Des Lynam is to work for the BBC again.
The presenter, who bowed out of ITV after Euro 2004, will have a Saturday radio show interviewing leading sports personalities from next month.
"Des meets" starts on August 21 on Radio Five Live at noon.
The station's controller, Bob Shennan, said Lynam was a master of the art of radio broadcasting and Five Live his natural home.
"Sports fans around the country will breathe a sigh of relief that he will be back on the airwaves," he said.
Lynam said: "In many ways I'm coming home to the BBC, which has been my broadcasting base on and off for 30 years.
"I'll be happy to get back on to the radio and this show is a chance to really get to know some of my sporting heroes and share that experience."
The BBC said it would be a series of intimate conversations, drawing on Lynam's relaxed conversational style and getting behind the personalities of the world's top sporting talent. It will run throughout the football season.
Lynam joined ITV in 1999 after 30 years with the BBC, where he learned his trade.
He threw in a secure job in insurance to freelance in sports radio and soon flew through a BBC audition. Not only did his suave tones win over the governors he also correctly answered 39 out of 40 sports questions.
He steadily rose through radio and television to become a Grandstand presenter in 1978. In 1984, the year of the Olympics, David Coleman left the BBC and Lynam became the face of BBC Sport. He was so adept that in 1996 viewers voted him top presenter of all time in a poll marking 60 years of BBC television.
The presenter, who bowed out of ITV after Euro 2004, will have a Saturday radio show interviewing leading sports personalities from next month.
"Des meets" starts on August 21 on Radio Five Live at noon.
The station's controller, Bob Shennan, said Lynam was a master of the art of radio broadcasting and Five Live his natural home.
"Sports fans around the country will breathe a sigh of relief that he will be back on the airwaves," he said.
Lynam said: "In many ways I'm coming home to the BBC, which has been my broadcasting base on and off for 30 years.
"I'll be happy to get back on to the radio and this show is a chance to really get to know some of my sporting heroes and share that experience."
The BBC said it would be a series of intimate conversations, drawing on Lynam's relaxed conversational style and getting behind the personalities of the world's top sporting talent. It will run throughout the football season.
Lynam joined ITV in 1999 after 30 years with the BBC, where he learned his trade.
He threw in a secure job in insurance to freelance in sports radio and soon flew through a BBC audition. Not only did his suave tones win over the governors he also correctly answered 39 out of 40 sports questions.
He steadily rose through radio and television to become a Grandstand presenter in 1978. In 1984, the year of the Olympics, David Coleman left the BBC and Lynam became the face of BBC Sport. He was so adept that in 1996 viewers voted him top presenter of all time in a poll marking 60 years of BBC television.
