Back injuries don't stop football anchor from keeping fit
Thirteen years ago, FOX Sports' resident football anchor Steve Dawson, who was then with the now defunct Channel i, predicted on air that Greece would win the 2004 Uefa European Championship, and they did.
The 50-year-old, who came to Singapore in 1994, recalled that the incident gained him some prominence.
"Three or four years later, a man came up to me and said he put a lot of bets on my predictions and won a lot of money.
"He also said he was indebted to me, but I didn't take any money from him," he joked.
Although it was a one-off incident, he still gets sports fans going up to him to say hi from time to time, which he said was really encouraging.
Dawson covers the German Bundesliga, AFC Champions League and AFC Cup. He also appears on the weekly football programme, FOX Sports FC, which airs on FOX Sports, StarHub TV Channel 208 and Singtel TV Channel 114 every Monday at 8.30pm
Also a regular commentator of mixed martial arts (MMA) in Asia, Dawson travelled to the Philippines in late April to comment on the ONE Championship-Kings Of Destiny.
He told The New Paper that his love for sports developed when he was a child.
"When I was six or seven, my father took me to watch Middlesbrough Football Club, which was his favourite team.
"I still remember that he told me to shut my eyes while he led me up the stairs and when we were at the top, we could see the lovely green turf of the football pitch and smell the grass... it was evocative."
A Liverpool fan, the London-born Dawson was forced to stop playing over a decade ago after he had a slipped disc and a hairline fracture in the vertebrae. He resumed playing five years ago after going through two back operations.
The permanent resident says he continues to play football twice weekly with the SCC Pads at the Singapore Cricket Club and The British Casuals. To date, he has played some 3,000 games since he was nine.
Dawson also plays tennis and goes to the gym once a week when he does not play football.
Now weighing 84kg, Dawson revealed that he rarely consumes carbohydrates, only in weak moments, because it "makes him fat".
"I eat lots of eggs, meat, protein bars that are low in carbohydrates, nuts, avocados and salads on a daily basis now."
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