TV3 Sport presenters' history

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Des Curran is a sports fanatic. The Mallow man readily admits it and proudly declares: "I'd watch any sport on TV." Soccer is his first love but he's just as passionate about GAA, golf, rugby, athletics, snooker and any other competitive sport you'd care to mention. Little wonder then that the down-to-earth, 26-year-old with the cheeky grin from Gould's Hill in Mallow does what he does for a living.
Des Curran is one of TV3's dedicated sports reporting team. He gets to go to all the top sporting events, gets to meet all the sports stars and on top of that, gets to tell the nation all about it.
Over the last 12 months his face has become familiar to viewers of TV3 sport. As well as travelling the country as a reporter, Des also presents the sport bulletins for TV3's news at 5.30pm and 6.30pm, presenting the sports round-up at weekends and has on occasions presented the popular Sports Tonight programme alongside fellow Corkman Trevor Welch.
But when you delve in his past, it's little wonder Des is where he is today. While pursuing a psychology degree in UCC in the mid-90s, Des and an American student convinced UCC's new radio station Campus Radio to give them a dedicated sports slot. Des developed the now legendary radio sports show Puck Off, which with its off-the-wall and sometimes irreverent humour combined with serious in-depth sports reporting, courted an almost cult following.
"It was great fun and a great experience," he says. Soon afterwards, Des was approached by Trevor Welch who was presenting a sports programme on the then Cork Multi-channel Local channel. Trevor made Des an offer he simply couldn't refuse and within a matter of weeks, Des moved from radio to TV and was helping Trevor present the channel's sports show.
Student by day and TV star by night, Des was beaming right into the front rooms of thousands of people all over Cork city and county with the best of local sport. "I'd do two days a week on the programme with Trevor. It was a great learning experience because you had to do everything yourself."
That was in the middle of 1997 and soon afterwards Trevor landed the sports anchor job with the fledgling TV3. Des was left in the hot seat at Multi-channel and presented the sports show alone successfully for over a year while studying for an MA in Psychology. "I had no intention of going to TV3 despite the fact Trevor and I kept in contact. He was always on to me about coming up for a tour of the TV3 studios. I eventually got around to going up to Dublin. Trevor told me to bring a tape of my work along with me.
"So there we were wandering around the studios when he gave my tape to some guy who later turned out to be the deputy editor. He went away, looked at my tape, came back, asked me if I wanted a job and I think I said something like 'Ah go on so!" and that was it. I moved to Dublin and started work with TV3."
Since then he has interviewed Sonia O'Sullivan, Paula Radcliffe, Jackie Stewart, Alan Hansen, Jonah Lomu and Ken Doherty. He famously asked Ferrari's Michael Schumacher, who was on a flying visit to Dublin during last year's bus strikes, if he could drive a bus. He describes All Black rugby legend Jonah Lomu as "a very nice fella".
So what next for Des Curran? "Liverpool to win the Premiership and the Champions League," he says in all seriousness.

.......by Eoin English 3 July 2001 (Cork County News supplement)