Sports presenter Jeff Stelling said he “could have never dreamt of” his decades-long career when he was a young boy growing up on a North East council estate.
The veteran broadcaster, who fronted the Sky Sports Soccer Saturday programme for 25 years before stepping down last year, was made an MBE on Wednesday for services to sport, broadcasting and charity at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.
Stelling said the honour, given by the Princess Royal, was “amazing, unexpected, thrilling and, on the day, nerve-racking”.
The 69-year-old broadcaster is also an ambassador to Prostate Cancer UK – for which he has helped raise more than £1.7 million – and said de-stigmatizing the disease was the “raison d’etre” of his charity work.