Kelly Cates had listened intently to the football conversations of her father and his friends as a child and could not have been better prepared to organize Match Of The Day.
For her father is Sir Kenny Dalglish – the pride of Celtic and Liverpool's Kop, with a record 102 Scotland caps, three European Cups and a string of league titles to his name as a player and manager.
And those friends often included fellow medal-laden Reds Graeme Souness and Alan Hansen, both now top pundits in their own right.
Kelly's former babysitter Graeme once said: “She's fantastic at this job because she's been in a football house all her life and has listened to all of us talk silly about football since she was little.
'I was sitting in the living room, Alan Hansen was sitting there and the opinions were all over the place.
“She had a great insight into how this football world works.”
While Kelly has taken over the game from some of the biggest names, it is her own deft skills behind the microphone that have rocketed her to the top of sports broadcasting.
Now the 49-year-old, along with friends Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman, is said to be set to take over the Match Of The Day presenter's chair from Gary Lineker.
According to reports, in a significant coup for the BBC, the corporation has managed to poach Kelly from Sky Sports to present its flagship football programme.
But she can still expect a text from her dad while she's on air if King Kenny gets upset about her guests' experts.
She revealed last month: “He's texting [when she is on air]especially when my mother isn't there.
Selleck' tache
'If he has no one to turn to.
“He'll hear a bit of our conversation, and then he'll text me to intervene.
“If it really bothers him, he'll call me on the way home.”
Kelly was born the eldest of four children in Glasgow and grew up in Southport, Merseyside, after her father signed from Celtic to Liverpool in 1977.
Her mother Marina once said: “Glasgow and Liverpool are very similar.
“It's the people; they are so friendly in both cities.
“So it was very, very easy for us to settle here.”
Kelly was almost two years old at the time and her brother Paul, who went on to play for Newcastle, Norwich and Wigan, was a baby.
Two more siblings, Lynsey and Lauren, followed.
Liverpool fan Kelly has always been immersed in football and said: “When I was a baby my mother would take me to matches to watch my father play.
“I can't remember a time when I didn't go to football games.
“My earliest memories are of being in the players' lounge with the other players' children.”
Graeme – Kenny's fellow Scotland international – was sometimes hired for childcare duties.
A black-and-white photo from 1979 shows four-year-old Kelly sticking her tongue out at the tough midfielder with the Tom Selleck tache and bushy hair.
He recalled: 'Kenny and I lived together near Liverpool and Scotland for ten years or more and I was a regular at his house.
“I was single and often came over for Christmas lunch.
“I used to babysit – or not necessarily.
'I volunteer to take Kelly out in her stroller in the afternoon.
“Without realizing it, she was my introduction to some lovely young ladies.
“I would walk around and say, 'What a beautiful baby, have you seen this baby?' ”
Despite her father's lofty status as a Liverpool and Scotland legend, Kelly recalled: 'When he was at home he was just being a dad.
“I remember going to a Rod Stewart concert at Ibrox [stadium] once and he was stopped every ten yards as he walked around the field.
'I was about seven years old and thought it was so strange, like: 'What do they want from him?'
“It was the same with his teammates; to me it was always just dad's friends, arguing about football.”
Her own efforts as a player were not a resounding success.
Kelly said: “When I was 11, I played football on concrete. I ran through the wing and thought, 'Oh, this will be easy,' then tripped and knocked myself out.
“That was the end of my football career.”
After A-levels in maths, further maths, physics and chemistry, she won a place to study maths at the University of Glasgow.
When Sky Sports News launched in 1998, she made the brave move to give up her studies and join the fledgling broadcaster.
She said: “The channel was looking for young people who loved football.
“It was new and no one was watching, so they pretty much said to us:
“There wasn't a huge budget, but Sky just wanted young, enthusiastic people and they didn't want to take too much risk by putting their best people on it.
'Go play on TV!'
“It was a huge decision to leave university, but I thought, 'This is not an opportunity I'm going to get again'.”
About her sources of inspiration for her broadcasts, Kelly mentions Des Lynam – who was the frontman of Match Of The Day in the 1990s with brilliant understatement – and Gabby Logan, another daughter of a football icon, former Wales international and manager Terry Yorath.
Kelly said: “Des was the gold standard.
“He had a sense of involvement with the fans and got every aspect of it right.
“I loved that tone.
“It's the kind of tone I enjoy watching and listening to.
'It's quite logical that I strive for it, but don't quite achieve it.
“I always watched Gabby's career progress and followed her journey.
“It was amazing to see, and even though she's not much older than me, it felt like she was always the next step.”
It was undoubtedly a male-dominated profession, but Kelly insisted, “I was not a pioneer.
“There were already people laying the foundation, like Gabby and Hazel Irvine.
“I never did that [encountered sexism] but I know other female reporters have.
“Of course you see a lot more women on screen now, but I would also like to see the same numbers behind the cameras.
“Now that I'm older, I feel a lot more protective of younger women entering the industry.”
After Sky Sports News, Kelly worked as an interviewer and presenter for sports channels Setanta and ESPN.
He then went on to work as a reporter for ITV at the 2010 World Cup, and for Channel 4 at the London 2012 Paralympic Games.
She presented a Football League highlights show for Channel Five before being lured back to Sky Sports in 2016.
At the helm
Originally at the helm of Football League matches, Kelly later became one of the most respected presenters of big matches in the Premier League.
Working with Gary Neville, Jamie 'Carra' Carragher and Roy Keane, she sees the current era as a 'golden age' for experts.
She said: “It's not necessarily the players who are natural footballers who talk about it in the best way.
“They are the ones who have really worked on their game.
“Carra, when he was playing, would constantly watch videos of Franco Baresi and other great defenders, or so he learned.”
Now Kelly – who is also the presenter of a BBC Radio 5 show – is regarded by her colleagues and fans as one of the country's leading broadcasters.
Her friend and TV colleague Gabby, 51, says Kelly has an “effortless broadcasting style and depth of knowledge that almost anyone can match”.
And she added that Kelly can also “disarm the likes of Roy Keane with a single eyebrow when she wants to shut him up.”
Kelly's formative years immersed in football give her an insight into the stresses managers face on a daily basis.
She continues: “I've seen managers get a little annoyed by a question, but often they weren't angry with me.
“They are under a lot of pressure.”
In 2007, Kelly married TV producer Tom Cates and the couple had two daughters.
They split in 2021 and Kelly said last month: “The girls are with their dad at the weekend.
“Even though we're not together, we get along great and he's very flexible with the girls, so we usually sort things out between ourselves.
“The girls are getting older now and think they don't need that much [from us] – that's what they tell us, but they do.”
In 2021, she revealed that she was wary of dating, adding: “I don't have an image in my head as to why a middle-aged, slightly overweight mother of two could be attractive.
“It's not that I'm putting myself down, it's not a lack of confidence or low self-esteem – it's that I just don't know what that would look like.
“I don't want to spend my precious free time with some random guy.
“Imagine you're dating someone and you're sitting halfway there thinking, 'God, this guy is an idiot,' you just wasted a babysitter.”
If Kelly has indeed put the jewel in sports broadcasting's crown, don't expect this level-headed and seemingly unflappable announcer to start picking up fame and grace.
Last month she said with characteristic modesty: “I worked for ESPN years ago and they had this mantra of 'Take the sport seriously, but don't take yourself seriously.'
“For me that is the best approach.”