She was one of the most recognisable and popular presenters in sports media, but Kelly Cates one day decided to not renew her contract at Sky Sports News
Former Sky Sports News presenter Kelly Cates revealed how she previously decided to leave the broadcaster, despite having no other job lined up.
Cates is synonymous with football and the Premier League on the broadcasting juggernaut, but the 49-year-old journalist suddenly left Sky after her first stint back in 2006. At the start of the century, Cates was known for her presenting skills, whether it was in the Sky Sports studio or holding the microphone while out in the field.
In the decade she spent away from the company, Cates worked for BBC Radio 5Live’s 606 show as well as the English Football League highlights programme on Channel 5. 10 years after her shock departure from Sky Sports, Cates would return to present Saturday evening matches as part of the brand’s coverage of the EFL.
Looking back on her decision, Cates did her best to explain the context around her abrupt departure from the company she started her broadcasting career with.
While speaking on The Overlap’s Not just Football podcast, Cates said: “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.”
When asked by Christine Lampard if her head and her gut both aligned in her decision, Cates nodded and said: “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.”
Cates’ presenting career began at Sky Sports News, when she was convinced to leave university – where she studied mathematics – and join. At the time, Sky Sports News was a brand new channel, and the broadcaster was looking for new and fresh voices to front their presenting operation.
One year after her return to Sky Sports, Cates switched from EFL coverage to the Premier League. She is most known for her time presenting the broadcaster’s Friday Night Football matchdays as well as on Sundays. Cates, whose dad is Liverpool and Celtic legend Kenny Dalglish, has worked well with pundits Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher, proving to be a popular, knowledgable and witty member of Sky Sports’ team.
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