Diary of a Sky Sports Reporter

It doesn’t matter how much preparation and research you do as a football reporter, there are occasions when you just have to think on your feet – affectionately known as ‘blagging it’. I had to do that for my first goal report from Colchester vs Southampton live on Sky Sports on Saturday.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s opener for the Saints shouldn’t have been a tricky update to do… but one second before Jeff Stelling uttered those important words ‘to hear all about it, here’s Steve Jackson’ I glanced up from my notes to see the referee waive a red card in a crowded box. But who for? Why? And more importantly, what on earth was I going to say!? Somehow I managed to blurb something out and according to a couple of mates who were listening at home it made a little bit of sense. Another Southampton goal and a far more straight forward update followed in the second half. So I live to work another day… Huddersfield v Rochdale on Tuesday night.