Oh aye say! Is Scottish star taking Sue’s place as voice of Wimbledon?
ON the opening day she faced Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Emma Raducanu on Centre Court. Since then she has taken on Rafael Nadal and Nick Kyrgios. And, as her sparkling performances continued through Wimbledon’s early rounds, there was no question that Lee McKenzie would be a dominant presence.
The 44-year-old Scot might not be in the running for silverware at SW19, but there is certainly a title up for grabs and she could be a serious contender.
That title is The New Sue Barker.
Since the 66-year-old former tennis champion announced that she was stepping down from the BBC’s Wimbledon coverage, speculation has abounded about her successor. Would it be bookies’ favourite Clare Balding? Was the prize heading to John McEnroe or Martina Navratilova, both veteran mainstays of the Centre Court commentary boxes?
But wait. Who is this striking Scot mopping up the post-match interviews? If the other pretenders to Miss Barker’s throne are seen as the more likely heirs, how come Miss McKenzie has landed the plum role?
It was always Miss Barker herself who handled the big post-match interviews on court on the tournament’s final weekend. Her 2012 chat with a weeping Murray, who had just been put to the Roger Federer sword, produced one of Wimbledon’s most enduring memories.
Now, owing to the pandemic, oncourt post-match interviews have become the norm and, it seems, Miss McKenzie has become the new regime’s biggest beneficiary.
‘Always a pleasure to interview Andy Murray and to do it on Centre Court is even better,’ she tweeted on Monday, hours after posting a similar one about her encounter with Djokovic. Few, it seems, are having a more exciting tournament.
The battle to become Miss Barker’s successor must be the talk of the steamie among the BBC contingent at SW19, surely?
‘I haven’t heard anything,’ she said. ‘I don’t think anyone walks around talking about their personal contracts.’ What she does not dispute is her passion for Wimbledon. ‘I love it – these are two of my favourite weeks of the year. You never work harder than you do at Wimbledon, but I absolutely adore it. However, I also need to do Formula 1, so it’s always a bit of a juggling act.’
It is perhaps her commitment to Formula 1 which could prove the biggest obstacle to a Sue Barker-type role at Wimbledon. Although she has been on the team for the best part of a decade, her motorsport involvement stretches back much further.
As long ago as 2007, she became the first female recipient of the Jim Clark Memorial Award for services to motorsport through presenting for ITV and Sky Sports.
By the time she began her remarkable journey as a sports journalist she had spent several years accompanying her father, Bob, then a rugby writer, to matches. She said: ‘I got to spend my Saturdays chatting to and studying [legendary rugby commentator] Bill McLaren at work and all the old guard of the press room.
‘The players couldn’t have been kinder. As “Bob’s daughter” I made a lot of friends, got a few drinks before I legally should have, and met legends of the game before I could really appreciate who they were.
‘After watching a match, I always wrote my report the next day and showed it to Dad, who would critique it. I loved the fact that I knew players in the Scotland and Lions teams and I still have the postcards, rugby shirts, shorts – any memento they gave me. It is quite a collection.’
As a 15-year-old Ayr Academy pupil she landed a role as a columnist and sports reporter for a local paper. ‘It didn’t strike me as a proper job,’ she said. ‘You got to watch sport then write a story. It was a great life.’
When her father started reporting on Formula 1, she was, by her own admission, ‘the annoying child that turned up in every press box’.
By the time she attended Napier University to study journalism she was already experienced enough to land a part-time post with a local sports agency. On graduating she joined the news team at Border Television. A year later, aged only 22, she became the youngest person in the UK to read the six o’clock news.
But she soon found her way back to her first love, presenting all manner of motorsport, from Formula 1 to superbikes, for a variety of channels, including ITV, Sky and Channel 4.
By 2006, she was notching up 150,000 miles – five times around the globe – as she covered Formula 1 and A1 Grand Prix racing.
Her rich Ayrshire tones, she soon learned, were a key plank of her broadcasting success. Soon she was poached by the BBC as the only woman in its roster covering Formula 1 and it became a point of pride to be as well informed on the subject as any of the men.
‘A lot of people don’t bother learning all that stuff but I like to have that knowledge at my fingertips,’ she
These are my favourite weeks of the year
said. ‘The drivers respect that I know what I’m talking about.’
While courtside interviews rarely stray into troubled waters, that wasn’t always so in Formula 1. Infamously, she asked Lewis Hamilton at the Monaco Grand Prix why he was so often punished by the stewards. He replied: ‘Maybe it’s because I’m black. That’s what Ali G says.’
In the storm that followed Miss McKenzie received almost as much flak as the driver. She remembers: ‘The two of us had to stick together as everyone seemed to be against one of us. Lewis fans thought I’d made him say it and I hadn’t. He knew that, so it was fine.’
In the past decade she has taken up Olympic and Paralympic duties, returned to her roots with Six Nations rugby, presented the Oxford vs Cambridge boat race and is a now regular fixture at Wimbledon.
Indeed, having presented the Goodwood Festival of Speed for ITV in June, appeared at Wimbledon for the BBC and fronted multiple programmes for Sky and Channel 4 at the British Grand Prix, she said: ‘I’ve managed to tick off four channels in seven days, so I think that’s pretty unique.’
Can it possibly leave any room for a personal life? ‘I never talk about my personal life,’ she said.
As for the future, only football seems to be off the table. ‘I don’t ever want to do football. Unless you do it all the time, you can get caught out easily. If I turned up to do Match of the Day, it would be a disaster, I wouldn’t be passionate enough.’
For now, at least, she has found at Wimbledon an enviable niche.
Last year, when courtside interviews were introduced, she found herself talking to Roger Federer. She said: ‘I don’t get starstruck but talking to Federer is always memorable. He is the ultimate athlete. People think because I am a Scot I am automatically an Andy Murray fan but I’m impartial and delighted for whoever wins.’
Time will tell who takes Miss Barker’s throne. But an outsider from Scotland has become Wimbledon royalty before. Could it happen again?
I’m impartial, delighted for whoever wins