It’s an age old question:  What do you buy someone who has everything?
It’s a tough one.  When you are about to interview Sir Michael
Parkinson, one is faced with an even tougher proposition: What do you
ask someone who has asked questions of everyone? It’s tricky.

Therefore, I realised that it would be best to follow the KISS
principle, keep it simple stupid. I told myself, ‘Although Sir Michael
has probably thought of all the questions you were going to ask him
before, ask them anyway, and why not try your luck with a few random
ones whilst you are at.’ 

Sir Michael was born without his grand prefix in 1935 in Cudworth,
just outside Barnsley.  It’s perhaps fitting that a man whose father
was a miner, grew up to have a deep and gravelly voice.  His dulcet
Yorkshire tone becoming one of the most famous and recognisable voices
in British broadcasting.

He’s proud of his heritage, describing the typical traits of locals as
being, “genteel, soft spoken and artistic by nature”.  His favourite
player is a cult hero at Oakwell called ‘Skinner’ Normanton, a tough
tackling midfielder.  Sir Michael would follow his career as a boy
then as he moved into reporting the two built up a relationship until Sir Michael wrote his obituary after his death in 1995.

“It was difficult to convince people that this gentle and diffident
man had at one time put the fear of God up any member of the human
race who didn’t wear a Barnsley shirt.”

Another man who Sir Michael has known since a young age is another who
has put the fear of God up many people in his time, on the cricket
field it was due to his resilient batting, now it is perhaps for what
he may say next on BBC Test Match Special. Geoffrey Boycott had a trial
for Yorkshire Cricket Club at the same time as a young Sir Michael
tried his luck too.

The latter humbly admits that he was “not very” close to becoming a
cricketer, even though his earliest sporting memory sounds pretty
impressive to me, it was, “scoring 1240 not out in the street outside
our house when I was 7.”

But what of the man who did go on to have a successful cricketing career,
playing over 100 times for England.  How would he best describe
Boycott, a man who continues to divide opinion with his forthright and
often controversial opinions?

“A wonderful cricketer, a dear friend, a complicated man.”

An issue that is going to be far from straightforward will arrive
after Euro 2012, when England will be looking for a new
football manager.  The hope of every Englishman and woman is that the
right man for the job is selected and that the woes of the last World
Cup aren’t repeated.

To achieve this goal, I feel that we need the right questions to be
asked when candidates are being interviewed by the FA.  Sir Michael
would be the perfect inquisitor in my eyes, he knows the questions to
ask to get to the root of the problem and ensure that English football
is in safe hands once Fabio Capello departs.

He has his priorities and he knows what he wants to find out.  This is
why his killer question to the next prospective manager would be straight to the point. 

“Can you speak English?”

Despite the fact that he has dominated the managerial stakes of
English football for years, the next incumbent of the ‘top job’ is
unlikely to be Sir Alex Ferguson.   I wanted to find out if the
Pennine divide would allow Sir Michael, a proud Yorkshireman,  to call
a Manchester United manager the greatest manager of all time.
Regional loyalties didn’t get in his way, but another Knight of the
Realm came out on top.

“He’s in the best of company but not the best.” Sir Michael explained.
“The man who impressed me the most was Sir Matt Busby.  A great
manager, like Ferguson, but also a charming man.”

One man who never struggled with charm was Mohammed Ali, who Sir
Michael recalls as the most entertaining sports person he ever
interviewed. “No-one sold tickets like Ali and no-one fought like
him”.  Yet Sir Michael wasn’t able to charm one man onto his show, and
that is one of his biggest regrets.

So we end as we started, what do you give someone who has everything? Or in Sir Michael’s case:  What guest do you interview, having almost interviewed them all?  The answer leaves
his eyes blue.

“Frank Sinatra. Didn’t do interviews.  He is still my favourite singer though.”

