EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Geoff Shreeves on quitting Sky Sports
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Geoff Shreeves opens up on being out of work for the first time in 33 years after quitting Sky Sports, Sir Alex Ferguson’s temper, THAT Branislav Ivanovic interview and TV’s diversity push
- The storied pitchside reporter walked away from Sky after rejecting a pay-cut
- But the 58-year-old is looking ahead to the next stage and new openings
- Click here to watch Mail Sport’s brand new show ‘It’s All Kicking Off’ in full
A day before the start of the Premier League season and Geoff Shreeves was not at a training ground or manager’s press conference. He was on the golf course in Mallorca.
After 33 years working for Sky – most famously as their accomplished touchline interviewer – Shreeves is out of work. He will watch Chelsea versus Liverpool on Sunday afternoon but he won’t be in the players’ tunnel or standing by the Stamford Bridge dug-outs. He will be at home on the sofa in St Albans.
‘It’s a massive change for me and it’s left a massive void in my life,’ says Shreeves.
‘But I am also hoping this is temporary. I correct people who keep saying: “Congratulations on your retirement” or “I am sorry you got sacked” as neither are true.
‘I would hope to be back sooner rather or later reporting or on the touchline for someone. Make no bones about it, I am looking to work. And of course I will be watching on Sunday.’
After walking away from Sky Sports, iconic pitchside reporter Geoff Shreeves is out of work
The 58-year-old was one of the faces of Sky Sports’ Premier League coverage (pictured 2022)
The broadcaster shared that he will only be able to share his true thoughts on his decision this summer in ’18 months’ when the dust settles
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As the winds of change blew through Sky at the start of summer, lead commentator Martin Tyler went and so did a host of reporters. Star analyst Graeme Souness left and then, in early July, so did Shreeves. Asked to interview for his own job the 58-year-old was offered a variation of it on reduced terms and walked away.
‘I agonised about it all summer,’ Shreeves adds.
‘I am well aware of what is being said and I can’t comment on that. I do want to try different things and that was a huge part of my decision.
‘But I will be brutally honest. I will only be able to tell you in 18 months if it was the right thing to do.’
Anyone who thinks Shreeves’ old job was easy hasn’t tried it. Pitching questions to players and managers who have adrenaline, anger and often a sense of injustice coursing through their veins moments after the full-time whistle is an art form and one that Shreeves mastered over decades of dealing with the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho.
A former estate agent and natural raconteur, Shreeves has a deep well of stories. In the early days of Sky, though, there was little glamour.
A ‘floor manager, fixer and telephone boy’ as he fought for a foot on the ladder, Shreeves was an off-camera presence as the Premier League was launched in the early 1990s.
‘Sky needed to pique the public interest so we had the giant inflatable sumo wrestlers, the Sky Strikers – the dancers – and we had the fireworks,’ he smiles.
Sky Sports stalwarts Jeff Stelling (left) and Graeme Souness also departed in the talent exodus
‘One of the early Monday Night Footballs was at Maine Road and the cameraman got hit by a Catherine wheel which set his Sky coat on fire.
‘And then we were in Southampton. A guy marched in to reception the next day with a six-foot rocket. The receptionist asked if it had landed in his garden and he said: “No I was filling my car up and it came through the petrol station at head height”.
‘Then a lady said her cat had passed away from a heart attack. So we’d had a man on fire, a petrol station almost up in smoke and a cat no longer with us.
‘The fireworks were soon snuffed out…’
Shreeves is a reporter first and foremost. His contact book is among the best in football and when he suffered some mental issues several years ago, the likes of Steven Gerrard, Scott Parker and Alan Curbishley were among the many who offered help.
He is too modest to say who has been in touch since news broke of his departure from Sky but if Ferguson wasn’t among them it would be a surprise. The two men developed a relationship crucial to Sky’s output during the two decades that Manchester United almost took ownership of the Premier League. Not that there weren’t a few ups and downs.
