always - You don't rock up to a game and just then go home after, you know, there's lots of travel and research and all that stuff that if you didn't have the passion for, it would feel quite dry. And I think that's the thing it's bringing it to life for people and giving people like for me, sport is about, it's about the human spirit and it's about conquering all kinds of challenges that we face and that, that can then translate into other areas of life. 

You know, I said last year during the women's world cup or afterwards that those audiences, those millions that watched those matches were not about, Oh, isn't that brilliant, 11 million people watched that match. Maybe there'll be 5 million footballers. It's 11 million people watch that. And there'll be lots of young girls watching that, who see those women and think, Oh, I didn't know, you could be a footballer. I am, maybe I could be a builder. Maybe the jobs that I thought - an engineer. Maybe I could do the things that I thought weren't necessarily for me or whatever it is that they felt. Maybe wasn't for them. 

It’s about opening up your mind to other possibilities and sport does that in lots of ways. I think in terms of how it inspires me, one of the great inspiring days of my year, every year is the London Marathon, you know, and I hear what people overcome. And I really I, because I came from grassroots, most, most of us did at the beginning of our sporting life. You know, the power of kind of volunteers and people who make clubs happen, who are going to be so important more than ever I think after Corona allows us to we'll get back to those things because the money is not going to be there. And we rely on those people. 

We've got very used, I think to the national lottery has taken a lot of that slack up and does provide a platform for people to have professional careers, but we still need those grassroots sports. 

And my son plays a lot of rugby and his local club is completely grassroots. And the time that people put in, you know, to organizing doing all the compliance, especially now, you know, the hoops, they've got to jump through to keep those sessions going. And, and that, for me, that link between what I sometimes sit and prevail over kind of like, you know, I'm sitting in Olympic stadium with the absolute elites. I think we've just keeping that link right down to the very first journey in sport at grassroots is so important. And I probably I've gone way away from your question, but I think, I think that that part of it comes through the way you broadcast. I think that understanding that link 

In terms of the women's sport and women's coverage, have you seen a fast enough change in terms of attitudes and what's being covered and I guess the quality of the production around women's sport too?

Yeah. Massively the, you know, night and day from when I first started out.

I regularly present a match of the day now where there'll be a woman in the director's chair and a woman in the producer's chair. 

I regularly do the women's football, obviously I'll have all women putting pundits, sometimes a woman, a woman producer, sometimes a man pundit as well, which I quite like. I like the fact that men talk about women's football, because I think for a lot of the male audience, it gives them a sense of being able to join in. 

And you know, like my, when I came back from France, I nipped home for a couple of days during the world cup I was getting a bit of building work done at home. And my builder, who I love, who's been a builder for years and years. His son is actually Joe Edwards. Who's one of the coaching trio at Chelsea. He's like Frank Lampard’s right hand man. And he doesn't really watch a lot of football, but he said to me, when I came home here, ‘Oh my God, that Lucy Bronze, she's unbelievable!!’ And I was like, Carl, have you been watching the women's world cup? And he's like, ‘Oh, I love it. I love it!’ And he wasn't saying that to just kind of like try and patronize or, you know, she's all right, love, isn't she? And I think, well, you know, this is a breakthrough because if men like Carl are watching and enjoying the women's world cup, then that's the journey we've got to go on. 

You can't make women's sport just for women to watch, you know Sue, in the same way that we’ve watched mens sport, we've been watching it over the years. So, you know, we enjoy, I enjoyed the, the Gabby Sabatini and Steffi Graf matches at Wimbledon as much as I enjoyed, you know, Boris Becker against Pat Rafter, you know, that's, we're allowed to enjoy both. And, and I think that's where women's sports has got to keep pushing, keep pushing to, to make sure its demographic is  - that's how sponsorship that's how branding will appeal, you know, across a wider range. 

We're not just appealing to  --- you know, nobody wants their market to be so narrow, do they? This is a family thing. And one of the other sights I loved in France was one day I was do my notes. I looked over in the stadium and there was a guy and his daughter, they were at the England game and they'd come over together. And they were in a hotel coincidentally. So I was chatting to them later and she was a massive Newcastle fan as well. I mean, I’m a Newcastle Fan and the dad wasn't even that into football. ((I'm getting kind of here's the back of my neck now)) 

And I said to him, what's your team? And he went, Oh, I don't really follow football. And he'd just brought her. And I was like, that's one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard, you know? And he just loved her passion so much that he took her out to the game and, and that is priceless. You know, that's what, that's what it has to be like. 