There you are, waiting along the line as the Queen approaches. You’re making sure you look smart and you’re standing up straight, reminding yourself to nod a little and not a lot to avoid head-butting Her Majesty.  Then she arrives and your moment comes, remember don’t speak unless you are spoken to and above all be courteous.

This is a scene that Simon Thomas, then a Blue Peter presenter, was faced with in 2002.  As part of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations, she was to be presented with a gold Blue Peter badge by Simon.  He was used to carrying out daring feats in his role, including skydiving and climbing Kilimanjaro, and he took that never say die attitude into his meeting with arguably the most famous woman in the world.

“It was all very formal so to try and lighten proceedings, as I handed it over, I told Ma’am that she might like to know she could get into the Tower of London free with the badge.”  Then in slow motion Simon waited to see whether his remark was a winner with the Windsor: “I can confirm Her Majesty did chuckle.” Phew.

The royal connection doesn’t end there with the 38-year-old; his current on-screen partnership with Georgie Thompson also has a regal twist.

“I like to refer to Georgie as the Queen Mum of Sky Sports News. Partly because she’s been there so long, but also because she’s a true pro. She’s great fun to work with, always up for a laugh and very easy to get on with. We enjoy as much on screen banter as the boss will allow!”

He has met the first lady of his football club, Delia Smith, a few times too. 

 “I had the pleasure of being on her table for a pre-match meal at Carrow Road. As I think her famous half-time on the pitch rant against Man City showed, she’s quite a character and also very good company over a glass or two of vino. And naturally the cuisine is first class.”

Delia is a real-life hero of the football club, but someone who is synonymous with the city is the fictitious character Alan Partridge. Although the Steve Coogan creation, an ever-failing broadcaster, is a thoroughly questionable individual, he’ll always have a place in the heart of a man born in Cromer and raised in Grimston like Simon.  In fact, just last week he was seen using one of Alan’s catch-phrases “Cash-back!” on Sky Sports News.

“I’m a massive fan of Partridge so I love his take on Norfolk life. However, I do know that one or two folk at Radio Norfolk down the years have been a little irritated at times when mail actually arrived at the station for a Mr Alan Partridge. Jurassic Park!”

Going back in time, Simon’s first match at Carrow Road was the opening match of the 1980/81 season where he was treated to a 5-1 victory over Stoke. Growing up he enjoyed the highs of challenging for the Premier League title and the European adventure that included that magical moment in Munich courtesy of the lost member of Bros.

Until this season, Norwich haven’t enjoyed quite as much chart-topping success as Simon would have liked, and the recent drop to League One is remembered with little fondness.

 “It’s been tough to keep the faith at times yes; but never too tough to stick with it. It’s what being a fan is about. I remember legging it down from Sky to Griffin Park one Tuesday evening in August 2009 for our 3rd game in League One against Brentford. We’d been relegated in May, famously lost 7-1 at home on the opening day against Colchester, drew the next away at Exeter and then got stung by the Bees 2-1. It was about as low a point as I can remember.”

Simon is quite happy to see those days consigned to the history books, even if he is the sort of man that may dust off the archives in the future being a History graduate from Birmingham University.  Part of his degree course centred on the rise of Nazi Germany and one of his dreams would have been to interview a sporting icon of that time.

“I’d love to have interviewed Jesse Owens. I would love to have heard Owens’ account of what it was like to not just run in the Berlin Olympics in front of a watching Hitler but win four gold medals.”

Simon’s present day interaction with his audience is often channelled through Twitter.  He was initially a sceptic but now admits to having been “sucked in” by the social network site: “it’s just a great way of keeping across what’s happening in the world and particularly in the world of sport. So many sports men and women, journalists and other media outlets are on there so it’s an oasis of great information that really helps with my job.”

However, like with many things in life there are perils with Twitter and Simon has a simple message for those people out there (who may or may not hail from a town near Norwich).

“A very small minority use it as a cheap way of just being unpleasant, and believe me, they can be very unpleasant. Most of the time, they do it just to get a reaction out of you. The best reaction is the ‘block’ button.”

