Profile
I used to be a teacher but got out when it became clear I was damaging young people's lives. So I switched to being a news journalist and got a job as a reporter on the East Anglian Daily Times in Colchester and then Ipswich. Then I wrote features for the Independent for a few years. In 1998 I was made Chief Sports Writer at the Sunday Mirror. I've covered two Olympics, two World Cups and two European Championships.
What made you first realise you had a passion for Sport?
At primary school the headmaster banned us from kicking a football around in the playground because a window got smashed. So we used a tennis ball and that got banned. So we used an apple core - also bizzarely banned. In the end we used orange peel!
That's how the passion started. But it grew out of listening to sports commentaries on the radio.
What was the first piece you wrote?
A piece called "Only A Dreamer" for the Yorkshire Evening Post. It was about how I scored the winner for Leeds United in the European Cup Final and hit a century for Yorkshire. I was 15 and, 30 years later, I'm still dreaming.
What was the best non-footballing event you've covered and why?
It has to be the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Everything about it was perfect. The country, the people, the organisation and, of course, the women's beach volleyball. And I had the privilege of watching Steve Redgrave, the 20th Century's greatest Olympian (and he's British) winning his fifth gold medal in a row.
