You've given it some thought, you've tried to prepare as well as you can, but you're reacting to what you see so you can't really prepare that much. It's purely live broadcasting which is very nerve-wracking but hugely rewarding. The game finishes and eventually, maybe an hour later, you're all finished.

Try and maybe write a couple of articles for your local paper. Perhaps you need to go to college to learn some things that might help you on the way. If you've got enthusiasm, determination and you love your sport - why shouldn't you be doing my job?

I didn't go to university. They offered me a job as a junior reporter and I went off to work for the Southern Reporter. They sent me to college to do my NCTJ, which is a professional exam for journalists, and I started work as a print journalist purely because I was just a pest. They couldn't think of anything other than giving me a job to stop me hanging around.

TV depends very much on the pictures that you see on your television, and all the other things that come up on the screen, whether it be GFX, the studio or the pictures of the game.

They're [sportsmen] willing to give up a lot of other things that perhaps we all enjoy doing: eating and drinking and playing or whatever. They give up an awful lot to perform at the highest level.

The more you get, the better you become' and therefore over the years you become more experienced and you learn how to deal with it. You know what can go wrong, and you also learn how to react if things go wrong.

I think whatever it is you decide to do in life, if you want to be the very best at it, you have to be able to make sacrifices. Not everybody can do that and I think it makes our sportsmen and women that little bit special.