Media Champions
Meet the broadcasters and journalists supporting Ulster Sports Legacy and helping to share the stories of sport across Ulster.
Read a biography: Liam Beckett · Denise Watson
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Liam Beckett
Sports columnist and commentator
Liam Beckett was born in Ballymoney. A plumber by trade, his passions have always been football and motorcycle road racing.
Liam played football for many years at Irish League level for Crusaders and Coleraine, as well as Drogheda in the League of Ireland. He went on to win every honour at senior level in the Irish League before furthering his career in football management at Cliftonville and Institute.
Liam’s other sporting passion is motorcycle road racing. In 1988, he became the late Robert Dunlop’s motorcycle road race mechanic and mentor. Liam documented this extraordinary partnership with Robert in his autobiography, Full Throttle. A second book, Old School, followed in November 2019.
Still very much involved in sport, Liam is currently a Sunday Life sports columnist and BBC Radio Ulster sports commentator. Despite his busy life, he continues to dedicate considerable time to charity work and is involved with a number of local charities. He is chairman of the Harry Gregg Foundation, a patron of CAN (Compass Advocacy Network) and an ambassador for The Samaritans.
For twelve years, Liam also took part in Ballymoney’s annual Black Santa cross-community charity sit-out. He was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours List for services to sport and the voluntary sector, receiving his decoration at Buckingham Palace in March 2018.
Denise Watson
Sports journalist and broadcaster
Denise Watson has worked as a sports journalist and radio presenter in Northern Ireland for over 30 years.
She started her career at Citybeat (now Q Radio) and moved to BBC Sport NI in 1996, working on hockey and minority sports before becoming the main anchor for the Irish League football show Final Score. Denise regularly reported and presented sport on BBC Newsline.
She was proud to be part of the legendary Gaelic football show The Championship, where she reported and presented from live outside broadcasts for over seven years. She was a pitchside reporter for many key matches.
Denise trained as a VJ (video journalist) in 2002 and learned how to edit and produce packages for TV and radio. She was named CIPR Sports Journalist of the Year in 2007 for breaking the story about Armagh GAA player Oisín McConville’s gambling addiction.
In 2013, she left the BBC for UTV Sport to report on its nightly news show, UTV Live. In 2016, she became the breakfast show presenter at U105 Radio, working alongside Maurice Jay, while continuing to write and report on sports bulletins.
In 2022, she became talkSPORT’s Northern Ireland international football reporter, a role she continues to this day.
In May 2026, she left U105 to freelance as a digital content creator (majoring in sports events) for Love Belfast, alongside other corporate and broadcasting commitments.
Denise is passionate about promoting female sport and regularly collaborates with the Female Sports Forum. She promoted the “20-20 campaign”, which sought to give women’s sport greater coverage in Ireland. She is the current treasurer of the NI Football Writers’ Association.
Denise has two daughters, Samantha (21) and Beth (18), who both have representative honours for Ulster Squash and have played regularly on the All-Ireland circuit.
Her idol is Martina Navratilova, having watched her change perceptions of the women’s game in tennis. She is inspired by Lady Mary Peters for creating a trust to help young athletes achieve their dreams in sport.