Confessions of a TV presenter

Robert McCaffrey

• Last Updated: November 21. 2009 5:49PM UAE / November 21. 2009 1:49PM GMT

This is the easy part for Robert, it is being a house husband during the day that has thrown him. Galen Clarke / The National

Hello, my name is Robert and I’m a television presenter and house husband.

I thought I’d better come clean in my first column for The National, so nobody is under any kind of misapprehension.

The TV presenter bit I’m getting used to, having done it for nigh on 20 years at Granada TV and Sky Sports in the United Kingdom and now here with Showtime at the studios in Dubai.

Admittedly I still wince when I have to actually tell people what I do, usually when trying to get the electric connected or replacing yet another lost mobile phone.

“Name?” “Robert McCaffrey”

“Occupation?” Cough, whisper, splutter... “Television presenter”

This is followed by raised eyebrows and a “pull the other one” expression.

This reaction is usually one of scepticism, as if to say: “You can’t be a TV presenter. Only people like Tess Daly and Danni Minogue do that – not oiks like you.”

In fairness, the good points far outweigh the bad and I’m always waiting for someone to grab me by the collar and say “come on now, stop the messing round. You’ve nicked a living for 20 years, so isn’t it time you actually went and got yourself a proper job?”

It doesn’t get any better than talking about football for a living and listening to the real stories behind what you know about your heroes.

I didn’t know Matt Le Tissier likes the odd Malibu and Coke. I didn’t know the tough centre forward Iain Dowie is a trained rocket scientist. I didn’t know Kenny Dalglish does a mean version of Ferry Across the Mersey on the karaoke. And best of all I didn’t know Tony Adams practised for months to play the organ for the rest of the Arsenal team only for him to clang out She’ll Be Coming Round The Mountain when the lads were expecting Nessun Dorma.

That said, the house husband bit has thrown me. My wife teaches PE so I’m now home alone with our two-year-old from dawn till dusk. On the face of it this shouldn’t offer too much of a problem, but I have to say, here in black and white print, that I have seen my wife in a new light. I salute her.

It ain’t easy looking after a little one. I am up at 6.30am and as the rest of the family leave for school, we meander through various Barbie, Disney and Thomas the Tank Engine DVDs, before embarking on a stroll for a coffee and juice.

I make lunch, go three falls and a submission trying to put her to bed, before doing the washing, the cleaning, the ironing and the dinner just in time to wake her up before the rest of the tribe get home.

Then it’s taking the 17-year-old to cricket, the seven-year-old to swimming and the six-year-old to football, before dashing home to dinner, bath, a story and then bed.

Having forgotten the time had gone back in the UK the other week I had dash in to Showtime for a production meeting at 7.30pm sweating like Wayne Rooney in Doha the other night.

Thankfully the show is not on till 10.30pm, but as our guest Le Tissier strolled in at nine, I suddenly began to feel a little jaded.

In rehearsal I found myself sliding down the comfy red leather Goals on Monday sofas in a manner that would normally suggest a cocoa and a good early night.

Thankfully, the pre-show banter, red light adrenalin and the fact that Matt would make a sloth look like Usain Bolt in a nightclub helped me witter until Liverpool kicked off against Birmingham.

It was another poor night for the Reds, and a late night for me. Home for 2.30am, I can’t sleep after a show so I either pace round or watch telly with a million doubts running through my head.

Did I ask the right question there? I need to get my knee out of shot when the director cuts up camera two. Have Liverpool conceded eight goals from set-pieces this season or is it just seven?

Eventually, it’s sleep at four but just an hour an a half later the morning mayhem kicks off again.

I calculate that’s a 22½-hour day and as I drag myself out of bed and reach for the Lion King DVD I realise that I wouldn’t swap it for the world.

sports@thenational.ae