Gabby Logan: 'I used to wear quite short skirts'
Television presenter Gabby Logan has admitted she may have got her first big break in sport thanks to her dress sense, as she discloses she was sent out to interview footballers wearing “quite short skirts”.
Logan, a sports presenter who has moved into entertainment broadcasting, disclosed she was unexpectedly sent to St James’ Park after her boss speculated she might catch the attention of players.
Claiming she initially “didn’t understand why”, she has now confessed she did “used to wear quite short skirts” which encouraged good-natured teasing from the footballers she was interviewing.
She told this week’s Radio Times magazine she got her first big break six months into a job at Metro Radio in the mid 1990s, after being sent to interview players at Newcastle United’s home ground.
“I didn’t understand why, because there was this bloke who was about 65 or 70 who always did them,” she said.
“Then the boss said that maybe if I wore one of my shorter skirts and stood on the touchline they might notice that we wanted an interview.
“I used to wear quite short skirts and they’d say, ‘Oh here comes the girl with the belt on’
She added: “I must say, though, I was always wearing opaque tights.
“If I’d just gone off and slept with the star player, they would have said, ‘See, that’s what happens when girls report on sport.’
“But because I wasn’t interested in dating David Ginola, they were OK about it and gave me more responsibility.”
Logan has since worked for ITV, Sky Sports - becoming Britain’s first mainstream female sports presenter - and covered the London 2012 Olympics for the BBC. She has recently presented ITV’s diving reality show Splash!, and is now the host of BBC One’s new panel show I Love My Country.
Speaking of her early career at the BBC, Logan said a manager had once warned her she was too “glamorous” after wearing high-heeled boots to work.
She said she had argued she had come straight from a radio show, insisting “it’s what I wear”, before arguing it was right for people on primetime television to “look after their appearance”.
“A boss at the BBC once told me that I was too glamorous and pointed to my high-heeled boots,” she said.
“He said: ‘You don’t wear them when you do the dishes, do you?’ Does he want me to look like I’m doing the dishes? I’m not here to look like a housewife. If I’m at home in my pyjamas I want to see something a bit more aspirational on TV. “
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