After 29 years with Sky and 43 in the live broadcast, Nick Powell will turn off his germ later this week, retiring on his 66th birthday. A face known to both viewers of Sky Sports and Sky News over the years, Nick reflects in a career both making history and to break stories …
My phone fell at 5.40 am on vacation in Sicily.
He was the task editor at Sky News.
Muhammad Ali had died. As an editor of the sport, I was needed live in the air at 6am.
Still in my pajamas, I went down to the coast in search of the best reception by breaking my sleepy brain for my best thoughts on the biggest boxing legend.
I also remembered, once he and I had been in the same room, a decade ago, when his simple presence exuded electricity.
I was in the air in the past six minutes: “Let’s get the opinions of our Nick Powell sport editor …”.
Good, evil and surrealist …
And there you have my job in a nutshell: trivial holiday; Knowledge, authority and rapid essential reactions.
I have built them all over 43 years of live, good and bad broadcasting.
Good – Being there for the first ashes of men in England in 20 years in Oval in 2005, super Saturday at the 2012 London Olympics and the Wimbledon triumph of Andy Murray 2013.
Evil – Bradford fire, hillsborough disaster and premature loss of athletes like Gary Speed.
And surreal – interviewing Archbishop Desmond Tutu and covers a Bruce Springsteen concert in the same afternoon for Yorkshire television, or explaining a hundred viewers of Sky Germany. In German.
I never wanted to be on television. As a kid, my dreams were for a radio career, partly because – then – it was much faster.
Yes, we had to modify our interviews on the Radio Pennine in Bradford by cutting the recording bar with a razor blade (not many injuries, but modern health and safety would have a fit!).
But with a little courage and imagination, you can make things happen, and quickly.
I was in the Leeds United vs Norwich City in 1985, where the fog was so thick that you couldn’t get out of the bottom of the field from the position of radio comments in the press box, the 18-Oborre line.
Steve Greenall was commenting. I was just there because my game in Bradford was pushed because of water water. But I’ve had a Pennine Radio mobile phone – larger than a brick and heavier as well.
So I settled in a spare spot on the other end of the stand, and Steve and I handed the comment to each other as the ball passed from its foggy half to the mine.
When I joined the Yorkshire television in 1986, everything seemed so clumsy.
The news crew with four Grimsby -based men still shot their stories in the old -fashioned film, which had to bike 80 miles in a laboratory specialized in leads for development, and then courier in the studio, where the editing was laborious.
No matter how big the story is in Grimsby, if it happened after lunch there would be no pictures on television until the next day.
Broadcastdo direct transmission from location required a complete unit of complete transmission of the dimensions of furniture removal.
Spool through my thousands of hours of appearance for Sky Sports News and Sky News and we can “go directly” to a hat, from wherever you like, often with nothing more complicated than a cell phone.
Even in 2007, at the Rugby World Cup in Paris, I was able to submit part of a direct program from a bus while traveling around the Eiffel Tower. As you
I had made a routine day at the Sky News news table that Wednesday when someone told me I was on a 7.35 -morning flight from Heathrow the next day to present sports bulletins from Paris to the Saturday final.
By the act of supporting to lead the anchor
England lost in South Africa. I was in position in front of our camera after the match, waiting for Rugby to be in or near the top of heaven news at ten.
Concerning Talkback with the studio in London, at 9:58 pm I heard the manufacturer go to the gallery and tell the director there: “Nick Powell will present all the news in ten, live from Paris.”
“Do he know that?” asked the director, almost calmly.
“No, I’m ready to say.”
I scored six titles. Manufacturer, Ronan Hughes, insisted on reading them again.
Wise movement. I could only decipher four of my six pieces of writing. Thirty seconds later, we were in the air. No autocue, no monitor to check the pictures. Ronan kept talking to me through what was coming next, and I advertised my way through half an hour. Live and immediately from the heart of a great story.
That is what knowledge and experience again.
But as with everything on television, it only worked because of the strength of the team.
A few months ago, I was broadcasting live on the day of the first FA Cup final (Chelsea vs Manchester United) at the new Wembley Stadium.
Our technical magicians had provided us with a position on a hotel roof with a wonderful view of the new arena and its iconic arch, designed by Norman Foster.
I brought the Lord Foster to our “roof”. We passed an electricity reinforcing point and there was his stadium. The brilliant architect, there with his wife, stopped in his footsteps. “Wow!” He gasped. I knew we would find a great perspective.
Earlier that day, another surreal moment.
The hotel gave us a high -floor bedroom like our base for the day, and I found myself sitting in a double bed with our manufacturer, camera operator, Chelsea Ron’s Protective Legend “Chopper” Harris, comedian David Baddiel and brother his Ivor (both chelsea fans) and Neil Ashton to the Daily Mail.
“Glamor of television”. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pronounced that phrase through minced teeth while I’m avoiding at Ryder Cup, Windswept in Wimbledon or frozen in football.
But of course, it’s worth it all.
For colleagues’ friendship, the emotion of “being there”, the buzz of excavating a live program from a hole standing calm and being able to speak without autocue or notes.
And making people laugh, ideally intentionally, but I’ve ended up several times in “it will be good night” and go out the other side.
The privilege to present iconic shows as a special soccer.
Transmission from amazing places – Anfield, Lord’s, Royal Troon, HMS Ark Royal, Sydney Opera House deck, and inside the Buckingham palace.
And revealing in my last 10 years in Sky that German -running speaking was all professionally useful.
I was in Munich many times on the day of the deadline as a guest at the exit of Sky Germany, as a German -speaking expert with a British perspective.
Never tell ‘No’ Fergie
People often ask about difficult interviewees. Very little. Even those for whom I was warned in advance, from Sir Alex Ferguson to Princess Anne and playwright Alan Bennett, could be charming if you play it properly.
Of course, Fergie was not always. But he once gave me a touch interview that I didn’t really want. Believe or not I wanted Clayton Blackmore (who had just scored the only goal in Sheffield United). We would get the great man himself later. But in shock he did me wrong and put a finger to say “in a minute”, after which he really introduced it to my camera. We didn’t send it away.
There is another type of complicated interviewed – one who will not stop.
I had legendary boxing promoter Don King Live from New York as the latest article in a program. I don’t think he would have stopped talking if his mouth had been sold. He was probably still going while I said goodbye to viewers.
Powell with German sky colleagues located in Munich after reporting to German viewers on a day of time
And now it’s a last farewell.
Favorite moment? So much, but as a born and educated fan of Liverpool, it is difficult to be in the air for their first league title in 30 years.
As it turned out, amidst the last whistle that went to the Manchester City defeat to Chelsea, which meant Liverpool could not be caught, and the beginning of a special program advanced by David Jones to mark the Liverpool triumph, I had exactly 12 seconds.
But this is direct television for you.
