She’s a popular Sky Sports and MUTV presenter, a Middlesbrough fan and the daughter of a famous former Scotland International and Man Utd footballer. This month citydrinking met up with Hayley Mcqueen at Ink Restaurant in Manchesters’ Printworks as she tells citydrinking about where she goes out, why she moved north and which footballer she wouldn’t mind a drink with.

You’re from Middlesbrough, what’s the bar/clubbing scene like on Teeside?

Middlesbrough, to go out in Middlesbrough everybody is very young. I go back, 27 years old now and I feel really old. There’s lot’s of places on the outskirts of Middlesbrough, there’s a really nice town called Yarm which is very near where I live. There’s Stockton as well which has a bit more of a bar culture rather than a club culture, but Middlesbrough is very good, there’s always a lot of gigs on, there’s a lot of live music. It’s a bit more of an indie scene around there, House music is kind of dying, there used to be a big club called Tall Trees, massive massive club it was at one point one of the biggest in Europe but not anymore. That was very much House music but thats dying out in Middlesbrough. It’s good it’s a good night out, you have to be fairly young to go out there anything over 25 and you don’t quite fit in i’m afraid.

How do you spend your nights out?

I think when I was growing up I was quite into House music, I was quite into dance music sort of 16, 17, 18. You kind of get to an age where you can’t really do it anymore, your body won’t let you do it anymore, you can’t keep up the dancing and drinking and having to get up for work, you know it’s not like you’re at university anymore when you can kind of lie in bed, so a bit more laid back and chilled out now, very much kind of into my indie music scene which I guess is why Manchester is so good for me. There is always a lot of live music on, very small intimate gigs and things, so it definitely suits me a lot better around here. You’ve got the scene, you can go out clubbing if you want to, that is there on offer, but im very much an indie girl at the moment I like going to gigs. I would rather go to a festival for a weekend and save up for that then go out around the city centre I guess.

How did you start in broadcasting?

I didn’t always want to get into televison, I was one of those people growing up that was really into sport, really sporty. I didn’t really care much about school or the academic side of things, I was really into after school clubs and playing hockey, athlectics anything and everything and it gets to a certain point where your body gives up on you and you think ok i’m never going to get the Coomonwealth Games or the Olympics carrying on like this, so i’m going to have to sort myself out and be a bit more serious. I was going to go and study Sport Science, but I kind of figured I didn’t know what kind of career you’d get out of that and the wriiten aspect of things was always a stronger point of mine so I took a year out actually and did an art course for a little while - which wasn’t a waste of time, I promise, it was a lot of fun and I did a degree in PR, Marketing and Journalism. I was originally going to go and do Journalism but I wasn’t really sure what field I wanted to get into, so I did a little bit of each. You could dip in and out of each throughout your University degree and then specialised in your final year and my specialism was in journalism and broadcast journalism and standing up and speaking to everybody about a project I was doing was a stronger point for me. From there I decided, right I think it’s televsion I want to get into and did work experience - I worked for Richard & Judy for a little while, for about 6 months, I worked on magazines, I worked on a paper for a little while and realised no, telly is definately the kind of thing I want to get into. I worked for a club channel for 3 years then I worked at a football club for a year then of course, I went on to work for Sky Sports News, which was the first kind of taste of presenting that I had and I enjoyed but I still liked to get into the reporting side of things as well. I think as a newsreader you can get categorised as a newsreader and I was a little bit scared of thinking oh what have I got on my cv, well im a newsreader. Where I am at the moment at Man United TV, i’ve got the chance to be doing a bit of presenting, doing interviews and getting out as well, so i’ve pretty much found exactly what I want to do so i’m very lucky.

How did you spend your free time when you were living in London?

Free time in London working for Sky - there was no free time. I was presenting for Sky Sports news and tended to do the evening shift; 9, 10pm news and ‘through the night’ on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. That was my life unfortunately for a good year or so, which was a bit unfortunate, had everyday off which was great so I got to wander the streets alone. When I had a little bit of time off, my sister lives in London, she lives in Kentish Town and tends to go out into Camden and she works around Old Street, so we tended to just hang around those areas a bit more relaxed and never really went up to the West End. Every now and then you would dip in for a big night out. If you have friends visting you feel that you have to show them something, you have to show them the places they read about in magazines and in Heat and Closer and it’s like; oh we have to go there because so and so is going to be there and you get there and you think oh god I can’t afford to be here, there aren’t any celebrities, this outfit isn’t looking as good against everybody else’s outfits and so, umm no a bit more relaxed London scene was mor my kind of thing, I lived in the Eastend for a little bit as well, so hanging around Brick Lane and Hoxton were the places I would go, I went to uni there as well so nop when I worked at Sky I didn’t have that much time to go out unfortunately so my exploring was done roaming the streets during the day rather than at night which kept me out of trouble at least.

What do you think of Manchester?

I think when people said to me when I was going to move to Manchester you’re going to love it, you’re going to love, umm yeah everybody says that, they’re from Manchester, everybodys city is their city and it’s the best city, but I would definitely say I much prefer Manchester to London, I didn’t think I would, I didn’t know anybody when I moved here, just moved up, no friends i’ve got my friends from work now, it’s a more friendly place. In London I had my friends through work but on a night out you would never just bump into someone and create a friendship where that kind of happens up here, which is nice. You will pop into the same shops and you will be a regular in a bar and people will chat to you. You go into a toilet and people speak to you, you bump into someone and they actually say sorry about that. It’s good i’m really enjoying it so far.

