Warmth: the word keeps arising during conversations about Kelly Cates and is used as a barometer of her ability to convey the importance of a situation.
It tends to centre around one specific incident, too. It involves Liverpool – some will immediately assume it couldn’t involve anyone else, given who her father is – but illustrates why she is one of the leading sports broadcasters in the business, one with impeccable judgement.
On the night of July 22, 2020, Liverpool were to be crowned Premier League champions. The raging Covid pandemic meant Anfield was practically empty but after Chelsea had been beaten 5-3, Jurgen Klopp’s squad were intent on celebrating this long overdue success.
There was tickertape and fireworks but Klopp had media obligations to fulfil and was placed in front of Cates as a rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone started. Time is precious in these high-pressured situations, every word and second counts, but the lady with the microphone saw the bigger picture.
‘Jurgen,’ she said, as Klopp looked to find some words of his own. ‘Come back to us when you are ready. Go and enjoy the moment with your squad.’
It takes nerve and courage to breakaway from the running order of a live production but Cates possesses those qualities – and many more – in abundance. It’s why she has climbed to the top of her profession. And it is why she will soon be a regular on our screens through Match of the Day.
Kelly Cates will form part of a three-person team of Match of the Day presenters next season
Cates will split presenting duties for the flagship show with Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman
The trio will try to fill the void of Gary Lineker on a show that is effectively national property
Finding the right successor for Gary Lineker on a show that is effectively national property was an enormous task for the BBC’s new director of sport, Alex Kay-Jelski. It is not understating things to say that making the wrong call could have hastened its end.
But forming a team of Cates along with Mark Chapman and Gabby Logan – both high quality and vastly experienced – is smart. This triumvirate have known each other for many years, Cates and Chapman having first worked together for ESPN in 2009.
It represents joined-up thinking, too, with Cates and Chapman also working in tandem on Five Live. Many will wonder why a former player isn’t taking into Lineker’s role but that misses the point. The quality of the programme will be dictated by the anchor’s quality, not whether they kicked a ball.
‘The one thing Kelly has above all is warmth – and that’s exactly what you want a presenter to have for a Saturday night TV audience,’ says Ed Chamberlin, the face of ITV Racing and a Mail Sport columnist. ‘You are inviting someone into your sitting room and you want to feel at ease with them.
‘Don’t have any concerns on that score whatsoever. The show will thrive with Kelly, Mark and Gabby. I go back a long way with Kelly – she was my favourite co-presenter from the years we had at Sky; we were on Sky Sports News and then she’d deputise for Kirsty Gallagher on a show called 90 Minutes.
‘Nothing was ever a problem for her, she took it all in her stride. We had an incredible rapport. You always had to be on your guard with her as she doesn’t miss a trick and doesn’t let you away with anything; she’s witty, she’s charming but don’t let that take away from anything else.
‘She has an unbelievable football knowledge; she knows the game inside out, she’s meticulous in everything she does. She can hold a conversation with anyone about anything and she has this ability to bring out the best in those around her. It’s a brilliant signing for the BBC.’
So how has she ended up here? Being the daughter of Sir Kenny Dalglish, Liverpool’s greatest ever player, would have opened up all manner of doors and what a grounding she had, listening to debates in their kitchen between her dad and those other great Scots, Graeme Souness and Alan Hansen.
Cates (right) has been praised for her ‘warmth’ and ‘football knowledge’ as a presenter
Cates is the daughter of Sir Kenny Dalglish but she has forged her career in her own right
Former Sky Sports presenter Ed Chamberlin labelled her as his ‘favourite co-presenter’
‘She is fantastic at this job because she has been in a football house all her life,’ Souness, who used to push Cates in a pram as a baby only to find himself being asked questions by her in a studio, once told Mail Sport.
Plenty in her position would have been inclined to use the family name as an avenue to capitalise on but her parents were workers – she takes after her mother, Lady Marina – and this is a career that has been forged in her own right. Not that it has always been easy, mind you.
‘Just as his success isn’t my success, then what I do doesn’t have any bearing on him,’ Cates said during a YouTube interview with 90 Minute Football in October 2020. We are different people. I can be proud of him without living off him, if that makes sense?
‘I struggled to make that distinction early on. If I mentioned him early on (in my career), it felt like I was living off him and his reputation and career. But I can be both – I can be his daughter and I can have my own career. It’s taken me far too long to get to that point.’
Cates, 49, is the eldest of the four Dalglish children – she was followed by her brother, Paul, and sisters Lauren and Lynsey – and has two daughters of her own, who she dotes on. She separated from Tom, her husband of 14 years, in 2021 and keeps her personal life private.
Her professional life, though, is an open book. She worked for many of the leading broadcasters, from Sky to Setanta, GMTV, ITV at the World Cup in 2010 and Channel 4 when London staged the Paralympics in 2012; since August 2017, she’s presented Friday Night Football on Sky.
There have been years of experience on Radio, also, with a stint at talkSPORT and presenting duties on 5 Live – she was the lead voice at the World Cup final in 2022 – and the popular 606 phone-in, through it all the ability to get to the heart of the matter.
In an industry where egos can become rampant at the slightest opportunity, those who know her well stress that she puts the team first and never fails to prepare, ensuring she always talks to the time she has been allocated and never gets flustered.
Mail Sport columnist Graeme Souness used to push Cates in a pram as a baby only to find himself being asked questions by her in a studio years later (pictured together in 1979)
Souness once said ‘she is fantastic at this job as she has been in a football house all her life’
Cates has earned her stripes with an impressive amount of experience across TV and radio
‘It is her real, genuine warmth,’ says Rob Green, the former West Ham and England goalkeeper, who is a respected member of the 5 Live punditry team; it significant that he mentions that word – warmth – again.
‘When you meet her, she’s exactly as you would see her on TV. The first time I worked with her was for a Liverpool game in the Champions League, we were together up at the studios in Salford. She made it feel so comfortable for me that I almost forgot I was on air.
‘I think she is someone who will appeal to all types of viewers and she’s genuinely respected by pretty much everyone that will want to watch football on television. I’m absolutely thrilled for her, it’s fantastic news.
‘She knows what questions to ask, when to ask them and how to ask them: it might sound a simple thing to say but it really isn’t. She asks the questions but she’s listening to you intently for that little nugget that she will drag that bit more detail from you. She’ll have a sparring match if she needs to!
‘That’s important with Match of the Day: you only get a few minutes to talk about games and the moments within them. She’s the type of host who will maximise that window to extrapolate that little bit more. It’s a tremendous skill to make it look as easy as she does.
‘During the World Cup (in Qatar), she met my wife and kids. My wife walked away and said: “Oh, she’s lovely. You can see why you want to work with these people.” That one conversation is reflective how Kelly is.’