So from the men's game that you almost need to distance yourself, or you'd like to, because of the negative elements in terms of the gambling and racism and the homophobia that we hear. Does that frustrate you at all? 

But those things are life aren't, they're in life. You know they're not just the preserve of football. Football sometimes gets a bad rap because those things associate themselves with the most popular pastime - sport entity -  in the world, you know, football is the number one sport in the world played by every country? It's the easiest sport to kind of get together. It's, you know, you get a ball and you get a group of people and you got to game. That’s why I heard this disagreement or heated debate once with Seb Coe about that and athletics once. Because he was saying, Oh, ‘athletics is the biggest school’ and everybody can run, obviously Seb, but when we're talking about the global reach of the sport and it was, it was a tongue in cheek obviously it wasn't a serious debate, but the, the thing about football is that because of that, it attracts, you know, everything, doesn't it. 

And it's kind of a microcosm of, of sometimes the very worst of society and sometimes the best of society. And I think if, if we don't, if we pretend it's not that if we pretend that racism only happens in a football ground, we're just, we're foolish. Aren't we, you know, that's where it's, that's where it's emanating, that's where it's coming out, but it's there.  And the same thing with homophobia and the same thing, you know, gambling is a big problem in society. 

And so are other things, you know, so I think, I think it's not a reason to not enjoy a sport. You know, you only need to go up past the park in a Saturday morning and you see kids playing football and enjoying the sport and in a very pure form and having a great time and keeping fit. And again, it goes back to this grassroots thing, you know, Kylian Mbappe, didn't start out life as the multi-billionaire football, he started out as a kid playing football in a park. And that, that is how everybody's journey begins. 

You've recently launched your podcast, the midpoint which is fantastic. Why did you feel you wanted to make this new show? 

About a year ago I had this idea for it and then lockdown just pushed me into action because I could do very much life sports presenting. Cause there wasn't very much live sport. 

So I had time to formulate, to get my guests together. And it's also, as, you know, you can do a podcast in any which way you don't have to be physically present with somebody and I'm 47. And there was a moment kind of where I kind of looked at myself in the mirror one day I walked by somewhere. I was like, Oh gosh, I am older because inside I feel like I looked totally different to my face sometimes. 

And it's not that I wanted to be younger and I don't feel, I just feel I've got the energy and there's lots of things I want to do. And so I explored this with a few people, kind of, I work with and, and talking to people about, you know, I didn't want it to become just about the menopause or just about women. I wanted it to be about the middle of life and what we can all, you know, where we're all at and what we're doing. And speaking to some of my friends who are more well known, you know, and realizing that they had good stories to tell them, to try and also engage people to think actually, (and ironically, the government seems to be trying to get everybody to change careers), but also to, to, to think that, you know what, I'm 47, but actually I've always wants to do this. 

I'm going to do it. I'm not going to just go’, Oh, well, I'm never going to get a chance to do that now, you know?’

My first guest was John Bishop who only started making money from standup comedy when he was 40, before that he sell pharmaceutical drugs, you know, so, and Richard Osman, who's on an episode as obviously just written an amazing book. And he's just got the second and third book deal, you know, he's such a polymath, but he wasn't on telly till he was 40. Before that he made telly it was excellent and making telly, but that could have been the rest of his life, making telly. And then he did pointless and became a different creature. 

You know, I don't think that have paid a million-pound book advance to him when he was 37 because he didn't have that profile. You know so his world was kind of changed in his mid-forties. He says he had a midlife crisis in his thirties. 

And, and it's all that kind of period. I think it's often this negative connotations with middle-aged. ‘Oh you’re so middle aged’ Is that kind of assuming middle age, it should be one that you go, well, I'm still fitting well, I want to know how to still be fit and well when I'm 80, but right now I also need to celebrate the fact that I had 25 years of doing a career and I've got a bit of wisdom I can share that I brought up kids and I'm, you know, all those things that we kind of have been juggling with. 