On screen rather than online he is currently occupied with presenting live football league matches in addition to his Sky Sports News obligations, meaning he has had to hot-foot it up and down the country on a regular basis. Hot-foot it you say? Yes. Sounds like the former Blue Peter presenter would be the perfect fit to follow in the footsteps of former BBC colleague Matt Baker and go on Strictly Come Dancing then?

“Very simply, I’d never get asked, and if I was it would be a no. Unlike Matt I am to dancing what Eric the Eel was to Olympic swimming – useless. I’d be out in week two at the latest. I’d also be rubbish at taking any criticism from that Craig Revel whats-his-chops.”

Adam Leventhal talks to TV Presenter, Property Developer and Entrepreneur Sarah Beeny about her dislike of agents, her love of Hull and her desire for a footballing empire…

When a supporter loves their team more than their husband or wife then it invariably leads to problems.  However, what if you had the chance to create your very own football team yourself and your loved one stood in the way of that dream?

You may be shocked to learn that this is a situation Sarah Beeny is being made to endure as we speak. The mother of four young boys is just one son away from having her very own five-a-side team, but the DIY Abramovich looks certain to have her hopes cruelly dashed.

“My husband says I’ll have to have one with my other husband… my new husband. I’d have to get divorced to have any more children,” she said, “The only thing better than having four boys is having five – that would be excellent. I don’t want a girl.”

Of course, a girl could complete the team, but imagine her creating her own male footballing quintet, a team that could stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the greats of the game. We cherished the Busby Babes, we now long for the Beeny Babies!

But believers in the sanctity of marriage need fear not; Sarah was only speaking in jest of her relationship with Mr Beeny, aka Graham Swift. She was recently was given a stark reminder of why she has decided to stop (for now).

“I took my four children and my nephew to a football match and it was very hard work. Although I was a fan of the Waltons as a child, I think four is enough. “

Instead she is keen to help footballers start their own families by finding their perfect match.  The creator of the website MySingleFriend.com has watched countless millionaire stars try to find love in all the wrong places.

“There is one headline you are unlikely to see in a newspaper: ‘Footballer Only S**gs His Wife’, Sarah joked. “I’m sure there are plenty of very happily married footballers, but we don’t hear about them.”

Beeny is convinced that spending some time online rather than on the prowl could see some hapless footballers scoring on the net.

“You obviously have to be very fit to be a footballer with lots of energy, so you need someone who is able to keep up with you. I’m sure my site would help them find the right person to meet and stay with forever.”

It was ten years ago that Beeny found her perfect property match, which led to her connection to Hull. She bought and restored Rise Hall, a stately home on the outskirts of the city, where she and her family now live. She has worked with the local tourist board to help regenerate a place that was voted The Worst Place to Live by a Channel 4 documentary in 2005.

“It had the c**p bombed out of it during the war and has a reputation for being very depressed economically, which it has been, but the people have battled through.”

She feels it is a place on the up: “I suspect people who live around Hull don’t tell that many people about it because they don’t want people to ruin it really. It is a very well kept secret.”

It’s no secret that Hull City would prefer to still be in the top flight after their relegation last season, but Beeny is backing a revival for the Tigers fortunes too.

“We haven’t abandoned them now that they aren’t in the Premier League and I still have every belief that they will be back up there in a nanosecond.”

However long the wait, the 39-year-old will continue to be a visitor to the KC Stadium. Some property developers might see football stadiums built on large areas of land as simply a waste of space more suited to even more profitable ventures, but not Sarah. While she admits to “appreciating the beauty on the pitch”, the importance of the surroundings has not been lost on her.

“A football stadium has a heart and a soul. They’re living, breathing buildings and people love it.”

As a property expert who has presented a host of programmes on the subject for Channel 4 and launched her own website Tepilo, Beeny has vast experience of dealing with estate agents.  Her ideal would be to cut them out of the buying and selling process altogether and she feels the same about their football industry cousins.

