David Ornstein has revealed that he dreamed of becoming a Premier League footballer and even auditioned for a top club before becoming a journalist.
The sports reporter is one of the best in the game and a cult hero among football fans due to his transfer updates and insider information.
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As a boy, however, the transfer oracle had completely different plans for his life and career: he wanted to play football and not write about it.
Speaking to Manchester United legend Dwight Yorke, former Bolton striker Kevin Davies and Daily Mirror editor Darren Lewis, Ornstein spoke about the figures in football who have inspired him.
And he revealed that he spent a full year on probation at Chelsea and later worked at Pizza Hut before deciding to focus full-time on a career in journalism.
“All I could do was slog away – I was not academically intelligent and failed my school exams miserably because all I wanted to do was play football,” he told the podcast “Dwight and Friends.”
“I was on trial at Chelsea for a year and had every intention of playing football in the Premier League or becoming a professional athlete.
“I saw relatives, brothers and cousins excelling and going to university, and I thought, ‘What on earth am I supposed to do here?’ At one point I worked as a waiter at Pizza Hut in my free time from school, but I just thought, ‘You have to work harder.’
“Either you have academic intelligence or you have hard work. Some people are blessed with both, unfortunately I am not blessed with either, but with hard work and diligence you always get ahead.
“If you don’t cut corners and manage to put in the effort, believe it or not, you can work harder than anyone else if you want to – and that can take you far.
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“The decisions you make depend on the people you look up to and in our case that’s leaders like Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger, Sam Allardyce, Brian Little and so on.
“These people set the highest standards… and that rubs off on people like me.
“When you adopt this approach in your journalism, you hold yourself to the highest standards of integrity, honesty and care that you also apply to your craft.
“People ask me, ‘How do you manage to understand so many stories properly?’ and ‘How do you manage to remember so much material?’
“But I would say [players] How did you score so many goals, how did you play so well and perform so well for so many teams?
“That’s because our inspirations have enabled us to learn and make decisions.”