Sport & Sundays

As a boy, if I wasn’t playing sport with friends, I was practising in the back garden. I found that my dad’s vegetable patch was particularly useful. The runner bean rods provided an almost perfect defensive wall and, at full height, the curly kale could almost be a tennis net.

To say I enjoyed my sport would be a slight understatement. I still haven’t quite come to terms with Chris Waddle’s penalty miss in the 1990 World Cup, and I nearly crashed my car into a Harry Ramsden’s restaurant when Jonny Wilkinson kicked ‘for World Cup glory’ in Sydney in 2003.

Grandstand

Growing up, I used to love Saturdays. Most of the day was built around Grandstand — the BBC’s sports programme that started at lunchtime and went on until the football scores were in at 5.00 pm. I had a deep love for the programme — mainly based on the powers of presenter Des Lynam. At the age of 11, I wrote Mr. Lynam a letter. It was along the lines of ‘How can I get your job?’

To my surprise, he wrote back. ‘The chief’, as I saw him, explained what he thought I should do to get into presenting sport.

I went to church on a Sunday, but most of my life was spent thinking about sport. I knew the right answers to all the Bible questions, but they meant nothing to me. I had no knowledge of Jesus Christ as my Saviour.

At that age, I was pretty decent at most sports. My added height did help. I played tennis for Sussex, could smack a cricket ball for miles and was handy on the football pitch. I loved tennis, but football was my real passion.

I reached my sporting peak in my final year at Three Bridges Middle School, winning the tennis and table tennis tournaments, taking the 200-metre title, throwing a tennis ball further than anyone else, taking ten catches in one game of cricket and being part of the winning team in the rounders, softball, basketball and netball (don’t ask) tournaments. I even managed to win the school chess tournament (although there were only half a dozen competitors, four of whom were forced to take part as a punishment. Everything I touched turned to gold.

The day everything changed

As I mentioned, I had a lot of Bible knowledge, but there was very little evidence of the love of Jesus Christ in my life. Then, one Sunday night in 1989, a man called Gerald Jackson walked into my life. Gerald was an old friend of my dad’s; he wasn’t the most dynamic speaker in the world, but he was warm, friendly and true to God’s Word. He preached about the reality of hell for the unbeliever, and the importance of knowing Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour. I was rooted to the spot. For the first time in my life, my mind wasn’t wandering. As Gerald spoke, I remember feeling the depth of my sin. I knew that I was offending God by the life I was living, and the prospect of going to hell terrified me. I wanted to go to heaven — I wanted to be in the presence of God thanks to the saving love of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

After the service, I was a bit of a mess. I wasn’t right with God and I really knew that I had to be. I went home and that night talked for what seemed like hours with my parents. I wanted to be a Christian, but I just didn’t know what to do; I was in tears. I have no recollection of what my mum or dad said to me, but I remember that I went to bed that night a different person. I knew that my sins had been forgiven.

School

I was now at secondary school and after a couple of seasons playing in the school team, I began to realise that perhaps I wasn’t good enough to play football for a living.

The next few years of my life were filled with exams, football, church, tennis and family stuff, and every now and again my mind would go back to the letter I had received from Des Lynam. Des had told me to go through school, finish my A levels and then go to university. Interestingly, he told me not to study ‘Media’ but to do something like History or English before doing a post-graduate course in journalism and then getting a job in local radio.

To be brutally honest, although I was really thankful for Des’s letter, I never thought that I would follow journalism as a career. I had no idea what God wanted me to do and I was convinced that, if I were going to do anything, it would be teaching. My History and PE teachers had had a big effect on me at school and I thought that, if I could do the same for some other young kids, it would be a profitable occupation.

I got good GCSEs and A levels and, after much prayer and deliberation, got a place to study History at the University of Sheffield.

Sheffield

This was to be a totally new experience. For the first time in my life, I was away from home, and my faith was going to come under real pressure and scrutiny. I’ll be honest, for the first year of university I didn’t live the Christian life as I should have done.

Thankfully, things did change. I met some really good people at the church in Sheffield and, slowly, I grew as a Christian. The preaching of God’s Word started to have more of an influence on me. I was playing about ten hours of six-a-side football a week, training with the university on a Monday and Thursday and then playing every Wednesday and Saturday. I was one of quite a few Christians playing for the university but I was the only one who didn’t play in the Sunday matches that we had about three to four times a season. We had some great debates about this during the hours we spent travelling to far-away fixtures, but I was convinced that, by not playing on a Sunday, I was doing the right thing in honouring God.

