George Hamilton

We were considering asking you.

This was how the letter was couched.

And I was right back to the post box with the letter back saying, consider no more, I'm on board.

It went from there.

28 exactly, yeah.

So you're still pretty young to be getting a call-up for commentary for a World Cup.

Absolutely.

I mean, my commentary experience was Northern Ireland-based.

My big match had been a World Cup qualifier, funnily enough, and the kind of serendipity in that, that Northern Ireland were in the same group as the Netherlands, who ended up playing in the World Cup final.

And Northern Ireland's first match was against the Netherlands.

Danny Blanchflower was a new manager.

He recalled George Best from the International Wilderness.

Best, of course, had retired and then come back and was playing for Fulham at the time.

And

BBC Northern Ireland, their head of sport wasn't there at the time.

She was on holiday, Joy Williams, and her deputy did something that Joy I don't think would ever have done.

He suggested that we show the match live on TV from Rotterdam.

And it had to go to London to be okayed because there was no local opt-out available that wouldn't go across the 9 o'clock news on TV, which was sacrosanct.

So London said, yes, go for it.

And they read the news twice.