I’ve to organise my wedding around the GAA schedule, it is one of the pay-offs!
It’s all go for Rachel Wyse and showjumper Tim but they may have a date free in 2019
YOU often hear of sports stars trying to organise life events such as weddings around their season – footballers who can only get married between July and early August, tennis stars who have to squeeze it in between grand slams and Olympians who have to entirely clear their calendars every four years if they want to succeed.
But spare a thought for the pundits and commentators – they too have to keep the sporting fixtures in mind when planning their futures. And adding to the stress for Sky Sports presenter Rachel Wyse is that her husband-to-be – showjumper Tim Gredley – has his own schedule to think of.
All going well, however, she hopes to tie the knot early next year in Ireland shortly before her sister also walks down the aisle.
‘I have to plan my wedding around the GAA schedule, yes that’s one of the pay-offs,’ she laughs. ‘My poor dad, actually – my sister was proposed to the night before Tim proposed to me. He didn’t know that was coming and it was the weekend of my parents’ wedding anniversary, they’re over 30 years married.
‘So dad has two weddings next year which I’m sure all dads would love that! My sister really wants a summer wedding so I thought, right, we’ll get married autumn or winter, maybe early spring. Tim is involved in racing so this time of the year is very busy for him as well, so we’re thinking the start of next year.’
Sitting in the drawing room of the Merrion Hotel in a navy lace frock, Rachel plays with the enormous rock sitting on a simple platinum band on her ring finger.
As always she is softly spoken but engaging and speaks with elegance and a soft Dublin accent that has not been affected by her eight years working in London, the last four as chief presenter on Sky’s coverage of both the hurling and football championships.
The sports anchor said she was happily single before her romance with Tim started but now feels like it’s the ‘right time’ for the pair to get married.
‘I’d been single for years, loving life, working away,’ she says. ‘But when I met him we just clicked.’
Meeting Tim came at a good time for her as, by necessity due to learning her new role on Sky Sports News, she had neglected her social life.
‘I feel I have a nice balance in my life now,’ she says. ‘When I moved to London first I had that first year of working in a live television environment for the first time ever. I didn’t realise how big it was going to be.
‘You also go into an environment where you are opening yourself up for people to be judging you. You feel quite protective and defensive for a while and I think that’s only natural.
‘Then I started the GAA coverage and it was kind of back to square one. I was doing my job cautiously and going about my business. But I have met Tim now and I’m very happy with my personal life. Work life is great and I’m very happy with Sky.
‘People ask me where I want to go next and what the next move is but I absolutely love where I work.
‘I do eight months of the year with Sky Sports News, which is my bread and butter. You get to cover so many different sports.
‘I’ve learned so much over the past eight years. Sport has always been in my background,’ she says of her experience in international showjumping. ‘But I have learned a lot since I have gone in there. I went in knowing that I would be updating division two cricket, so I needed to learn about it.
‘It’s a lot of travel and it’s a hectic lifestyle but I’m happy. So far so good. I have moved in with Tim who lives two hours from London. So when I go back in September it will be a four-hour round-trip every day to and from work. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.’ R ACHEL was in Dublin to launch the Longines Irish Champions Weekend, which takes place at Leopardstown Racecourse on September 15 and the Curragh on September 16.
With the moving of the GAA finals this year, it will be the first time she’s actually been able to attend the event.
‘The Irish people are what make the race meets so special at home,’ she says of the annual event. ‘Although you go to Cheltenham and half of Ireland is there for St Patrick’s week! It’s the fifth year of the Longines Irish Champions Weekend now and I’ve always had the GAA on that weekend so I’ve missed out. I cannot wait to go there and experience it – I normally end up watching it on television.
‘The Irish love racing, we know how to do it and we have the best breeders and jockeys in the world. The Irish boys are just horsemen and they just know what they are doing. Look at Coolmore and look at their horses and what they are doing on the world stage.’
The presenter says the Flat racing festival will be her and Tim’s final weekend of fun before focusing on their wedding.
‘We have a few plans in place but we’ve a lot to do after the football final,’ she reveals. ‘There’s a week off, then the Champions Weekend, which we’re both going to come back for, and then it’s a mad dash for wedding planning.’
Rachel has been doing the GAA coverage since 2014 and says she’s enjoyed building up the panel to where it is now. ‘It has flown by,’ she says. ‘We have another four years coming ahead of us and as each year goes on, I love it even more. I believe we have one of the best teams out there in terms of the football and hurling. More importantly, we are all good friends now and they are all coming to my wedding which is a sign that we really are all good friends.’
Rachel knows that there are some GAA stalwarts who disagree with our national sports being on a paid platform.
I’m not there to add my own thoughts. That said I will be cheering on the Dubs
‘Obviously when we came in to the market in the first year there was plenty of discussion and debate about Sky and the GAA and there still is today. All of which I understand. I thought at the time, is this the right job for me? But Sky were great. They came to me and said they had looked at a number of candidates and they felt I was the right person. So I said okay and went for it.’
The 33-year-old believes that the coverage they provide for Sky is on a par with what RTÉ puts out on The Sunday Game.
‘I am there as a presenter as is Brian Carney, and we are there to steer the conversation as best we can depending on the boys’ opinions,’ she says. ‘I’m not there to add any of my own thoughts. That said, when we are doing the football and Dublin are playing I will be cheering them on as will Peter Canavan when Tyrone are playing the Dubs.’
Rachel says that she still hears back from English viewers who happen across hurling on the Sky Sports platform.
‘The English think it’s mad,’ she laughs. ‘The hurling more so than the football. The tweets coming in were funny. [Ex-footballer] Joey Barton was saying that hurlers had hands of steel and people thought it was the most mental sport they had seen.
‘But the other thing people were unable to grasp was that you had Croke Park with 80,000 people in it yet these people don’t get paid and go back to their normal jobs the next day.’
Being on TV in England brings with it a larger audience and the trappings of fame and celebrity. But Rachel has always shied away from that showbiz life, which is so easily tapped into in a city like London. ‘I don’t see myself as a celebrity at all,’ she says modestly. I don’t live in London any more – I go to Newmarket in the middle of the sticks and get my tracksuit bottoms on. I don’t live a celebrity lifestyle.
Rachel says that even though she has met some megastars through her job, her career highlight at Sky was shadowing Katie Taylor at the London Olympics.
‘She is possibly our greatest sporting ambassador for women . She is so humble and when you meet her she has this soft voice and the softest, sweetest handshake. Then she’s sparring in the ring and, whoa, you see her hit something!’
The humble Rachel is not doing too bad a job of flying that flag either.