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.

The lowlights... Sometimes you're away from home quite a lot, which can be difficult. It's not first class all the way, you don't stay in exotic hotels and have people running after you.

As a presenter, while I might suddenly want to start talking about something completely different, I have to stick to what we've agreed in order for all these other people to get their bits into the programme. So you have to be quite disciplined.

You don't see what's gone before. A lot of that can be long, long boring hours in the gym, long, long hours on the track or, for the likes of Paula Radcliffe, long hours out on the road in the rain running and running.

I really enjoy doing what I do. I enjoy seeing live sport performed at the highest level. What's wonderful about sport is that it involves everybody, everybody has an opinion.

You're there right through the match, thinking all the time, making it up as you go along. We don't have anybody write our scripts. You're basically presenting to the people watching at home off the top of your head.

On the day of the game you get there quite early, about 10 o'clock for a 3 o'clock kick-off, because you do a little bit of filming early on. You need to meet the crew and they need to have time to get a cup of tea and all those things the crew like to do before they go out filming.