Just take a bit of time to go. This is all right, actually, rather than thinking, Oh my God, I need a face lift to look 23. You know, we're all getting older. That's, that's a fact. There were no secret kind of potions being delivered on this podcast telling you, you can kind of look young forever. It's not about, it's not about the aesthetic. It's about being happy, where you are, I guess. And trying to kind of acknowledge that you've done some stuff. That's great. Thanks. 

You've got teenage twins. I'm a twin actually. I've got a twin brother. 

Are you close? 

Really close actually? I've got three daughters and he's got three sons. So when he had his third son, my dad said that enough of the competition. 

How do you balance your life in terms of your incredibly busy career? And then that family juggle too?

I think having a very good partner to do that with. Kenny was when we, when they were born, he was just finishing off playing professional rugby and starting his business. And so he now really, he said, I'm so happy. I had that period like few months with you where we were just going, ‘what the hell is this? We've got these two babies’, you know, and ‘how did this happen?’ And, well, we know how it happened, but we were, we were just kind of learning together and he took as much responsibility with things. 

I after six weeks went off and did a champions league game, and it was only at Chelsea, and I lived in Chiswick. So it was, it wasn't far down the road, but that was quite early to go back and do. But I was, I was, I felt a bit pressured in my own personal kind of pressure to think I've got to get on and do it. And I knew there'd be another game two weeks later so it wasn't like I was going back to a five day, week job. And he was like, absolutely fine with being with the babies. There was no kind of sense of him babysitting, you know, the idea, you know, when you hear people say daddy daycare or babysitting, I think no, it's 50 50 here. 

You know, I just had to carry them for nine months. So he was, he's always been great like that. 

And when I've had my job takes me away from home, obviously sometimes for three weeks, if it's a world cup or Olympic games and you know, as long as I've, I've left enough lists - and that's the control freak in me -  then, you know, we've, we've, we've managed.

We’re always consulting most consulting each other and, and he's got better. Like when they were younger, it's saying, Oh, I'm going to be away this night. Is that okay? You know? And he would say that too, so it's not a just always saying I'm going away. 

You know, otherwise that's not 50 50, is it if there's any one person that reports in about their travel. 

So, yeah. And, and also I think looking after each other, you know, and he's always been such a cheerleader for me, you know, and he's always so supportive and loves what I do. And I guess it helps our world sometimes cross over a little bit as well. So he gets what I do and I enjoy, you know, his successes and what he's been up to. 

So yeah, I think that, that part of it, I love, I mean, I love this age. The kids are so much fun at 15 and they've got so much to say and they, you know, really, I find that joy and positivity actually is really, really helps in this whole Corona period, because I think it's so easy to get dragged down with the macro picture of doom and gloom and actually, although the news is on and they listened to it and they're not naive, they look at the future and they're bright and they're kind of want things to change. 

And so, yeah, I kind of, as much as I'm trying to keep a positive environment for them, I think they very much helping us. Yeah. 

And just finally, you've got an enormous work ethic and the drive, but what advice would you give to young women who are coming in now and perhaps wanting to build it career in sports media today?

I said before about having a passion and loving what you do and being thorough. You know, I think there was a bit of me at the beginning that felt I had to be better than the blokes around me, cause if I made a mistake, it was going to have the spotlight shown on it. 

And I think you can't really always live like that. 

I know we say constantly to our kids, don't we, that making mistakes is what makes you better. And you only learn when you make mistakes. If you're perfect, you won't learn for the next time. Things will kind of not always go right. And you're going to have to learn through that through your career. 

But I think just, just being as, as thorough as you can, with everything that you do. I’d say that to a man or a woman, you know, in our, in our career will, will stand you in good stead and, and having, -- your work ethic needs to be, you know, strong. You do some ugly shifts, you know, there'll be some overnights, there'll be some times where you're, you know, it's not, it's not a nine to five job at all. 

And even when you're not working, you're working, I’m not doing live telly now for – because I had a match cancelled this weekend -- I'm not doing live telly for about 10 days. I'm not going to turn off from sport. You know, I'm not just going to kind of go, okay, well, that's it then I'll just, I'm just going to go and do some baking and go for a walk. You have to be constantly there by osmosis. You know, even if you're not writing it down, you need to be on top of it. 

So if you really are thinking that you enjoy it, but maybe not so much, then you're probably not going to find it the career for you I think.