Their Blood Is Red & White
& Sponsored By
No.5 Bryn Law
Peter Davies meets the man from Sky…
Background: He’s from Ruabon, he
follows Wrexham, and he works for Sky Sports.
Setting: An unpleasant pub in inner-city Leeds.
* * * * *
Q. Tell us about your career…
A. ‘I started off as a radio news reporter. As a teenager I worked for
hospital radio. My first real break was Marcher Sound. I did commentaries there. It was
just before the Arsenal game; I remember those games against Telford and Winsford. I then
got a job with Cumbria Radio as a news reporter based in Barrow. And now I’m working
for Sky.’
Q. When did you move to Yorkshire?
A. ‘It was 1992 - I got a job at Radio Leeds. The first weekend I was up
there Leeds were hosting the Makita Challenge. The tournament featured Notts Forest,
Sampdoria, Stuttgart and Leeds. It was the summer after the Championship season and it was
a really good time to be in Leeds and to be reporting sport. Lombardo was at the Makita
tournament, as was Gullitt. After the Makita I did the Charity Shield at Wembley. It was
the Leeds-Liverpool game, when Cantona got a hat-trick. I’d said previously that
I’d only go to Wembley to watch Wales or Wrexham, but this was work! For part of the
time I was reporting from the tunnel - a superb experience.’
Q. Who did you work with at Radio Leeds?
A. ‘About 80 per cent of the time Norman Hunter was my co-commentator. At
other times Peter Lorimer, Eddie Gray and Billy Bremner were doing the expert’s job.
They were really good people.’
Q. What are your favourite Leeds memories?
A. ‘Monaco away. That was a good trip. The night out before the game was
brilliant and then Tony Yeboah got a great hat-trick. I was also at Wembley for the
Leeds-Aston Villa Coca-Cola Cup final - I was on the pitch again before that game - and,
obviously, every Leeds-Man United game was special, particularly when Leeds won.’
Q. What were the Leeds players like?
A. ‘Pretty good. They were all down to earth - and there were no real
superstars. Lee Sharpe was a good guy, Gary Speed was a good laugh, and I got to know a
few of them as mates. Gary Speed’s dad used to sit just in front of my commentary
box.’
Q. What about the batch of players before?
A. ‘The bunch before that were slightly more difficult to deal with - they
were more your typical bunch of superstars. I didn’t have any dealings with Cantona -
he left four months into my job - but I found Howard Wilkinson very difficult to deal
with. He never liked me. We had a bust-up after an interview I did with Batty and things
went downhill from there. It all came to a head before a cup tie against Walsall when I
asked him a question like: ‘Will you have trouble sleeping before the game?’ He
replied: ‘I’ll have trouble if you’re anywhere nearby.’ I don’t
think he was the greatest exponent of PR; at one point there was talk of me being kept
away from Elland Road. Wilkinson was OK when he wanted to talk, when he wanted to get a
message across, but on the whole I found him to be quite a difficult person to work
with.’
Q. What about George Graham?
A. ‘He was very different. He was much easier to deal with. I had rows with
Howard and I got no pleasure out of this; Graham though was polite and quite charming. He
was always more amenable and available than Howard and what he said was always very good.
Excellent in fact - and often hard-hitting. This was a refreshing change. He said what he
thought and he was good value.’
Q. Did Leeds have a media policy?
A. ‘There was always a kind of ranking system based on old perceptions. The
Evening Post was first in the queue and the club Internet service second. United were the
headline story in the Post every day. Radio Leeds - where I worked - was never top of the
list. We had to fight for stories, but unlike the Post we didn’t need a big United
story every single day. It was nice to have good relations with the players - with people
like Mark Tinkler, Mark Ford and Andy Couzens quite well.’
Q. What about Wilkinson’s sacking?
A. ‘This was the highlight for me! How he went was odd. A press conference
had been called to show off new signing Gunnar Halle. In the end I got the only one-to-one
interview, which I was pleased about.’
Q. What about that plane crash?
A. ‘The United team were flying back to Leeds after a midweek game in London
and I was the only journalist on the plane. I was involved in the incident, but I also had
a duty, as a journalist, to report on what actually happened. I suppose that every cloud
has a silver lining and in the end it was a good experience.’
Q. Take us through the details
A. ‘We were at Stanstead and the plane basically crash landed before it got
going. In the media you heard the phrase ‘aborted take-off’ being used. But that
was the air industry trying to put an upbeat spin on the incident; they didn’t want
everyone to panic.’
Q. What do you remember?
A. ‘I was sitting on the front row of seats next to Norman Hunter. I heard a
loud bang as we took off. I looked to the right and I saw flames in the engine. I thought
to myself: this can’t be right. It was bizarre. You watch all those films about air
crashes and then you become an actor in one. It didn’t seem real. I saw even more
flames and heard lots of shouting. The engines were on fire. Everyone braced themselves
for a crash-landing and you go through the set routine.’
Q. What next?
A. ‘Everyone put their heads down. The engine was on fire; the plane crash
landed and the plane started to bounce along. We didn’t know what would happen -
would we end up on a road or a motorway? After three bounces the plane stopped and the
engine was alight. Would it explode? Everyone wanted to get out of the plane. David
O’Leary forced the door open and Norman and I jumped out of the door. We were racing
- we were off!’
Q. What did you feel afterwards?
A. ‘I tried not to think about it - I’ve never dwelt on it. Everybody
just tried to get on with things. The air crew were very good. We got on a bus and
travelled back to Leeds by road. I was sitting close to David Wetherall and I used a
mobile to phone Radio Five Live. I had to go through Directory Enquiries though. It was
about 1.00am and I got through to the newsroom via the 24-hour switchboard. So much had
happened - I probably sounded drunk on the phone. I also phoned my girlfriend on the
mobile and other people. I did this straight away. I had to tell my girlfriend not to pick
me up at the airport. Leeds-Bradford Airport - where we had been due to land - knew
nothing about the crash.’
Q. What about the days following the incident?
A. ‘Everything just snowballed. For 18 hours or so I was doing stuff
non-stop: BBC outlets, regional programmes, Look North, radio, commercial TV, national
newspapers, Australian Radio! I also did an interview for a station in Papua New Guinea!
The journalistic work I did after the crash gave me a lot of exposure. When I went for my
interview at Sky they said they had seen a lot of my stuff go out after the crash. I also
got a lot of letters from Radio Leeds listeners; they gave me their reaction to what had
happened. I’ve not heard Leeds fans taunting United fans about Munich since our crash
at Stanstead, so one good thing came out of it all.’
Q. What does your current job at Sky entail?
A. ‘I’m their Yorkshire-based reporter. It’s 95 per cent football.
I follow all the region’s clubs for Sky’s digital channel and the Sports centre
programme. That means York City, Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday, Middlesborough, and the rest.
Rob McCaffrey’s a big mate of mine. He’s helped me a lot - and he’s written
a book about Joey and needs a publisher!’
In the second half of this interview Bryn talks about Wrexham