What do you think of London?

I think London is one of those places that if you’ve got lots of money and you’ve got your family or got a good base of friends then why would you want to go anywhere else. But if you don’t you can feel very very lost and quite alone and it’s, everybody who lives in London will know - you’re going a couple of miles across town and it can take you half an hour, you go 10 miles across town and it can take you half the day just to get there; so that’s frustrating. I found I wasted a lot of time in London travelling to places and not having the money to just sit in a cab, so that’s what’s probably better up here and yeah like you saide before the people are just nicer and it makes it a much nicer place to be in and a happier place where as in London everyone is kind of trudging along.  

Do you think the smoking ban has changed bar culture?

I definately think it’s changed I would like to see the figures after a year with places that have terraces and beer gardens just to see how that’s changed really.

What are your memories from when Man Utd won the title last season?

The Premiership win was brilliant, absolutely brilliant, I was really lucky I didn’t start working for them at the beginning of the season I joined I think in November, so joining a club channel where the club is doing well, already the top of the league and just riding high throughout the season and then you’ve got this fantastic event a the end of the season, obviously the guard of honour at Chelsea was brilliant. I was up in the press box and when you’re up in the press box you’ve got journalists in front of you who are all being very sensible and very serious and getting on with their work, i’m not one of them unfortunately; i’m sitting there getting giddy and excited and everyone is up and clapping, screaming and just taking it all in where normally everyone is sitting down at their laptops typing away and being very serious, it was great and then everyone stayed in the stadium for a good hour afterwards to celebrate and they had the fireworks going off. So that was a very good night in Manchester so we all went out and had an awful lot of fun, so yeah it was good.

Are you an England fan or a Scotland fan?

I’m a Scotland fan, 100% Scotland, I follow the England Womens Team, I covered them a little bit when I was working for Sky. I’m all for women in football, unfortunately there isn’t a very good football scene going on with women in Scotland at the moment, so i’m all for the  girls playing football for the England Women, but I will watch England if it’s on but no i’m definately a Scotland fan. I think when it runs in your blood as well you’re kind of stuck with it, that’s it you are Scottish Hayley and that is it. Absoultely the best evening ever was that goal going in against France that was fantastic, absoultely loved it, never thought it would happen, never thought in a million years Scotland had a chance of qualifying, not when the group was announced - you just thought oh my god that’s it, over, i’ll have fun getting walloped, try to get to a couple of the games. Then they kind of turned it all around, Alex Mcleish is working these wonders, when you had Ally McCoist and all these old boys and Walter Smith moving out you thought oh jeez where on earth is this,  is Scottish football just going to get worse then it already is? but it’s not, it’s on the up and they’ve got a lot of confidence. Darren Fletcher as well the Captain, working with him at Manchester United had a lot of criticism and a lot of stick, but I have this new found respect for him as a club player and a country player now and I hope the criticism does take away from him a little bit because I think he is doing a great job as well and i’m very much enjoying Scottish football right now, i’m very pleased to say.

Who is your favourite player?

Favourite footballer past and present  - that’s a really hard one that, there was a time at Middlesbrough when we had the likes of  Emerson Juninho and Ravenelli and all the Brazilian boys and that was brilliant. Juninho was a big favourite of mine for years and years, probably still is because of the memories and I was at a certain age where I was really getting into football and you had these boys coming in and it was very exciting. Bryan Robson, from the old school, 80’s style football, was probably my favourite player of that generation and then I guess it has to be George Best. I never get tired of watching George Best, I go down to the museum, the big museum that they’ve got at Manchester United and you can watch old video cilps and it’s on 3 floors absoultely huge, you can watch videos, they’ve got computer games and things you can read the past history of Man Utd and I found out a lot about George Best that I didn’t really know. So someone like that I guess, there aren’t really Scottish footballers I can think of at the moment they all tend to English here or Irish, probably Robbo.

Who would you say is the best looking footballer?

This is going to be a tricky one, no i’m more of a Freddie Ljunberg girl then a David Beckham I love David Beckham, i’m a fan of Posh Spice I don’t care what anyone says you can laugh at this interview if you want I don’t really care, I don’t really think she is what she is, Eric Harrison who is, has been with Manchester United for a number of years and brought up all the sort of Nicky Butts, Neville Brothers and Ryan Giggs and David Beckham and he’s known them since being kids and I always ask him sneeky little things about David Beckham and what he’s like. Eric is a lovely guy that we have on as a guest who analyses our footage as a guest on MUTV and he tells me things about David Beckham and Victoria and I don’t thinks she’s quite how she comes across. I think that all these programmes that you’ve got where she comes across as a bit dry and a bit sarcastic; I think that’s what she is on these programmes. She’s not taking herself seriously, but other people are taking her seriously, but ok, back to best looking, yeah David Beckham is absolutely gorgeous but you have to respect that he’s a married man. Freddie Ljunberg’s more my kind of guy, I also probably have to say my boyfriend plays football and I would say in my opinion that he is the best looking footballer. He plays for Macclesfield, he’s pretty hot, you should go check him out. 

Hayley Mcqueen - My Favourites….

Bar - Hash in Darlington

Drink - Jack Daniels & Coke or Jack on ice

Restaurant - Asia De Cuba in London

Hotel - The Hudson in New York

Holiday Destination - Portugal

You can watch Hayley on MUTV, Sky Channel 406, Virgin TV 410 & 530, WightCable 130 & 410.