1. Kirsty Gallagher
A veteran of the game, it’s strange to think that SSN gave Gallagher her presenting break, given that it feels as if she’s been around for years and years. The 33-year-old Edinburgh-born beauty, who is the daughter of former Ryder Cup captain Bernard Gallagher, went on to present Gladiators (alongside Ian Wright) and the presumably-awful-but-can’t-say-I-ever-actually-sat-down-and-watched-it Kirsty’s Home Videos on Sky One. One wonders how many red-blooded males did tune into Kirsty’s Home Videos, only to be badly let down when confronted by a string of clips of babies falling over, dogs chasing their tails and other such poisoningly inane drivel.
2. Matt Lorenzo
Another stalwart of the Sky Sports anchorman’s chair, Lorenzo’s calm authority has been permeating our living rooms ever since Goals on Sunday shared a theme tune with Maxwell House coffee ads (that supermarket saxophone number that Newcastle United used to run out to in the mid nineties). Lorenzo’s droopy, wizened eyes belie the fact that he doesn’t appear to have aged a single day in about 15 years. A staunch West Ham fan, Lorenzo attended the famous 1-0 win at Manchester United which played such a big part in their Carlos Tevez-inspired relegation escape act in 2007. “I went to Old Trafford with Eamonn Holmes, a Man Utd fanatic and my fitness trainer,” he told Westhamtillidie.com in a 2008 interview. Is he talking about three separate people? Or is Eamonn Holmes in fact Matt Lorenzo’s personal fitness trainer? You decide. Oh and apparently he became Communications Director at Notts County. Wonder what that involves.
3. Alex Quinn (née Hammond)
Good Morning Sports Fans! Did you, like me, think that the lovely Quinn (formerly Hammond) was just a pretty face and that she doesn’t actually know anything about horse racing at all? Surely someone was feeding her those tips, firing them at her from an autocue like one of those tennis ball machines, or pointing frenziedly at a series cards just off camera? Well, think again, old bean; she regularly competed in BSJA showjumping events as a child, before going on to work in the pedigree department of one of the top thoroughbred studs in the United Kingdom and riding in over 50 amateur races on the flat. Whatever that means. She is a Sheffield United fan and plays the bass guitar and tuba. I’d quite like to marry her but wouldn’t want her to have to get a whole new set of business cards again.
4. Mike Wedderburn
Lorenzo may have the edge in terms of experience but Manchester City fan and piano-player Wedderburn is the true rock of the SSN studio. Regularly lining up in the early morning slot alongside Quinn, Wedderburn melds a dry sense of humour with the kind of reassuring aura of calm that you so often need to accompany you through life. His talent does not stop with his smooth delivery and cheesy puns; Wedderburn played rugby for Harlequins, football for Portsmouth’s academy, cricket for Hampshire (as a fast bowler) and he was a promising GB swimmer. A groin injury forced him off the various pitches and pools and onto our screens, where his exemplary professionalism makes for the perfect backdrop for any working environment. But even the best presenters make the occasional on-screen gaffe. “I think my worst one was when I said that we were looking forward to another round of Faturday Shite Night,” he told The Guardian in 2005. “I had to say in my poshest grammar school voice ‘I'm terribly sorry’ but everyone was already killing themselves laughing, so it was pretty hard to get out of.” Oh, Mike!
5. Georgie Thompson
This stunning blonde, who is going out with one of Ant and Dec (does anyone actually know which one’s which?), also comes from a sporting background. Which is another one in the eye for cynical old me. Fair play, Sky Sports, fair play. Anyway, the glamorous Miss T used to take part in junior international tennis competitions and she is a well-known Fulham supporter, motor racing fan and keen surfer. “If I am a sex symbol I guess I'm a pint-sized one as I'm only five foot!” she told The Sun in 2007. Did you know that? Perhaps she could ride one of Alex Quinn’s horses. (Sport.co.uk would like to relinquish any responsibility for anybody taking that last sentence and using it - perhaps even animating it - out of context.)
6. David Bobin
The silver fox is a part-owner of the Sky Sports News Franchise. If Matthew Lorenzo looks wizened, then Bobin is a fount of knowledge. Versatile sporting interests, respect-commanding seniority and dark, twinkling eyes make Bobin the most obvious choice to be captain if the Sky Sports News presenters were all handed lead roles in the next Star Trek movie. He has never dropped anything, ever, has never been late for anything and only farts once a month, at a specified time and date, in a room in Sky Sports studios that has been specially cordoned off for just this purpose.
7. Clare Tomlinson
Tottenham Hotspur fan Tomlinson worked as a media officer at the Football Association in the early 1990s, before being appointed as the head of the communications department at Arsenal, where she helped then new manager Arsène Wenger deal with the media. She has been at Sky Sports for over ten years now but was placed on two-month leave from presenting Goals on Sunday in 2007 after she failed to reprimand Derby County goalkeeper Stephen Bywater for spelling out the ‘C word’ live on air. “I'm paid to read football in newspapers and watch TV - that's not exactly a terrible way to spend your day,” she told The Independent in 1998.
8. Ian Payne
Meet our friend Payne! The pleasant-faced Leeds United fan has an impressive CV for his line of work, but it’s not especially interesting and going into detail would basically just entail a list containing phrases such as “he became one of Five Live’s most recognisable voices”. So we’ll make up a couple of things instead. Ahem. Ian Payne is Swahili for ‘Love Magnet’. Ian Payne won a bronze medal for Romania in the 200m at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Ian ‘Payney’ Payne is such a big fan of the film Jumanji that he has three copies of it on DVD, in case he loses two of them. An anagram of ‘Ian Payne’ is ‘weird buffalo adventure’. In 1976, Ian Payne became the fourth Prussian Tsar to set foot on Jupiter.
9. Chloe Everton
Given the footballing allegiances of yours truly, the beautiful (and even more beautifully-named) Miss Everton was a shoe-in for this top ten even with the likes of Millie Clode and Charlotte Jackson banging on the door. There’s not much out there (over there, on that internet) in the way of information about her, so I suppose I could just tell you about how I want to marry her and keep her surname, if that’s possible, so I could spend the rest of my days watching her silkily delivering sporting headlines of my own devising. Chloe – will you marry me? (I’m aware that publishing this request might qualify it as a legitimate marriage proposal but, heck, if you don’t ask, you don’t get.)
10. Ed Chamberlin
Southampton fan Chamberlin was diagnosed with stomach cancer at the beginning of 2009 but, after taking time out for chemotherapy and recovery, he returned to the SSN fold in July.
Honourable Mention: That white-haired Scottish guy who gets really excited about everything. You know. Him.
No comments:
Post a Comment