Inside MOTD’s ‘new signing’ Kelly Cates’ rise to top, from famous babysitter to brutal reason her footie career ended

LISTENING intently to her dad and his mates’ football chat as a youngster, Kelly Cates could not have had a better preparation to host Match Of The Day.

For her father is Sir Kenny Dalglish — pride of Celtic and Liverpool’s Kop, with a record 102 Scottish caps, three European Cups and a clutch of league titles to his name as both a player and a manager.

And those mates often included ­fellow medal-laden Reds Graeme Souness and Alan Hansen, both now top pundits themselves.

Kelly’s one-time babysitter Graeme once said: “She is fantastic at this job because she has been in a football house all her life, listened to the daft chat on football from all of us since she was tiny.

“I’d be in the living room, Alan Hansen would be in there, opinions going out all over.

“She had a great insight into how this football world works.”

While Kelly has absorbed the game from some of its greatest names, it’s her own deft skills behind the mic that have seen her rise to the very top in sports broadcasting.

Now, alongside friends Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman, the 49-year-old is reported to be about to take over the Match Of The Day presenter’s chair from Gary Lineker.

In a considerable coup for the BBC, reports suggest the corporation has managed to prise Kelly away from Sky Sports to present its flagship football programme.

But she can still expect a text from her dad when she is on air if King Kenny is riled by the punditry from her guests.

She revealed last month: “He texts [when she is on air], especially if my mum’s not there.

Selleck ’tache

“It’s if he doesn’t have anybody to sound off on.

“He’ll hear a bit of our conversation, and then he will text me to chip in.

“If it really bothers him, he’ll phone me on the way home.”

Born the eldest of four children in Glasgow, Kelly was brought up in Southport, Merseyside, after her dad signed for Liverpool from Celtic in 1977.

Her mum Marina once said: “Glasgow and Liverpool are very similar.

“It’s the people — they are so friendly in both cities.

“So it was very, very easy for us to settle here.”

At the time Kelly was almost two years old and her brother Paul, who went on to play for Newcastle, ­Norwich and Wigan, was a baby.

Two more siblings, Lynsey and Lauren, followed.

Liverpool fan Kelly was always immersed in football, and said: “When I was a baby my mum took me to matches to watch my dad play.

My earliest memories are of being in the players’ lounge with the other players’ children

Kelly Cates

“I don’t remember a time when I didn’t go to football games.

“My earliest memories are of being in the players’ lounge with the other players’ children.”

Graeme — Kenny’s fellow Scotland international — was sometimes roped in for childcare duties.

A black and white photo from 1979 shows four-year-old Kelly poking out her tongue at the hardman midfielder with the Tom Selleck ’tache and bushy hair.

He recalled: “Kenny and I roomed together for ten years or more with Liverpool and Scotland and I was a regular at his place.

“I was single and would turn up for Christmas lunch.

“I used to babysit — or not necessarily babysit.

“I’d ­volunteer to take Kelly out in her pram in the afternoons.

I was single and would turn up for Christmas lunch. I used to babysit — or not necessarily babysit. I’d ­volunteer to take Kelly out in her pram in the afternoons

Graeme Souness

“Without realising it, she was my introduction to some lovely young ladies.

“I’d be walking along, and then, ‘What a gorgeous baby, you seen this baby?’ ”

Despite her father’s elevated status as a Liverpool and Scotland legend, Kelly recalled: “When he was home he was just Dad.

“I recall going to a Rod Stewart concert at Ibrox [stadium] once and him being stopped every ten metres walking around the pitch.

“I was about seven and found it so weird — like, ‘What do they want with him?’

“It was the same with his team-mates — to me they were always just Dad’s friends, sitting around arguing about football.”

Her own efforts as a player were not a roaring success.

Kelly said: “When I was 11 I was playing football on some concrete. I ran down the wing thinking, ‘Oh, this will be easy’, tripped over and knocked myself out.

“That was the end of my football career.”

After A-levels in maths, further maths, physics and chemistry, she won a place to read maths at the University of Glasgow.

Then when Sky Sports News was launched in 1998, she made the brave move to give up her studies and join the fledgling station.

She said: “The channel was looking for young people who loved football.