“From the outside it is utter madness. There are loads of other people aside from the clubs who get a big fat lump of money, quite a long way away from the game.”

Many football fans a long way from home on an away day have had their weariness tempered by a ‘road-locked’ feed at a Little Chef, but not everyone is such a huge fan of the establishments. Beeny worked in one as a youngster, and although she does have the occasional Olympic Breakfast because she says, “it is really difficult to f**k up a fry up”, the faint praise stops there.

“I think the best thing Little Chef did for me was to teach me to work really, really hard so I didn’t have to work there in the future.”

In his latest column Sky Sports News Presenter Adam Leventhal meets Watford supporter Dougie Brimson – an author, screenwriter and former football hooligan.

Dougie Brimson knows all about combat, he was in the Royal Air Force for 18 years, but he was also involved in the darker side of football.

Active service on those two fronts is now behind him, but his past experiences still play a significant part in his life.

He’s written books and screenplays on football hooliganism culture and admits they may have acted to inspire rather than deter viewers. His exploits, especially during the 1970’s and 80’s mean he doesn’t feel he’s in a position to criticise those still involved in that lifestyle, but instead offers words of caution:

“Please think about the potential consequences. Be it to your health, wealth, liberty and even possibly, your life. And if after that you still decide that you want to get involved in what is after all a criminal activity, then that is your choice. Just don’t blame anyone else but yourself when it all goes horribly wrong.” 

Brimson has also offered advice to both the British government’s working group into football disorder and the European Commission’s football group.

Overall he feels the effectiveness of the action taken in the UK, puts the region way ahead of the continent in solving the problem and he has ‘grave’ concerns ahead of Euro 2012 in Poland and Ukraine.  He wants the issue managed rather than suppressed:

“They need to do something new and drastic to change the attitudes of fans as an entity. It could be done, just look at the way we dealt with the issue of racism as an example, but I genuinely don’t think the will is there and that is tragic.”

Brimson is a Watford fan who grew up in Hemel Hempstead, he said he got out of football violence when knives and other more gruesome weapons started being used. Nowadays, if he wants to have a dig at a rival it’s far more playful.

“Thankfully, the days of being embarrassed to be a football fan have been consigned to history although I’m sure there is a degree of humiliation associated with following L*t*n. I hope so anyway.”

For the record, the lack of a ‘u’ and ‘o’ in Luton was insisted upon by Brimson, he’s a Hornet that hasn’t lost his sting and his ‘relationship’ with our Bedfordshire rivals is set to take on another twist.  

“I have five screenplays at various stages of development including a comedy about a Watford fan who inherits ownership of L*t*n from an uncle he never knew he had.”

Say Luton to him, he squirms, but what is the first thing he thinks of when you say Millwall?

“Surgical masks. Let me explain. In the ‘70’s, Millwall fans were featured in what has become a notorious BBC documentary about hooliganism and a number of them were seen on screen wearing surgical masks to signify that they were a part of a gang called ‘The Treatment’. They had been stolen from guards van of a train taking them to the away game where the documentary was filmed and were being worn as a joke. Inevitably, they immediately settled into legend and to this day, Bizarrely, Millwall are also the first thing I think of whenever I see a surgical mask!”

Millwall are striving to find a cure to their problem of fan disobience and Brimson hopes they can rectify the problem. However, he admits his post-hooligan path may not have helped the task of cleaning up their name:

“It’s become almost a global branding thanks to people like me continuing to use the name of the club in films! It is something for which I can only apologise.”

Although in the past, Watford’s friendly club image proved to be a negative for Brimson and those on the ‘rougher end of the supporting scale’ as he puts it, nowadays, he has a different perspective on how the Hornets are portrayed.

“For those at the club and the vast majority of those who follow it, the whole ‘clap your hands, stamp your feet’ image is a real positive and to be honest, it is something we should all be proud of. After all, it did lead the way for the way football has gone in many respects.”