Radio

Away from football and the occasional essay, the other thing that was taking up quite a bit of my time was university radio. Sure FM had launched and every Tuesday and Thursday my housemate Ed and I ripped up the airwaves. Despite the distinct lack of award-winning material, the experience gave me a taste of a potential career.

In my third and final year at Sheffield, I started dating my future wife, Sarah. She used to work in a bakery. One Saturday afternoon, she was listening to Hallam FM, the local radio station, and the presenter announced that they were running a football commentary competition. The winner would get the chance to go in and work on the Saturday afternoon football show and to cover a match. This was big stuff. Sarah and I met up that evening and she gave me the details and the address on one of the brown paper bags from her shop—along with some mayonnaise! To cut a long story short, I won the prize!

Despite my success, I still didn’t think that broadcasting was going to be a viable career for me. I had always fancied teaching. But after much deliberation, prayer and lengthy conversations with Sarah, I decided that this was perhaps the time to have a go at this broadcasting lark. Eventually I got an interview with Key 103 in Manchester. This was a big radio station that did commentary on matches involving Manchester United and Manchester City. It was only later, as I thought about leaving Key 103 after winning some awards, that the issue of Sundays really started to pinch. Over the course of about 18 months I had six or seven interviews for a new job.

Sundays?

One interview particularly sticks in my mind. It was for a great job at a radio station in London. The first 20 minutes of the interview went really well until the guy behind the desk asked the following question: ‘And what’s this joke at the bottom of your CV about not working on a Sunday because you are a Christian?’ I explained that it wasn’t a joke and told him why I felt the way I did, why it was important and why I was still the best candidate for the job. He didn’t see it that way and finished his lecture on my stupidity by saying, ‘You will not get anywhere with an attitude like that’. Despite the distinct lack of a new job, I left the guy’s office totally at peace. Whatever else they thought of me, they knew that Jesus Christ was important in my life.

I went through a couple of interviews like that before applying for a job at ITV Granada in Manchester in 2004. I did a screen test and then went into the interview room determined not to have the same conversation about Sundays. I just went for it and told the panel that I understood that Sunday could be an issue, but if they gave me a chance — even a three-month contract — I would prove I was better than anyone else they could employ; and, if I wasn’t, or if Sundays proved to be a problem, they could just get rid of me. I think they liked my feisty new approach. I was offered the job and six months later, when my boss at ITV left for the BBC, I went with her.

Life at the BBC

I had always thought that a job at the BBC would be beyond my reach, but God had provided a way in there. For the next 18 months, I was based in Manchester working with the great Gordon Burns — he of Krypton Factor fame.

After 18 months in the North West, we were on the move again. I remember that, before we got married, Sarah used to say, ‘I’m only marrying you if I never have to live in London!’ However, after some gentle arm-twisting, she was persuaded to forsake her northern roots and move to the big smoke. Moving to London would have been so much more difficult had we not been so warmly accepted and welcomed at Amyand Park Chapel in Twickenham.

Soon things were going well at the BBC. My not working on Sundays wasn’t a problem for my new boss. I think he thought it would hinder my progress, but he was happy to help where he could. I was determined to keep trusting in God and to remember what a chap named John Pickford had told me: ‘If you’re going to stick to that, you are going to have to be good to get anywhere — and not just good, but the best!’

My current job is pretty manic. I am presenting and reporting on things like Six Nations rugby, the Grand National horse racing and The Open Golf Championship for BBC Sport, and covering football for Final Score, Match of the Day and Football Focus. They have even let me present my own radio show on 5 Live as well as doing my ‘normal’ job on News 24. God has given me plenty of opportunities and I have been given regular encouragements that I am doing the right thing.

How hard can it be?

People often say it must be really hard to be a Christian and do the work that I do; I disagree. I think my job puts me in the same situations that everyone else faces. The only difference is that people who work in the media are usually paid to have opinions, so you can get involved in some heated debates! I have been shouted at, insulted, stabbed in the back (not literally), laughed at and ignored, but I have also worked with or met some great characters and been given plenty of opportunities to talk to people about the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is an edited extract, used with permission, from a large format 30-page colour booklet called Sport & Sundays (price £10.00 for 5, ISBN 978-1-84625-172-6), part of a series called Sundays are Great Days produced by Day One Publications. To buy the booklet and read Dan’s full story phone 01568 613740, or go to http://www.dayone.co.uk

Christian BBC presenter Dan Walker tells his story