Bonnet in Need

I'm sitting here hyperventilating with excitement for the big event of the Children in Needathon. I think you know what I'm talking about. The usual suspects will be there - Kaplinsky, Raworth, Jezza Bowen, the slightly creepy Dermot Murnaghan and all-round good egg and "middle aged Tintin" Bill thingy from BBC Breakfast. This year it's a Bond theme. Clever eh ?

But for once my voyeuristic thrill at watching Fiona Bruce reveal a naughty glimpse of thigh is slightly sullied by the presence of Rob Bonnet.

It's barely a year since this po-faced sports presenter for BBC Breakfast disappeared from our terrestrial screens. So what's he doing front of stage on bass guitar, posing John Deacon-like in his usual stiff manner. He doesn't really play the bass guitar - so what's he doing there ?

He was rightly replaced by a younger, fresher model in the form of over eager pup Chris Hollins. The absolute antithesis of Bonnet, Hollins likes nothing other than getting kitted up to go rucking and mauling down with the professionals, mugging for the camera as he bungee jumps off Lambeth Bridge to the guffaws back in the studio. Hollins has risen so quickly that he's even got a Come Ice Dancing type sketch on Children in Need tonight all to himself.



Bonnet never demeaned himself like the current lot. He just stuck to his job. He reported sport. Of course with the noble exception of that one night a year, when he more than happy to show he was game as the rest of them.

His farewell sports report was memorably (to me)tinged with an undertone of bitterness. He tersely confirmed that he "wasn't disappearing completely from your screens" but could be found on the graveyard of News 24 doing "special reports". Of course, before he left he got his greatest hits montage. But it was made even more tragic by the sheer uneventfulness of his key moments. Here's Rob reporting from outside a stadium in Calgary. Here's Rob reporting inside a stadium somewhere.

Rob, the king is gone but clearly within the high ranking personnel at Children in Need, he's not forgotten.

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