So I made sure my second "work experience boy" stint on the local paper was on the sports desk.
(My first seemed to involve writing up the details of an awful lot of weddings). So, I'm e ighteen. The football reporter's gone on holiday. And the Sports Editor decides I'm up to filling those shoes for two weeks. He virtually gives me the entire back page to do. Heaven!
The thing that really marked it out was being shouted at by Martin O'Neill about a story I'd written. I realise now that doesn't make me exactly exceptional - but at the time I thought I'd be dining out on it for years. Broadcasting became my thing at University. No-one listened to University Radio Hull. Literally nobody. And I was still utterly terrified reading my first news bulletin. Once you've had that kind of adrenaline rush once, it becomes addictive. I got to do proper radio for the first time at Viking FM in my final year. Watching lower league football at all the grounds none of the other reporters wanted to go to. It meant being paid to watch sport and I got that vital hit of adrenaline from being live on the radio. There was suddenly nothing else I wanted to do. All that experience got me into the BBC. Who sent me on my training to Norwich, Cheltenham and then, finally, to York. I stayed there for the best part of ten years doing everything the radio world had to offer. Reporting, interviewing, presenting. In the middle I had a year in Sheffield doing sport on the radio again. Note for aspiring commentators: have hot Ribena standing by when you're doing three or four commentaries a week. It soothes the vocal cords. I got married too. And by way of a honeymoon swanned off with my wife to travel for six months. Things to do before you die: hike into the Grand Canyon; glacier walk in New Zealand; and dive the Great Barrier Reef. The list is a lot longer than that, but we don't have time. But it was a Channel Four Ice Hockey series I did where, for the first time, people started saying, "you should be on the telly more". And here I am. Cracking sport. Great cities. Terrific countryside. I'm a lucky man. Top Ten List 1. Best Song Ever: Am I allowed to nominate the entirety of Revolver by The Beatles? 2. Best TV Show Ever: Black Books. The first series. Genius. 3. Best personal broadcasting moment : Knee deep in water at three in the morning in the Great Yorkshire Flood of 2000, being able to tell a thousand people camped out in a school that their homes were safe. 4. Best place in England : Wembley when you're winning. 5. Favourite/ worst food : Favourite: Lasagne, food of the Gods. Worst: There was this burger at Colchester Utd's Layer Road once ... but I don't want to talk about it. 6. Favourite/ worst drink : Favourite: The real ale with the weirdest name in the pub. Worst: There was this coffee at Colchester Utd's Layer Road once ... but I don't want to talk about it. 7. Favourite/ worst animal : Favourite: Our black and white cat. Soppy as anything. Lost him a year ago. Worst: Possums in New Zealand. Single handedly destroying an eco system. Kill them all. 8. Favourite name for boy/ girl : Ben / Charlotte 9. Favourite sport/ least favourite sport : I'll watch anything competitive. That bloke in the pub yelling at the curling during the Winter Olympics? Probably me. I'll let you into a secret, though: I'm personally rubbish at sport. Take cricket, I don't bowl and (if I play at all) I bat number 11. Enough said. 10. Favourite politician/ historical figure : Nelson Mandela. No contest. | 
