WHEN Kelly Cates was told she and Gabby Logan would become the first female Match Of The Day hosts in the showâs 60-year history, she wanted to shout it from the rooftops. But unfortunately for the new presenter, she was ordered by BBC bosses to keep quiet about her new role â a scenario which felt Âfamiliar to the mum of two. Kelly Cates wanted to shout with joy after making history as one of Match Of The Dayâs first female hosts – but the BBC told her she’d need to keep it quietCredit: RexThe appointment of Kelly, who is the daughter of Celtic, Liverpool and Scotland great Kenny Dalglish, above, was widely welcomed by the football worldCredit: AlamyKelly will be joining Mark ‘Chappers’ Chapman and Gaby Roslin as the lead MOTD presenter teamCredit: PABecause, for Kelly, sitting on the enormous secret felt just like Âhiding a pregnancy. Speaking in depth for the first time about taking over from Gary Lineker next season, Kelly, 49, said: âIâm not good at secrets â it killed me! Genuinely, once the news was announced I could have slept for two days. âI found the stress of Âkeeping it a secret so hard and even though it is a nice secret, it was a little bit like the early stages of pregnancy where you feel terrible that you canât tell anybody. âIt was awful lying to genuinely good friends. I hated it.â READ MORE FOOTBALL NEWSKelly will be part of a new three-strong presenting team, alongside Gabby and Mark Chapman, both 51. And she is thrilled she can now share how she managed to land the biggest job in British sports broadcasting. An industry veteran of nearly 30 years, Kelly had been working for the BBC as part of 5 Liveâs football coverage, as well as anchoring live games for Sky Sports, when she was called into a meeting by Beeb executives. âEgo-filled worldâ It had been rumoured for some time that new BBC Director of Sport boss Alex Kay-Jelski wanted to shake up Match Of The Day, the worldâs longest-running football highlights show. Most read in FootballBut Kelly had not bargained for being a part of his plans. Speaking on the White Wine Question Time podcast, she explains: âI had the conversation early on but in very vague terms. ‘Won’t be able to look him in the eye’ – Christine Lampard and MOTD’s Kelly Cates in hysterics over ‘Frank’s hot sauce’âI was already doing radio for the BBC, already working on 5 Live so it was natural for me to have meetings when a new boss came in, and everything was being changed so that was quite natural. âBut in the course of one of those meetings it was, âWell, weâre rethinking how weâre going to do Match Of The Day and would you be interested to be in the mix?â Inside I couldnât wait for the meeting to end so I could shout âOh my God! This is incredibleâKelly CatesâAnd I was trying really hard to keep a ânot botheredâ face, saying, âYeah, that would be greatâ. âBut inside I couldnât wait for the meeting to end so I could shout âOh my God! This is incredibleâ.â Kelly added: âAnd they were brilliant around the whole thing â trying to balance the two and the fact I can keep doing live football, which I think is really important because if you donât do that you forget why youâre covering it, you forget about those big moments and what it is like.â It was only when Kellyâs new gig was officially unveiled in January that the enormity began to sink in. She added: âSuddenly friends of mine who donât even like football were phoning me saying, âOh my God, this is so exciting â congratulationsâ. I didnât even think it would be on their radar. âTheyâre not in that sports world and then you realise something like Match Of The Day goes past all of that. Itâs in peopleâs lives â itâs in the background.â The appointment of Kelly, who is the daughter of Celtic, Liverpool and Scotland great Kenny Dalglish, along with Gabby and Mark â aka Chappers â was widely welcomed by the football world. All three are hugely respected figures within the industry and there was a general consensus they had done their time, working up the ranks and honing their craft over several decades. Kelly believes landing the gig came at the perfect time for all of the new line-up. She explains: âThat was the big draw for the three of us. Kenny with wife Marina, Kelly and brother Paul in 1980Credit: GettyâTo be in the mix with Chappers and Gabby, who I really like as people, first of all, but really admire as broadcasters as wellâ.â.â.âitâs just a really lovely group to be in. âPeople have this perception that it is a massive ego-filled world, and it is at times and you need a certain sort of ego to feel like you can do the job because you need a certain amount of confidence. âBut you donât want to be in a position where weâre all trying to scramble over each other. âThe fact weâre all the same age, weâre at the same stage of our careers, weâve all got other things outside of Match Of The Day that weâre all passionate about and really invested in, it means none of us are treading on each other and preying on each otherâs insecurities. âWeâre all really comfortable about who we are and where we are in our careers, so it really works for all of us. âWeâre all at a stage in our lives as well where we want to spend time with our families. âWe have kids of different ages and different things going on in our home lives as well. âItâs really nice to be able to keep all that in the mix.â Kellyâs grounding in sports broadcasting came in the early days of Sky Sports News, a rolling news channel launched in 2010. âKicked up a fussâ The female-heavy list of anchors, including Kirsty Gallacher, who is godmother to one of Kellyâs daughters, became synonymous with the channel. However, the presenters were often sexualised by viewers and when that attitude seeped into the brand marketing, Kelly was the one who put a stop to it. Donât start undermining us from inside the organisation because we can take it from other people â weâre used to that â but we thought you had our backs here, thatâs the way it should beKelly on sexualisation of female sports presentersThe star has always taken her position as a role model for women in sport seriously. She explained: âIt was seen as âfruit on the barrowâ, where you would put your juiciest fruit on the barrow â there was that attitude to it. âBut we didnât feel like that from the inside. That was very much an external thing. âThen I remember there was an ad put out with four female Sky Sports News presenters on, saying âThereâs always something worth watching on Sky Sports Newsâ. âI remember it happened on the Sunday and I think by the Tuesday or Wednesday Iâd gone into the office and said, âNo. I get that this comes from the outside but donât do that to us from the insideâ. âDonât start undermining us from inside the organisation because we can take it from other people â weâre used to that â but we thought you had our backs here, thatâs the way it should beâ.â She added: âThe reaction was they didnât think I would be the person who came in and kicked up a fuss. âI was like, âThat says something. If you think Iâm easy-going and it upset me then you should probably read something into thatâ.â Kelly took an extended break from sports broadcasting to concentrate on bringing up her children. She returned to work in 2013 at Radio 5 Live where she hosted the stationâs famous 606 football phone-in on Sundays alongside ex-Arsenal striker Ian Wright. She later returned to Sky Sports to anchor live games and previously made history as the first female presenter on talkSPORT. Glasgow-born Kelly, whose brother Paul was a professional footballer for Newcastle, is now separated from Tom Cates, the father of her two daughters. Like most working mums, Kelly admits taking care of her career and their teenage daughters can be challenging. She added: âItâs juggling lots of diaries, and Iâve got a really good relationship with my ex-husband. âHeâs great with the girls in terms of being flexible because we have to be around my job. âYou just make it work. Iâm really lucky â I have a great job. âPeople do this and work three jobs and are stressed about putting food on the table and heating the house. âAlthough itâs tricky to do everything and all problems are relative, itâs manageable.â READ MORE SUN STORIESSaturday nights are about to get a whole lot busier for Kelly. Unlock even more award-winning articles as The Sun launches brand new membership programme – Sun Club.Kelly will be one of the team taking over when Gary Lineker leaves MOTD at the end of the current seasonCredit: BBC More