For many, the real start of Gary Lineker's broadcasting career was one of the most difficult days in British sporting history.
It was 1997, and the Grand National at Aintree had had to be postponed because of two coded IRA bomb threats which had forced the entire racecourse to be evacuated.
The BBC were hosting the famous race on their flagship Grandstand sports show, with presenter Des Lynam in situ in Liverpool, and forced to tell viewers that he and the entire production team were among the 60,000 spectators who were having to leave Aintree due to the very real concerns.
Commentator Jim McGrath spoke over footage of those spectators being ushered away, but when he too had to come off air the BBC were left with little choice but to fill the time by cutting back to their London studio, and this became Lineker's time to shine.
Having left his final club Nagoya Grampus Eight and retired from football in 1994, the former forward - then England's second highest goalscorer of all-time - had done some punditry work for BBC Radio Five Live, as well as appeared on Football Focus and Match of the Day by now.
He was also a team captain on the popular sports quiz show They Think It's All Over, but he had never had as important a gig as this.
Taking the baton from Lynam in hugely difficult circumstances, he presented Grandstand with aplomb and showed that he was pretty much a natural at this. The BBC knew straight away what they had on their hands.
Two years later he was taking over from Lynam on a permanent basis, with the veteran broadcaster making a lucrative and much-publicised switch to ITV as he doubled his money.
The BBC were immediately happy to anoint Lineker as his successor, and on the opening weekend of the 1999-2000 Premier League season they confirmed him as the new face of their football coverage and 'BBC Sport's highest paid presenter' on a five-year deal worth £500,000 a year.
Lineker settled into the Match of the Day host's chair on Saturday August 7, 1999 - a day which had seen Liverpool win at Sheffield Wednesday, Arsenal beat Leicester at home and Wimbledon win 3-2 at Watford among the nine top-flight games that were played - and straight away settle into what would become his presenting style.
"Hey, tell you what. Football's back," he said, before a self-deprecating look away from the camera as he asked "Any good? Have I got the job?"
Of course he knew he had it by now, as Lineker began a run as the show's main presenter which has stretched for 24 years, the longest in the programme's history.
As he returns to our screens this weekend to present live coverage of Manchester City against Burnley in the FA Cup, that 1999 opening basically still applies, given the watered down version of Match of the Day and the BBC's other sports offerings that were shown last weekend when pundits, presenters and commentators all pulled out in support of the host.
All will be back this weekend along with Lineker, with the BBC going back to a full, expected offering.
And one that Lineker has been at the centre of for over a quarter of a century.
