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The Andrew McKenna Q&A Interview
Exclusive to talkSPORT1089.co.uk

Andrew McKenna keeps talkSPORT listeners up to date with all the breaking
news stories from the world of sport every weekday afternoon on Sportswatch.

During his time at talkSPORT Andrew has travelled the world covering major
sporting events including England's cricket tour of Sir Lanka and the Sydney
Olympics. He has also had the recent pleasure of seeing Alan Brazil, Mike Parry
and The Sports Breakfast team in action when he joined them in Seville for Celtic's
UEFA Cup Final against FC Porto earlier this year in May.

You present Sportswatch on talkSPORT every weekday, what kind of
preparation is made to make this the most detailed sports bulletin on radio?
Some days needs more than others. Once you work out what the top story is,
you then need to decide how you're going to reflect it. Are you going to use some
recorded audio, take some from Sky Sports News, which we can do thanks to a contract we have, or get a live guest. Once you've decided all that you can go from there. Generally speaking from start to finish it takes about 45 minutes to get it so I'm happy with it and for it to be of broadcast quality for the Sportswatch bulletin.

Being part of a sports station must give you the chance to rub shoulders with some of sports biggest names. Who has been the biggest name you have interviewe whilst working for talkSPORT?
Some of the Sri Lankan cricketers have pretty big names. I've been really lucky with the job's I've done for talkSPORT, I've done boxing in New York, the Sydney Olympics, the England cricket tour to Sri Lanka, the Celtic v Porto UEFA Cup final in Seville, try and pick a favourite out of that lot.

However the moment that stands out more than most. I don't know if you'll remember this but Tiger Woods came to London to do a golf clinic in Hyde Park. He did a press conference before hand at the Dorchester Hotel, where he took about 12 questions. I was lucky enough to ask one. It was November-time and all the sportsmen of the year awards were being announced around then, so I asked how he felt about being given awards, especially ones voted by the fans. He paused, then said "Wow, good question" and then went on with the rest of the answer. That's a pretty special moment for me to experience.

You have been working for talkSPORT for a number of years in various reporting and newsreading roles but did you have much radio broadcasting before joining the station?
I did a sports studies degree to try and widen my all round sports knowledge. It comprised physiology, psychology, sociology, sports provision, and sports media. I graduated from that in the summer of 1995 and joined BBC Radio Nottingham from 1996-1999 doing bulletins, production, presenting programmes, and reporting on live sport including football, ice hockey, tennis, cricket, and was rugby union correspondent.

I joined Talk Radio in the first week of 2000, actually as it changed to talkSPORT. I knew about the change before quite a lot of the other staff, because one of the first things I did was work on the dummy runs of what would become the Sports Breakfast, when it was Adrian Durham with Gary Newbon, Brough Scott, or Ian Darke. My role during the dummy runs was to pretend to be the guests that they were interviewing, good fun actually. I got to be some very famous people. From there I became part of the Breakfast production team.

I started doing football and rugby reports at the weekend, and did my first bulletin when Adrian was ill one day. If you remember, at that point Adrian did The Sports Breakfast and the sports bulletins afterwards. He wasn't feeling well, and from conversations we'd had during those dummy runs knew I'd done bulletins before, so as no one else was around who could take over said he was going home. From there I started doing more.

I came back onto doing the Sportswatch bulletins in November last year which is my 3rd spell. Not sure if they think I'm good at them - or whether they can't yet work out if I'm terrible yet.

You are one of the regular reporters on Football First with Adrian Durham and Ray Houghton every Saturday for matches in the Premiership and Division One. What teams do you regularly cover?
Pretty much anything goes. As I've already said, I've done boxing in New York, cricket in Sri Lanka, the Olympics in Sydney, the rugby league world cup, rugby union, bits of Euro 2000 and the UEFA Cup Final. I think the crowning glory though, and what I want my epitaph to be, is that I was part of the production team that brought you live and exclusive radio coverage of the Poker Million from the Isle of Mann. Graham Beecroft and Derek Thompson were the talent on air, who took all the glory, but I'd like to think that that show would have been nothing were it not for my efforts. I still wake up in a cold sweat when I think about those few days.

Do you have an ambition to moving into presentation at talkSPORT or do more than present Sportswatch and read the sports news in the afternoons during Hawksbee & Jacobs?
Presentation is something that just about everyone who gets into radio or television wants to do. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably lying. I'm no different, yes I'd like to present.

Notts County were threatened with extinction last season following administration. How did the off the field problems affect the players performances on the pitch in Division Three?
Probably not that much. I really don't think players are affected by off the pitch stuff at all. As long as their wages get paid they're happy, and if things get bad, they can always get their agent to sort out a move. That's probably over simplistic and a bit cynical - but I'd bet it's true of 75% of all the players up and down the Country. To be honest they were at the wrong end of the table because they had players who weren't good enough, and in the current financial climate they couldn't sell them or pay them off.

Have you actually supported Notts County all of your life or have you followed any other teams that are local to you in Nottingham or the East Midlands?
I'll probably get slaughtered for this by the Notts fans, but I did go and watch some Forest games as a kid. My Birthday is January so as a birthday treat I did get taken to either an FA Cup 3rd Round match if Forest were playing one of the big sides; or, they also regularly played Liverpool around that time. So the chance to see the Liverpool side of the 1980's to an impressionable youngster was too much to turn down. Liverpool normally won, with a goal in the last 10 mins, but then they did that against most sides.

What do you think of the Championship Manager 4 game and have you taken Notts County from Division Three to the Champions League as yet?
The Champions League? I can barely afford to take them to Luton. It's stunningly realistic, maybe almost too realistic in some ways (I do hope that some of the Notts players aren't paid that much). From a purely game playing point of view I don't think it can much more in depth than it currently is, because it's supposed to be a game when all's said and done, and therefore fun; and it'll just take too long to play if it gets more in depth.

What was the last CD you bought?
I bought three CD's quite recently including The Stereophonics "You Gotta Go There To Come Back"; The Red Hot Chili Peppers "By The Way"; and Metallica's "St Anger".

What was the last film you saw at the cinema, and what did you think of it?
For some reason I don't go that often, only for things I want to see. The last one was the Red Dragon re-make. As a huge fan of the Hannibal series I desperately want to see it - and it stank. Hannibal was brilliantly filmed and made Red Dragon look poorly filmed, with a poor cast, and a poorly adapted script.

Any thoughts on the Sexy Kaufman Challenge?
One of the funniest things I have ever seen, pure genius. Whoever came up with it deserves an award in the next honours list.

We would like to thank Andrew McKenna, the presenter of Sportswatch on talkSPORT, for the chance to interview him. Hear him every weekday at 1:00pm and 6:00pm on talkSPORT.

The Andrew McKenna Q&A Interview
Sportswatch & Football First
September 2003