– presenting regular programmes Weekend Sports Breakfast and Friday Football First as well as his reporting and commentaries. Roberts was last heard on TalkRadio as pitchside reporter at Wembley and Hampden Park for both legs of the England v Scotland Euro 2000 clashes. TV career Early TV career Roberts began 'freelancing' for several TV companies in the early 1990s as a sport reporter. He regularly appeared on ITV Sport providing live reports at football matches throughout England. Following the birth of the Premier League, he also conducted after-match interviews for BBC Match of the Day. But Roberts' TV career began in earnest when he joined BBC North to cover Durham County Cricket Club, where he became known as the commentator for Brian Lara's world record breaking cricket innings of 501 not out. He later joined GSKYB's channel UK Talk to present the daily sports show Sportstalk and Channel 5's Live and Dangerous. Roberts confided in colleagues that he was offered a presenter role for a new BBC TV show, Row Z, but was unable to accept due to his full-time commitments with SKY. Sky Sports Roberts had begun freelancing frequently with Sky Sports as a reporter, so it was no surprise that in August 1998, when Sky launched their 24/7 Sky Sports News channel, Roberts joined full-time. He established SKY's North East Bureau and operated as Bureau Chief and reporter and was seen on a daily basis reporting from the region's training grounds, press conferences and live at matches of English Premier League clubs. ESPN Star Sports In 2003, after 5 years full-time with Sky, Roberts left the UK to take up a Presenter/Commentator role with Singapore-based ESPN Star Sports. Here he anchored ESPN Star Sports UEFA Champions League output as well as English Premier League, Spain's La Liga programming, as well as the daily sports news show SportsCenter. Whilst with ESPN Star, Roberts covered Euro 2004 from Portugal, 2005 UEFA Champions League Final and World Cup Germany 2006 – anchoring and reporting ESS' output from site. One story he tells is of travelling to Damascus, Syria to cover AFC Cup Finals where he was arrested by Syrian secret police. This was not his only brush with trouble, in 2005 a Singapore newspaper claimed he was 'roughed up' by Thai Prime Minister's secret police at Government House after asking the then PM questions in a press conference on his attempt's