Sky Sports News presenter Kelly Cates opened up about the time she abruptly decided to depart the channel.
Renowned in the sports broadcasting scene for her coverage of football, particularly the Premier League, the 49-year-old made a surprising exit from Sky after eight years in 2006. Cates took her talents to BBC Radio 5Live’s 606 football phone-in show and the English Football League highlights programme on Channel 5.
A decade after her exit, she circled back to spearhead Sky Sports’ EFL coverage, before switching to their Premier League programming, where she remains today. Cates, who was born in Glasgow, looked back on her decision and explained her thought process behind her shock exit.
She told the Overlap’s ‘Not Just Football podcast’: “I left Sky Sports News in 2006, after the Germany World Cup. I’d been there for eight years and I had just turned 30, or I was just turning 31.
“I was engaged, but not yet married. I knew I wanted to have children quite soon at that point. It had just been, for a long time, kind of filtering away and running in the back of my head. I came to the end of my contract and was working under my new contract and within the space of about three days, made the decision.
“I was driving into work one day, I walked in and I said, ‘I don’t want to sign this new contract, I want to go! I had nothing to go to. I just walked away.
“But I was so sure that I had to go and make that change. I did it when I left university to go to Sky, which is different, because then you get something that’s really exciting, shiny and new, dangled in front of you and you think, ‘I’m going to take this jump’.
“But that’s the scariest one I did where I just went, ‘that’s it’. I just made that decision.”
Discussing how she processed her choice with Christine Lampard, Cates added: “It’s when you wake up the next morning and you still feel good about it. That’s when you know you made the right decision, when it feels like a weight off, rather than a sinking feeling.”
The reporter’s journey to prominence began unexpectedly at Sky Sports News after leaving university, where she was studying mathematics. Sky Sports was a new channel at the time who were looking to provide a fresh perspective on football.
A year after her comeback to Sky Sports, Cates transitioned from EFL coverage to the Premier League. She is best recognised for her stint presenting the broadcaster’s Friday Night Football matchdays and Sundays.
Cates, who is the daughter of Liverpool and Celtic legend Kenny Dalglish, is usually found next to the likes of Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher and other high profile Sky Sports pundits on matchday.