Has there ever been a more divisive commentator than Carlton Kirby? His puns and mixed metaphors have earned him legions of fans, but also hordes of detractors-making the 64-year-old something of a Marmite character on the mic. A veritable globetrotter, Kirby describes himself as "a bit of a journeyman" - although he's starting to feel most at home in the south-west London suburb of Molesey, where he lives with his wife and two teenage children in a rickety Tudor cottage.
Kirby grew up in the Sheffield suburb of Hallam in the 1960s, where he rubbed shoulders with Jeremy Clarkson and Michael Palin. His brother dated the sister of head boy Seb Coe, and Def Leppard were the school band. "I think there was something in the water," says Kirby, who stepped out with a supermodel and lived on a desert island before finding his calling through motorsports and cycling at Eurosport.