‘I had so many good times with him but yeah we had our moments,’ he smiles.
‘I was in Lisbon interviewing Cristiano Ronaldo the day before a game.
Shreeves has worked for the broadcaster since the early 1990s and Monday Night Football (pictured: Andy Gray and Richard Keys)
Shreeves’s contact book must be amongst the best in the business after over 30 years at Sky
The broadcaster has a wellspring of stories from his relationship with Man United boss Sir Alex Ferguson
‘The door creaked behind me and Ronaldo stiffened. It could only be one person.
‘Then it was: “Aye you are taking the p***…this isn’t a f****** documentary’. Interview over.
‘Next day at the game he marches over and gives me the team early. “There you go son”.
‘His press officer Di Law comes over laughing. “He hadn’t adjusted his watch yesterday. He had the time wrong”.
‘I was watching another game on a tunnel monitor with him at one match and I asked him if he knew what he would do in that manager’s situation. “Aye I do,” he said. “I would panic”.’
Shreeves position by the dugouts or in the tunnel means he has witnessed his share of bust-ups and fights down the years. Most have gone unreported.
‘I was taught early on that the most important stories were the ones you never use,’ he reasons.
‘If every time there was a fight in the tunnel I had reported it I wouldn’t have lasted very long. Football clubs would have shut their doors to me.
Ferguson once interrupted an interview with Cristiano Ronaldo (left) in Lisbon the day before a game
‘There used to be more tunnel fights in the old days. Smaller tunnels. Fewer cameras. I have been caught in the middle a few times, pushed in to the wall. I remember one with England in Turkey. Blimey. Mother of all fisticuffs. Full on.’
Shreeves has never been short of confidence even if some of his natural swagger was eased out of him during his early days in television.
‘One of my biggest learnings was to dampen it down,’ he reveals.
‘They were not impressed with an ex-estate agent who fancied being a TV reporter. Tough love was an understatement but they knocked that out of me and then showed me what I should be.’
Emotional by nature, Shreeves can worry too. When he bungled an interview with Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic after a yellow card ruled the Serb out of the 2012 Champions League final, he was beset by suggestions he had been too tough on the player.
‘Car crash didn’t do it justice,’ Shreeves says.
‘It haunted me for years. I didn’t do what people accuse me of – to upset or belittle him. But people didn’t believe me.
‘He’s a lovely unassuming guy, Brana. I got his number and called him four days later and he was fine.’
Before he continues his search for new openings – he already has an arrangement to work for Fox at next summer’s European Championship – it feels right to ask Shreeves a pertinent question.
As broadcasters seek to diversify and chase younger audiences, will his face still fit?
‘I understand the question,’ he says.
‘TV should evolve. It should seek new faces. But broadcasters still need to offer a product that people want to watch. That’s the challenge.
In 2012 Shreeves inadvertently broke Branislav Ivanonic’s heart when he told him he would be suspended for the Champions League final
One of the lessons that Shreeves learned in the role involved the stories that you don’t tell
The journalist is looking for openings at new broadcasters as he prepares for the next stage
‘Look at Jeff Stelling and Gary Lineker. Both older than me. Age should be viewed the same way as gender or ethnicity. Irrelevant if the person is good.
‘I am only 58 and confident that age is not a barrier. If I thought that was the case, I would not have left…‘
Geoff Shreeves is Chairman of Legends of Football, a charity gala in aid of Nordoff and Robbins.
This year Ian Wright and Emma Hayes will be honoured at the star-studded event on 2nd October 2023 at Grosvenor House, London. To book your table visit lofootball.co.uk.
IT’S ALL KICKING OFF!
It’s All Kicking Off is an exciting new podcast from Mail Sport that promises a different take on Premier League football, launching with a preview show today and every week this season.
It is available on MailOnline, Mail+, YouTube , Apple Music and Spotify
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