Sue Barker retiring<\/a> as lead presenter in 2022.<\/p>\nBarker later criticised the way in which her 24 years of hosting Question of Sport came to an end. \u201cThe BBC sort of wanted me to say that I was walking away from it,\u201d Barker said. \u201cAnd yet, I would never walk away from a job I love. I don\u2019t mind being replaced. Absolutely fine. That happens\u2026 I think if we look back on it we could have handled it better. I think the BBC could have handled it better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year the BBC was criticised by viewers for moving the traditional Today at Wimbledon highlights show to a graveyard slot. Having ordinarily aired at either 8pm or 9pm on BBC2, the show was instead moved to iPlayer and a \u201crepeat\u201d was then broadcast at 11:55pm for the entire first week of the Championships.<\/p>\n
Many viewers, particularly in remote areas, do not have access to iPlayer or the BBC website, with Today at Wimbledon the only way they can catch up on the day\u2019s play. Instead, the slot traditionally reserved for daily highlights was filled with repeats of Your Garden Made Perfect, The Pembrokeshire Coast: A Wild Year and Upstart Crow.<\/p>\n
Castle said he would leave with gratitude. \u201cIt\u2019s been a hell of a journey,\u201d he told The Times. \u201cI can\u2019t say I have enjoyed every minute because there have been moments of pressure and controversy, but it has been a huge privilege.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest, when I got the job 23 years ago, a lot of the more experienced commentators felt that they should have been first in line. Their noses were put out of joint. So, in the wider scheme of things, I am lucky that I had the best gig in sports broadcasting for so long, during the greatest age of men\u2019s tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked what he would do in the future, he replied: \u201cMy wife Sophia and I are building a house and we\u2019re about to have a third grandchild, so things are good. I am not sure what will come next professionally, but whatever it is, I\u2019ll embrace it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Castle, who grew up in a flat above a fish-and-chip shop just outside Taunton, was Great Britain\u2019s No 1 singles player in 1986, reaching world No 80 in 1988, and No 45 in doubles the same year. He made the third round at the US Open in 1987, losing in four sets to Boris Becker.<\/p>\n
After hanging up his racket, he made the move to television, performing various roles for Sky Sports before being asked by GMTV, ITV\u2019s flagship breakfast show, to stand on the golf course opposite the All England Club and tee up the day\u2019s play. John Lloyd had already turned down the gig on account of it not paying well enough.<\/p>\n
Castle impressed GMTV\u2019s editor by managing to refer to the previous item in the bulletin, a shooting in the US, before moving on to the tennis. He subsequently spent 10 years on the sofa as host of GMTV.<\/p>\n
Castle, who is working at Queen\u2019s Club this week, has also been a quiz-show host, DJ and radio presenter.<\/p>\n
While he has committed some gaffes, including repeatedly calling Trinity Rodman, the US women\u2019s football player and girlfriend of American tennis player Ben Shelton, \u201cTiffany\u201d during Wimbledon coverage, he has generally been seen as a safe pair of hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Castle has been dropped from the Wimbledon lead commentator role, with the BBC moving in \u201ca new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1031393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4105],"tags":[4294,192,93,79,1715,1068,16,15,92120],"class_list":["post-1031392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-atp","tag-bbc","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-standard","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wimbledon-tennis"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116762967599650617","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1031392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1031393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1031392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1031392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1031392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}