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Sports journalist Garry Richardson has been
a regular at the BBC for over 25 years, covering many celebrated
sporting events and interviewing some of sport’s biggest names.
On an early Sunday morning before his weekly ‘Sports Week’ show on Radio
5 Life, LINC reporters Ryan Cant, Alex Diffley, Rachel Mitchinson and
Louise Fildes headed down to the BBC Studios in London to talk to Garry
about his lengthy career.
 You’re on the radio quite early in a morning. Do you find it difficult
to get up and get ready to do your show.
No, because I always know that I’ve got a show to do. Radio is a
constant thing, it never stops and if I’m not there they show can’t go
out, so that always helps me to get up so early in a morning.
‘Sports Week’ is an hour long show, how long does it take to put the
show together?
It actually takes most of the week to get everything ready, preparing
the interviews and planning the show. We finish one show on Sunday and
then on Monday it’s back to the beginning to plan out the next one.
Are there ever any problems in putting together a show?
Lots! The main one though is just getting people to do an interview.
Like today, we were hoping to get three big names on the show who all
told us on Friday that they’d do the interview if their teams won on
Saturday. They all lost, so now those people don’t want to be
interviewed.
Do you find that happens a lot?
Oh yes. They agree to an interview, then you call them on the Sunday
morning and their mobiles are switched off. You’ve got to make sure
you’ve got a back-up plan in case that happens.
Some sports stars can very unreliable when it comes to doing interviews,
and sometimes quite arrogant too. Like you have some who say they’ll do
an interview, so you arrange with them to be at the studio for a certain
time. They then turn up two hours late and ask how long it’s going to
take because they’ve got ‘somewhere they need to be’.
There’s always exceptions though. [Former World Champion boxer] Lennox
Lewis was always notoriously late, but then once he arrived he’d be
happy to spend ages chatting to you.
You’ve interviewed many world champions and famous names in sport, who
has been your most exciting interview subject?
I interviewed Bill Clinton at Wimbledon, that was the most exciting
interview I’ve done. I’ve interviewed loads of famous sports people but
this was a president. I got to interview him in the Royal Box during the
rain break, live on telly and radio.
How did that come about?
I just asked for it. That’s the key to getting anywhere in journalism,
you have to ask. If you think ‘there’s no way I can do that’ then you
might as well pack it in. I wrote a note and managed to get it to him,
people in the office were taking the micky but twenty minutes later I
was sat next to the president. It was fantastic, it really was. You
don’t often get to sit with the President of the United States in the
Royal Box, it was as big as it gets.
Were you nervous?
I didn’t have time to be nervous. It all happened really, really quickly
and I had to make up the questions off the top of my head. I did wake up
at two in the morning through thinking about and I felt more nervous
then really!
I didn’t realise [the impact of the Bill Clinton interview] then, but
when I came in the following morning to do my radio show, every
newspaper had it on their front page with the transcript of my
interview, it was absolutely fantastic.
You’re known for asking some hard-hitting questions which other sports
journalists avoid, have you ever put people off being interviewed with
you again?
Not very often. I always make a point of ringing up the guests after the
show to say ‘thank you’. If it’s a controversial interview then I’ll
make extra effort to and say ‘thanks for coming on, sorry if I pushed
you too hard on that and I hope you understand why’.
That seems to work and most people will then come back on because I’ll
take the time to say thank you and not get rid of them in two minutes.
The only person who won’t come on the show is [Leeds United Chairman]
Ken Bates, but usually with people like Chairmen and Chief Executives of
big clubs, as long as you let them have their say then they’ll come
back. They realise that it’s a platform for them, and plus if you’re in
the position [of a chairman of chief executive] you should be able to
take a few tough questions.
What inspired you to get into journalism?
It was more that I just loved radio. I got my first job as an office boy
at a radio station in 1974. My first day was literally just making cups
of tea and spending hours photocopying. I did that for a while before
getting a job on local radio which is where I did all the training, then
I came to London in 1980.
Were there any influential journalists that you aspired to be like
when you first started out?
I don’t think I aspired to be like anyone. It was all just that I loved
radio. I used to listen to all the old plays on the BBC home service and
even now I listen to a lot of the old comedy programmes from the 1950s
and ‘60s on the BBC archive station, but there wasn’t anyone I really
aspired to be like.
You’ve been on the radio for 25 years now, how has the world of sport
changed in that time?
Media wise, it’s just exposed far more. When I started it was just the
BBC and ITV and about twenty local radio stations. Now there’s Sky,
Channel 4, Channel 5, digital radio and so on.
Football has become so big in recent years. You used to go to a press
conference and there’d be one TV crew there, now you can turn up and
there’ll be fifteen cameras, three of them all from Sky.
What’s the biggest sporting event you’ve covered to date?
It has to be the Olympics. I did my first one twenty years ago and it’s
always exciting. The Olympics are massive because you’re there with the
world’s media and that’s fantastic, but you don’t always get to see a
lot of it. I mean, Kelly Holmes won her two gold medals at the last
Olympics and I didn’t get to see it. I’m not complaining though, I’m
there to do my job.
Wimbledon’s really good too. I’ve been there though the era of Borg and
McEnroe and I’ve been there all through Henman’s career.
Recommended Link:
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/programmes/sportsweek.shtml - Sports Week
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