Jim White opens up on being Mr Transfer deadline day, the art of breaking news and how an interview with Mick Jagger did not go to plan

Earlier this year, Jim White hosted the Football League’s Carabao Cup final between Manchester United and Newcastle at Wembley. United owner Avram Glazer entered the room and a familiar instinct kicked in.

“I just really wanted to get on my phone and get some quotes from him,” White remembers. ‘The next day I could have had: “This morning on talkSPORT, a world first: Avram Glazer speaks to us. Avram, are you in your last days of ownership?”

‘But I was there for the EFL. So I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t have been right. But then part of me thinks it would have been worth getting kicked out.”

White, 66, was the face of Sky Sports News for years, a vibrant ball of energy and insight who was synonymous with transfer deadline day and the bright yellow tie that came with it.

For a while he tried to combine that with a late morning show on talkSPORT, but the experiment landed him in the hospital.

“Having two jobs was killing me,” he reveals. ‘I became seriously ill with a kidney problem.’

So now it’s radio only for White. Every weekday between 10am and 1pm with Simon Jordan. But that only tells half the story of this charismatic and fascinating man.

Because White is a reporter through and through. Old-fashioned. Raised in local newspapers in Scotland, his first big scoops when he eventually graduated to television interviews were with Mick Jagger, David Bowie and the ballet star Rudolf Nureyev.

“I’m a reporter who happens to host a show,” he explains. ‘I’ve been in a studio many times wearing a shirt and tie. Scotland, Sky. But the best times I had were when I was running riot and chasing people.

‘They talk to you, or they don’t talk. That’s the biggest adrenaline rush in the industry, especially when you walk away from someone and you have it. It is a different discipline than presenting, but it yields more for me, yes. And over the years I’ve really had to work on it.

‘Someone at Sky once said to me: ‘You’re one of the best I’ve ever met at getting into positions and acquiring big names… and then asking them all.’

‘That made me realize that it’s one thing to get into positions, but if you don’t do the questions then it’s a waste of time.

‘I really thought, “Mick Jagger, it must be great to be in Glasgow.” “Yes it is”. You know? Hopeless. I was just ill prepared. Put it this way. I now know what I would ask David Bowie. Nowadays my approach is that I don’t let someone go before I catch them.’

The truth is that white may still be on his way now. He has one of the best contact books in football. Owners, managers, players. What Sky viewers might not appreciate is that during those long days presenting transfer shows, White was often the member of the team who used the ad breaks to call his contacts for the latest news.

Together with his former Sky colleague Kaveh Solhekol, White has written a book about the art of chasing and breaking transfer stories.

“I’m obsessed with news,” he explains. ‘I have always been eager to learn and enthusiastic and see no disadvantages to getting a telephone number, calling someone and asking a question. People who say no generally don’t mean it. Sometimes they can, but often they can’t. And when they finally say yes, it’s all the more satisfying.

“In my early days at newspapers, I liked the courts. I enjoyed learning what you could and couldn’t write and I enjoyed hearing the stories. Families at war. Taking pictures of murder victims. I loved being in the middle of it.

‘There was a riot in Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow in 1987 and there were people on the roof. And because one of them was a football fan, my boss at Scotsport asked me to come along. I was presenting at the time. I knocked on his family’s door and they said, “It’s damn Jim White.” Then I was there talking and later we went to the jail while the lady was trying to talk her son off the roof.”

You won’t get anywhere in journalism if people don’t like you, and White has always had a knack for that. An early relationship with Graeme Souness paid off when the former Liverpool midfielder called him at home one Saturday to tell him he would be Rangers’ next manager.

“I was on TV at the time and had to work on that story all weekend,” White says.

‘All I could do was take a cameraman to the airport on Monday and wait for him. There’s a photo in the book of me with a mustache and ridiculously long hair, walking with Souness, who looked equally ridiculous with a mustache and long hair. But he never changed. He has accepted me over the years for the man I am and he has been very good to me.’

Souness’ friendship expanded into conversation when he was manager of Benfica in the late 1990s. Souness was concerned about White’s drinking and told him so.

“He told me to hit him on the head, but I didn’t take the advice and just carried on,” he says.

“When I finally did, it was 12 years ago and it wasn’t a problem.”

White describes his old self as a binge drinker. “Sometimes alone and sometimes with others,” he says.

‘I wasn’t really picky. But I knew it was right to stop. I was in Glasgow at an event and I thought, “No, not tonight”. I got through the event and flew back home and just continued with that and that was it. I don’t think I’ll ever drink again and I’m happy to say that to you.

‘I did AA for a while and enjoyed going to the meetings. But I felt like I was hearing the same thing over and over again. Ultimately I had to cut the umbilical cord. I said I would do it, so I damn well had to do it.”

White protects his family life. He lives in central London and says he doesn’t sit still much. He remains consumed by the challenges before him and amused and vaguely annoyed by some of the stories left untold.

“Years ago I was invited into a box when Bolton played Chelsea,” he says. ‘Roman Abramovich was next door and I met him. The next few minutes were bizarre. All kinds of things flash through your mind. You think you’re about to get the big exclusivity. He said “Yes” several times during a conversation and then one of his assistants leaned over and said to me, “He means no.” I still regret it.

‘Before the 1998 World Cup, Scottish television sent me to Brazil where I interviewed Gerson, the great Brazilian midfielder from 1970. Then to Algeria where I met the manager of Norway.

‘Brazil and Norway were in Scotland’s group. It was fantastic, but I really wanted to interview Ronnie Biggs, the train robber. He wanted some money for the interview, about $500, and Scottish TV said it would be quite difficult to get him in a World Cup documentary about Scotland.

‘I ran out of time and never got to meet him face to face, which really disappointed me. We would have lured him into that football documentary somehow….”

Deadline Day: The Inside Story of Football’s Transfer Market by Jim White and Kaveh Solhekol is available now (£25, Constable).