BEHIND THE SCENES

OH ROB NOTHMAN, BBC RADIO 5 LIVE SPORTS BROADCASTER AND AWARD-WINNING PRODUCER, TALKS US THROUGH HIS EXPERIENCES IN THE INDUSTRY

Tell us a bit about your time at Habs

I was a Habs boy for eleven years, from 1971 to 1982, and I was in Calverts. I had a great time at Habs, and made lots of friends who I still see today from my cohort. And more than anything else, not only did I benefit from a great all round education, but I just think looking back, I feel blessed that there were so many strong and memorable characters in particular among all the teachers. They taught you life lessons as well as the academic studies that you needed to do. I loved every moment of it; well, I loved every moment of it, except for the cross country runs!

Where did your interest for radio and sports come from?

I think growing up from the age of about eight or nine, I remember hearing football on BBC radio and hearing the great Peter Jones and Bryon Butler commentating. And I can remember hearing them covering a football match and thinking, ‘this is marvellous, I love listening to this!’ It was so evocative and it made my mind think about the pictures that they were describing. And I was intoxicated from that moment on. I loved sport, and knew wasn’t going to be good enough to play it professionally - I was reasonable, but not an outstanding sportsman by any means. So when we played football in the playground, I would be playing and commentating at the same time. And all of my peers, who I still am, friends who I still see now, they always laugh and remind me that I was a particularly nauseating person to be playing with because I would always be talking and shouting about what was going on while I

Could you describe your little altercation with Jürgen Klopp?!

First of all, the job that I have done working in BBC Radio and covering sport, be it Olympic Games or World Cups or Premier League football matches or the Masters Golf, you do have a very privileged position of meeting lots and lots of well-known people. So, I have interviewed the likes of Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, David Beckham and it is a fascinating study. You only get a very tiny snapshot of what these people are genuinely like - not enough to necessarily form an opinion of exactly what their characters are, but you do see little things that are interesting. And certainly when it comes to the big Premier League managers like Jürgen Klopp, José Mourinho and Pep Guardiola, you can see them sometimes when they are at their happiest and when they are at their angriest, and certainly twice with Jürgen Klopp. Last season, I was covering the matches where Liverpool lost 3-2 at West Ham and when they drew 2-2 at Tottenham. And in that title race when Liverpool were chasing Manchester City with both clubs had an amazing points tally, so every game was pivotal. So, after the West Ham game, where Liverpool had lost, I asked Jürgen about the first goal that West Ham scored, where Liverpool had protested that there’d been a foul on the goalkeeper, Alison. And I asked him if he thought his goalkeeper was impeded? So he immediately said to me, and I could tell he was a bit irritated, ‘what do you think?’ And I said to him, ‘with the greatest of respect, Jürgen, the audience are not interested in my opinion, but they are interested in your opinion’. And that didn’t go down particularly well with him!

So I then asked him another question about, I think, how his team had defended overall, and he wasn’t happy with that question either. And eventually he said to me ‘Look, I am not your puppy’. So, in other words, he felt as if I was asking questions, knowing what answers he would give. I was leading him in a direction where I knew that he was going to get a bit cranky. And sure enough, he did get cranky, and he walked off.

And then it happened again after the Tottenham game, where perhaps Harry Kane was lucky not to be sent off. And Klopp again was angry. And actually, the interview began the first two questions, he was fine, and I just asked him what I thought was a perfectly reasonable third question about how concerned are you that your defence gave up so many chances to Tottenham today? I mean, it was not the hardest

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