My broadcasting career roughly coincided with the rise of satellite TV, a stroke of great good fortune on my part. After my first year at Sky I switched from football to cricket, where I remained for the rest of the 1990s, covering the domestic scene during the summer and England tours in the winter.
In the new millennium I was offered the opportunity to present the sports bulletins. Much as I loved covering cricket, it wasn’t a hard decision; I now had a young family and wanted to spend as much time with them as possible.
The 2005 Ashes
I still got to cover cricket, though, notably the climax of the Ashes of 2005. England’s long-suffering cricket followers had become used to defeats by the all-conquering Australians, but now their team was heading into the Fifth Test 2-1 up and needing only a draw to win the Ashes for the first time in more than 18 years. Over the course of the next five days, I anchored Sky News’ coverage live from the Oval, witnessing every nail-biting twist as south London, and indeed the entire country, went cricket mad.
2012 Olympics - Jessica Ennis
In the summer of 2012, London hosted the Olympic Games for the first time since 1948. From July 27th to August 12th, I was part of Sky News’ Olympics team, anchoring their coverage live from the new Olympic Park. The high point of the Games was the evening of August 4th, known as Super Saturday. During one remarkable hour in front of an ecstatic Olympic Stadium crowd, Jessica Ennis, Greg Rutherford and Mo Farah all won gold for Britain. Jessica had gone into the Games carrying a huge weight of expectation but she rose to the challenge, winning the heptathlon. I was there to interview her the following morning.
2012 Olympics - Tom Daley
On August 11, the final Saturday of the Games, Tom Daley, then just 18, claimed bronze in the 10m platform dive. In doing so he became the first Briton to win a medal in the discipline since 1960. He finished with a score of 556.95, a mere 11 points behind the winner. It capped an emotional year for Tom, who had lost his father to cancer in 2011. I spoke to him after the event.