Rather than seeing fans grouped together in menacing situations, Brimson is now more impressed by supporters who stand up to what they feel are injustices occurring at their respective football clubs.

“We all know that there are things associated with the game which are nothing less than criminal.  Yet even though the professional game would cease to exist overnight were it not for us, we have absolutely no say in what goes on and to me that is little short of a disgrace and it has to change. If it doesn’t, as FC United and AFC Wimbledon have proven, we can always go it alone.”

Not long ago, if you put the words ‘sprinkling’ and ‘ashes’ together, you’re unlikely to have been painting a positive picture. However, England’s retention of the little urn in Australia this winter and their famous victory dance has changed all that.

The ‘sprinkler’ was performed by the team during their historic tour, which saw their first Test series victory on the shores of their old rivals since 1987. Steven Finn wasn’t even alive when Mike Gatting led that previous win, yet now he too is an overseas Ashes winner.

The 21-year-old isn’t get ideas above his station, which would be tough as he already stands 6 foot 7, but he admits he would gain some consolation for missing the last two Tests and having to endure the ODI series thrashing if a certain celebration appeared at Vicarage Road for one last hoorah.

“I would really like to see some of the Watford players doing the sprinkler,” says Finn, “but you can’t have everything.”

Only time will tell if that wish comes true or if his time off during the World Cup includes the fulfilment of another dream: training with the Watford squad. That would see him follow in the stud marks of two other lanky England pace-men, Steve Harmison and Stuart Broad at Newcastle and Nottingham Forest respectively.

“I’d love to go in there and see how it all works. Cricketers can be fat and lazy, eating sweets and chocolate, so it’d be good to be shown how to do it properly.”

Finn, whose first ever visit to Vicarage Road was a fittingly high-scoring 6-3 win over Grimsby in 1996, has visited a Watford training session before however. The season after beating Bristol City to the Second Division title, Watford targeted another promotion via the play-offs and a young Finn was tracking their preparations.

“I remember going to West Herts Cricket Club where they trained before the final against Bolton and I got a football signed by the players. My first season ticket was when they got into the Premier League – I was treated very early.”

Finn admits he is more likely to be star-struck meeting Tommy Mooney, who he regards as a ‘cult favourite’, than some of his own sport’s icons: ‘You meet your cricketing heroes all the time, they’re more close to home.’

He has fond memories of Mooney’s exploits in the Premier League, however he also has his own top flight experience… as a mascot.

“It was at Southampton and I was wearing a Paul Robinson shirt as he was another one of my heroes. I was only about 12 but was a bean-pole kid and I was taller than him.”

Unfortunately, Finn was unable to locate photographs of that day when I asked, but there’s plenty of time to rectify that before the end of the season. This is an appeal to his mother Diana, a former Watford Ladies footballer and current season-ticket holder: if you know the whereabouts of these snaps, please do get in touch.

If that Crimewatch-style plea reaps rewards it may be Finn having nightmares – the pictures would surely be perfect fuel for the flames in a fiery football fan-filled England dressing room.

“There is always a fair bit of stick, especially with some of the boys supporting teams in the Championship like Broad with Forest and Jimmy being Burnley. Swanny gives a fair bit out, but has only recently had a leg to stand on with Newcastle.”

Finn and England and Middlesex team-mate Eoin Morgan joined me at Vicarage Road for the defeat to Burnley ten days ago. Fortunately it coincided with Anderson flying out for the World Cup so he wasn’t able to attend and inflict any face to face gloating. Finn intends to invite him and others in the future though.

“It would be hilarious and I would back Watford to beat any one of their teams. In fact, I’d like to get Mike Yardy down next season when West Ham visit.”

On tour, when the team are not training or playing, games consoles play a big part – with footballing allegiances extending into virtual reality. “We always play as our respective teams and there’s always a good rivalry there.”

