David Jones started his TV football career by messing around with a camera in his North Yorkshire school. Jan Hunter reports

DAVID JONES is a famous face on television as one of Sky Sport’s leading presenters. In his 20th year with the satellite broadcaster, he has just launched its new Premier League Channel on which he hosts an hour-long chat show featuring four of the Premier League’s football managers.

He also presents Super Sunday and Monday Night Football, so he has come a very long way from his first attempt at filming with Stokesley School’s video camera, which made him think that it could be the career for him.

David, from Great Ayton, has hosted award ceremonies, fronted England live international matches, and has interviewed and worked with many of football’s legends. In 2015 he accepted an invitation from the board of Oxford United to become a non-executive director.

Once described by Company magazine as “the most eligible bachelor in the North-East”, David now lives with his partner Julie and son Oskar, six, in south-west London.

It’s a long way from the playing fields of Stokesley where he represented the district at football, cricket, athletics and hockey when at school. He studied drama with a desire to perform on stage, but it wasn’t until his mentor Charlie Andrew, sports teacher at Stokesley, brought a video camera into school that the idea of a career in television began to formulate.

“We had an Environment Day at school,” said David. “Charlie suggested I should be the presenter, and it was great fun filming, interviewing key members of staff and then editing it. I remember thinking then that if I could make a career out of this, it wouldn’t be a bad thing!”

Intent on his career, he did work experience at the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette, and his dad, John, a former cricketer for Great Ayton, arranged spells at BBC Radio Cleveland and Tyne Tees TV. After graduating in history at the University at Gloucestershire, he then moved to Sheffield to do a postgraduate course in newspaper journalism, getting his first job with the Derbyshire Times in Chesterfield.

“It was a small local paper,” he said, “but it meant that I got to do everything. It was a fantastic training ground covering murder trials, local politics and occasionally sport, which stood me in good stead for everything I do now.”

However, things started happening for him in 1997 when Chesterfield FC met Middlesbrough in the semi- finals of the FA cup.

“I was back at home in Great Ayton recovering from glandular fever at around that time,” he said. “Our sports editor needed some help, so there was no way I was missing that game at Old Trafford, or the replay in Sheffield. It was then I got the bug for working in sport.”

In 1998, Sky Sports News was launched, and David moved to London to jopin the channel as a script writer, soon progressing to the role of reporter and then presenter, working with former footballers such as Thierry Henry, Jamie Redknapp, Gary Neville and former Middlesbrough player, Graeme Souness.

“They’re all good guys and what you see on the screen is what you get,” said David. “We have a great laugh together off camera which helps when you are looking to create an on-screen chemistry. We don’t always agree with each other – in fact the programmes are livelier when the guys are arguing.”

His spell as a pitch side reporter had its moments especially when interviewing players and managers after the game, in a highly charged atmosphere. He used to dread interviewing Sir Alex Ferguson when United had lost, as he could be terrifying. He describes Arsene Wenger as a gentleman, even when he didn’t like the questions, but his favourite was Sir Bobby Robson, who was full of warm humour and had a twinkle in his eye. Once they tried to keep an interview going when Bobby had attracted the attentions of a friendly ladybird who insisted on crawling on his face, and he ended up twirling his jacket round his head to get rid of it.

David is enjoying his new role as a director at Oxford, and it is an area he is becoming increasingly interested in, but his focus is Sky Sports, which he says is an all-consuming job. “I can’t afford to miss any football,” he said. “I spend hours poring over stats and football websites, but I love it and can’t imagine doing anything else.”

However, he feels it is important to take stock and remember his roots, as in his job it is easy to get swallowed up and focus on all the challenges ahead, but he does take time out to reflect on how hard he had to work to get where he is. He knows how lucky he is, as for most football lovers it is a dream job.

Recently David returned to the place he still calls home to play in a charity cricket match at Stokesley Cricket Club, for his mentor and friend, Charlie Andrew, who started him on this journey. His mum, Helen still lives in Great Ayton, and he loves getting out on his bike into the hills with his brother, Rob, who lives in Stokesley.

“I didn’t really appreciate the beauty of Great Ayton and the hills until long after I had moved away,” he said. “It’s easy to take for granted when it’s always around you, but it seems to me like paradise after living in London for 20 years.

“I would love to get back more often, getting out on the hills and getting that air in my lungs. I reckon North Yorkshire folk are pretty lucky.”