“It was new, and no one was watching, so they pretty much said to us,

“There wasn’t a massive budget but Sky just wanted young, enthusiastic people and they didn’t want to take too much of a risk by putting their best people on it.

‘Go and play at being on the telly!’

“It was a huge decision to leave university, but I thought, ‘This isn’t an opportunity I’m going to get again’.”

On her broadcasting inspirations, Kelly mentions Des Lynam — who fronted Match Of The Day through the 1990s with brilliant understatement — and Gabby Logan, another daughter of a football icon, former Wales international and manager Terry Yorath.

Kelly said: “Des was the gold ­standard.

“He had that sense of being engaged with fans and got every ­single aspect of it right.

“I loved that tone.

“It’s the kind of tone that I like watching and ­listening to.

“It kind of makes sense that I’d aim for, but not quite reach, that.

“I always looked at Gabby’s career progress and watched her journey.

“It was brilliant to see, and even though she’s not much older than me, it felt like she was always the next step.”

It was undoubtedly a male-dominated profession, but Kelly insisted: “I wasn’t a trailblazer.

“There were already people who put the groundwork in, like Gabby and Hazel Irvine.

“I never have [encountered sexism] but I know other female reporters have.

“Obviously you see a lot more women on screen now, but I’d like to see that backed up in the same numbers behind the cameras as well.

“Now I’m older, I feel much more protective of younger women coming into the industry.”

After Sky Sports News, Kelly worked as an interviewer and presenter for sports channels Setanta and ESPN.

Then came work as a reporter for ITV at the 2010 World Cup, and for Channel 4 at the 2012 London Paralympics.

She presented a Football League highlights show for Channel Five before being lured back to Sky Sports in 2016.

At the helm

Originally at the helm for Football League matches, Kelly went on to become one of the most respected presenters on big Premier League fixtures.

Working with Gary Neville, Jamie “Carra” Carragher and Roy Keane, she considers the current era to be a “golden age” for punditry.

She said: “It’s not necessarily the players who play football naturally who talk about it in the best way.

“It’s the ones who really worked at their game.

“Carra, when he was playing, would go home and watch videos of Franco Baresi and other great defenders constantly, so he learnt.”

Now Kelly — who also hosts a BBC Radio 5 show — is rated among the nation’s very foremost broadcasters by her peers and fans alike.

Her friend and TV colleague Gabby, 51, says Kelly has an “effortless broadcast style and depth of knowledge that can pretty much rival anybody”.

And she added that Kelly can also “disarm the likes of Roy Keane with a single eyebrow when she wants to shut him up”.

Kelly’s formative years immersed in football mean she brings an understanding of the stresses that managers have to cope with daily.

She continued: “I’ve had managers get a bit annoyed by a question but it’s often not me they are angry at.

“They are under a lot of pressure.”

In 2007 Kelly married TV ­producer Tom Cates and the couple had two daughters.

They split in 2021, and Kelly said last month: “The girls are with their dad at weekends.

“Although we’re not together, we get on fine and he’s really flexible with the girls, so we manage it mostly between us.

I worked for ESPN years ago and they had a mantra of ‘Take the sport seriously but don’t take yourself seriously’. For me, that’s the best approach

Kelly Cates

“The girls are getting a bit older now and they think they don’t need as much [from us] — that’s what they tell us, but they do.”

In 2021 she revealed she was wary of dating, and added: “I don’t have a picture in my head of why a middle-aged, slightly overweight, mother-of-two could possibly be attractive.

“It’s not that I’m putting myself down, it’s not a lack of confidence or low self-esteem — it’s that I just don’t know what that would look like.

“I don’t want to spend my precious free time with a random.

“Imagine going out with somebody and you sit there halfway through and think, ‘God, this guy’s an idiot’, you’ve just wasted a babysitter.”

If Kelly has indeed landed sports broadcasting’s jewel in the crown, don’t expect this down-to-earth and seemingly unflappable presenter to start picking up airs and graces.

Last month she said with characteristic modesty: “I worked for ESPN years ago and they had a mantra of ‘Take the sport seriously but don’t take yourself seriously’.

“For me, that’s the best approach.”