The importance of the banter between the players shouldn’t be underestimated though, as Finn explains, “Swann and Anderson are like a double act and it’s good to have people like that to lighten the mood. Cricketers can often get too high or too low, so to have people who are the same all the time is massive.”

Compared to those experienced teammates, he is fresh as a cricketer and a football supporter, but having shown a level head so far, they are sure to agree he can have success ‘til the end.

Finn.

 “Downing Street always knew unless it was really urgent not to call me between 3 and 5 on a Saturday afternoon.”

Eddie Howe needs to watch his back because Alastair Campbell has a confession to make and he’s even got the patter of Kevin Keegan, “I would love to be a football manager, I would love it.”

He’s been a Burnley fan all his life and he’s unhappy that he was again overlooked following Brian Laws departure, “I did feel a little bit hurt. At least when Owen Coyle went, the bookmakers had me at 100/1, but this time I didn’t even make the list.”

The 53-year-old knows that’s simply a dream, but seeing the appointment of a man 20 years his junior has made him philosophical, “He looks incredibly young and like a cross between my two sons. For the first time in my life the Burnley manager, British Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition and the President of the USA are all younger than me. It does make you feel a little bit old.“

Dig deeper and it’s clear that an official role in football isn’t really what Campbell wants as he likes the escape that the sport provides, “When working in Downing Street, it was the one thing that was separate from everything.  I always feel sympathetic to the Burnley board, because like them I want them to do well, but it’s also their work.  I want watching football to be a pleasure, even though there might be some pain, I don’t want to feel I’m working.”

As Downing Street ‘enforcer’ he would give anyone who fell out of line a Sir Alex Ferguson style ‘hairdryer’ blast.  He regards the Manchester United manager as a good friend, and their approach to their jobs appears to be very similar, “Everybody knew I had the capacity to lose my temper, but usually I’d do so in a controlled way.  Tony Blair said I had an incredible ability to inspire loyalty, part of that is a positive thing and part of it is fear.”

Campbell admits to being a ‘control freak’ when it comes to detail, another trait he shares with Ferguson, “I’ve been at Carrington (Manchester United’s Training Ground) and he knows absolutely everyone that works there. Whilst I was with him he bumped into 14 year-old on trial from Norway in the corridor and knew everything about him. That kid walked away feeling a million dollars.”

There’s plenty of praise for the man and team at the top of English football, but Campbell can’t say the same for those at the summit of the world game.  He feels Sepp Blatter and FIFA are out of touch, “There’s no sense of them being rooted in where the fans are and that’s a problem for them.”  He believes the organisation based in Switzerland is “aloof and distant” and their reputation has suffered badly in the wake of England’s 2018 World Cup bid failure.

Campbell is especially proud of the teams he helped to build as the Labour Party returned to power in 1997, he isn’t too fond of the comparisons with Malcolm Tucker though, a character in the BBC TV Series The Thick of It, which portrayed a foul-mouthed spin-doctor, “Lots of people have slagged me off in print, but if you speak to the people who knew me, they wouldn’t say I was Malcolm Tucker, I knew my own mind and was tough but fair.”

Campbell demanded loyalty from those around him, so he was an interested onlooker on deadline day as the January transfer window closed with a record breaking deal, “Fernando Torres was happy to kiss the badge after he scored for Liverpool, but then when Champions League football and loads more money was offered to him by Chelsea, off he goes.”

His allegiances will never change, but he admits to having a soft spot for Watford due to a relative who’s a Hornet and a Triathlete, it’s an event which Campbell has even himself tried.  He’s enjoyed some happy days and nights at Vicarage Road, but he has one wish, “The ground’s a problem. I wish to god that they would get rid of that old rickety stand and develop.”

The ground may not be held in highest regard, but one thing at Watford is – the manager. Campbell was impressed by Malkay McKay on Watford’s visit to Turf Moor in November, “He is an impressive guy and has real presence”. 

