Yesterday morning, we got the terrible news that media legend Danny Kelly had died, following illness.
Amongst other things, Kelly edited NME and Q magazines. He later moved into football and presented The Athletic’s award-winning Spurs podcast, A View From The Lane and TalkSport’s brilliant Trans Europe Express – a show that got me, and surely many others, into watching football from beyond British shores.
He was the type of presenter that was so good that you felt you knew personally, even if you’d never met him. As readers will know, Kelly was also a massive Spurs fan.
Enjoy one of his most iconic moments – total hysteria live on air as Tottenham equalise against Arsenal to make it 4-4. “I LOVE FOOTBALL, STAN, I LOVE IT“.
The View From the Lane team at The Athletic have also put out a special tribute in memory of their colleague.
Spurs left their tribute, which shows quite how connected he was to the club.
I looked through the various messages Danny and I had exchanged, some time ago, over Twitter DM. I found one, sent after Spurs’s catastrophic 6-1 defeat to Newcastle in April 2023. I think it sums it all up rather nicely:
“Luckily, Charlotte, I have many safe places away from football to which I can retreat. Music, film, family, the reawakening countryside. So I don’t let Spurs rule/ruin my life. But that bloody shirt, that club, it’s history and the emotions it’s put me through, ARE pretty deep in me. Temporary interlopers (owners, managers, some players) making a laughing stock of my beloved does make my angry. I know its irrational, but the most important things are always beyond mere logic.
Bet you’re sorry you asked now 😂😂😂😂😂”
I wasn’t sorry I had asked.
Danny Kelly, truly, one of our own.