I started out in journalism presenting programmes about financial matters. I tried to take this often complicated subject matter and make it as simple as possible. When I moved into presenting football on television, it often felt as if we were endeavouring to do the opposite – take something as simple as football and make it as complicated as possible. Don’t get me wrong: the analysis of the best ex-footballers in the business, as long as they use the most accessible language, can be fascinating. My favourite to work with was the former Arsenal and England player Lee Dixon. To make sure what he was saying was intelligible, he used to run it past me first. He called me, very few might say unkindly, his idiot filter. But I was very proud to perform this function for him because I was very good at it.
Working Lunch was the business programme I co-presented with Adam Shaw, who was as expert on matters financial as Lee was on football. And, like Lee, Adam used me as a bit of an idiot filter, too. Interestingly, Adam used to say of football that he’d like to be more into it but found a lot of the language around it baffling. This made him feel excluded, as if he was a guest at the wrong party.