Thankfully the man who has offered advice to the most powerful men in the world and the Burnley board in the past, didn’t have too much sway when they had a vacancy that needed filling recently. 

Sky Sports News Presenter Adam Leventhal is a lifelong Watford supporter. In his latest column he talks to Daily Telegraph football Correspondent Henry Winter about the past of Phil Brown, his present obsession with Twitter and the future of the newspaper …

The epic ‘followship’ of Westminster-educated Henry Winter makes him the Lord of the Ring of English football journalists on Twitter. His quest is to also find middle-earth, but the one that governs his print and prospering online identity. “It’s changed how I operate radically. I’m very selfish about twitter and use it to enhance my work.”

The priority for print journalists used to be the next edition, but now online comes first via the

micro-blogging site.“I’ll post a link to my full-time match report within seconds of the end of the match and get hundreds of replies telling me everything from spelling mistakes to a move I’ve missed or misread in the heat of the moment, so it’s very useful from that perspective journalistically.”

Winter admits to often floating ideas as tweets first to gauge the reaction ahead of a deadline. There’s a fine line between laziness and journalists asking their Twitter followers to send through questions ahead of press conferences or interviews, however I’ve done it in the past and Winter is also an advocate of interactivity:  “I recently tweeted that I was going to do an interview and received 50 to 60 replies of which 20 were absolutely fantastic questions that wouldn’t have crossed my mind.”

Let’s not tweet around the bush, the aim for all print journalists is to push people towards their own newspapers, but it seems there’s a ‘tweet harmony’ developing amongst the football ‘blunts’.

“There is camaraderie,” explains Winter, “we all want this to do well and although we work for rival organisations, we are in it together.”

Football journalists are on the look-out for players putting their foot in it on Twitter, especially after a precedent was set in January.  Former Liverpool midfielder Ryan Babel became the first player to be punished by the Football Association for improper conduct on Twitter after he posted an altered image of referee Howard Webb wearing a Manchester United shirt. 

Despite the potential set-back, footballers, including Watford players, continue to join the Twitterati, led by England captain Rio Ferdinand, who is followed by Winter “over the last 15 years players have grown apart from fans, so allowing them to have closer insight is positive.”

When I present on Sky Sports News, I always have a window open to Twitter as it provides an alternative news-wire where players and journalists react and break stories, including Winter, “there are some things that you cannot keep hold of and you tweet them straight away. But it’s pretty obvious what you put out straight away and what you keep hold of.”

It’s the information that Winter and his print colleagues ‘keep hold of’ that will aid the survival of the newspaper, even if some critics maintain that they’ll one day be obsolete. “That will never happen, newspapers will always be there. People have been saying this for years. I can see perhaps two  going to the wall in the next 20 years, but The Telegraph and The Times will still be there.”

After a winter of discontent for recent opponents Preston, Henry can’t make any guarantees about their battle with relegation, but he’s happy to back their manager Phil Brown, who he has seen in difficult situations before. 

He witnessed Brown, then Hull manager, and his infamous half-time team-talk on the pitch during a 5-1 defeat at Manchester City in December 2008, “I remember thinking as the cynical journalist ‘this is an extraordinary story and it is going to make headlines.’ But we have to remember the human cost to these managers, they are flesh and blood too and as individuals they are thrown out too quickly into the public stocks.”

Rightly or wrongly that is an experience that England manager Fabio Capello knows about all too well, however Winter has little concern for the plight of the current England manager. “He is paid £6m a year so the sympathy is slightly limited. I’d have more if he’d continued with his English lessons. We’re caught in this loveless relationship and it’s the long goodbye.”

The farewell is guaranteed after Euro 2012 to England’s Italian manager, while Winter will continue to do the job he dreamed of since the age of 13, “Nothing in this job can match covering England. Nothing beats the whole drama. People say England are dying, much like they say newspapers are dying - absolute nonsense. England still obsesses so many people.”

You can follow Henry (@henrywinter) and Adam (@adamleventhal) on twitter