Lee Clayton (born 1970) is an English sports journalist who is Global Publisher of Sport at the
Daily Mail & General Trust, which publsihes the ''
Daily Mail
The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...
,
Mail on Sunday'' and ''
MailOnline''. He was formerly Head of
talkSPORT radio He is an avid
West Ham supporter and season ticket holder and co-authored ''Farewell to Upton Park: The Official Celebration of West Ham United's home 1904–2016''.
Aged 16 he joined ''
The Sun'' in the mail room, before being offered a role on the sports desk, despite never attaining any formal journalistic qualifications. He attended Brampton Manor Comprehensive School in
East London
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...
and joined
News International
News Corp UK & Ireland Limited (trading as News UK, formerly News International and NI Group) is a List of newspapers in the United Kingdom, British newspaper publisher, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the American mass media Conglomerate (c ...
in 1986. In 1987, he appeared in ''The News'', the in-house newspaper, as one of "News International’s Rising Stars".
He joined the ''
Sunday Mirror
The ''Sunday Mirror'' is the Sunday sister paper of the ''Daily Mirror''. It began life in 1915 as the ''Sunday Pictorial'' and was renamed the ''Sunday Mirror'' in 1963. In 2016 it had an average weekly circulation of 620,861, dropping marke ...
'' in 1994 before becoming chief football writer on the ''
Daily Star'' later that year. He became sports editor of the ''
Sunday People
The ''Sunday People'' is a British tabloid Sunday newspaper. It was founded as ''The People'' on 16 October 1881.
At one point owned by Odhams Press, The ''People'' was acquired along with Odhams by the Mirror Group in 1961, along with the ' ...
'' in 1999 before joining ''The Daily Mail'' in 2004, where he spent 14 years as group head of sport and won numerous awards.
In his first 18 months as head of talkSPORT he was praised by the Sports Journalist Association as the station won the 'Sports Network of the Year' award for “making a number of innovative changes in this past year to diversify their audience and enhance their credibility”.
Clayton contributed to the
Debrett's 500 list in 2014 and 2015 and was on the judging panel for the
2012 BBC Sports Personality of the Year
The 2012 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award, presented on 16 December, was the 59th presentation of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award. Awarded annually by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the main titular award honou ...
. He also contributed to the novel ''Forgive Us Our Press Passes''.
He has appeared on various television programmes including
Sky Sports' ''
Soccer Saturday'', ''
Hold the Back Page
''Hold the Back Page'' is a British television series which originally aired on BBC One between 12 November 1985 and 28 January 1986. A sports reporter transfers from a broadsheet to a tabloid.Vahimagi p.301
Main cast
* David Warner as Ken Word ...
'', ''
Dream Team
Dream Team may refer to:
Sport
Basketball
* Dream Team, the 1992 United States men's Olympic basketball team in Barcelona
* Dream Team II, the 1994 U.S. men's national basketball team at the FIBA World Championship
* Dream Team III, the 1996 ...
'' and BBC’s pilot episode of ''
Match of the Day Two''. In radio broadcasting he has presented numerous programmes for talkSPORT, including the Sunday Breakfast show with former Republic of Ireland striker
Tony Cascarino and ex-Chelsea captain
Andy Townsend.
In 2011 he was previewed as one of the 20 most influential people Sky Sports have worked with for its 20th anniversary.
Awards
* 2013 Sports Newspaper of the Year
* 2014 Sports Newspaper of the Year
* 2014 Sports Website of the Year
* 2015 Sports Newspaper of the Year
* 2016 Sports Newspaper of the Year
* 2018 Sports Network of the Year
Bibliography
*''Farewell to Upton Park: The Official Celebration of West Ham United's home 1904–2016'' (2016) with Andy Hooper
References
External links
Lee Clayton Twitter page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clayton, Lee
1970 births
Living people
British sports journalists