Desmond Michael Lynam OBE (born 17 September 1942) is an Irish-born television and radio presenter. In a broadcasting career spanning more than forty years, he hosted television coverage of many of the world's major sporting events on both The BBC and ITV.
Born in Ireland but raised in the English south coast town of Brighton, he started out as a radio journalist with the local BBC station, becoming a radio boxing commentator before moving to television.
For many years, Des anchored the BBC's coverage of sporting events like the Olympic Games, The World Cup and Wimbledon, as well as sports shows like Grandstand, Sportsnight and Match Of The Day. Such was his popularity that he appeared As Himself (mostly via archive footage of him fronting the Beeb's Euro 96 coverage) in My Summer with Des, a 1998 comedy-drama TV Movie starring Neil Morrissey as a football fan who idolised Des. Later that year, the popular response to his reciting Rudyard Kipling's "If" during coverage of the World Cup led to him releasing Time to Stand and Stare, an album of him reading various poems (including one of his own).
He left for ITV in 1999, following which he anchored that channel's coverage of the UEFA Champions League; less successful was The Premiership, ITV's much-criticised short-lived Match of the Day substitute note . He retired from live sports broadcasting after the 2004 European Championship. Since then, he has presented TV and radio shows on the BBC, Sky and Channel 4 (including, briefly, Countdown).
As a broadcaster, Des was praised - particularly during his time at the BBC - for his witty, down-to-earth style. When introducing coverage of an England game on a Monday lunchtime during the 1998 World Cup, he began with: "Good afternoon. Shouldn't you be at work?" - a quip which was later referenced in the title of his 2005 autobiography, I Should Have Been at Work.
