I started doing cartoons for the Observer in the autumn of 1993. My drawings were part of Kevin Mitchell's Inside Edge column. Kevin was probably the most incisive and thoughtful of the younger sportswriters around at that time and his stuff covered a range of topics, giving me pretty much a free hand. I loved the small format and, using a Rotring pen at my kitchen table, produced slightly wang-eyed, scribbly caricatures. I'd go through that day's papers and do four or five finished drawings. This was (just) the pre-email age so then I would run round to a local print shop and fax over my ideas and the Observer Sports Editor would choose one. A bike would be sent round to pick up the (tiny) artwork - I drew them the size they appeared in the paper, about 8cm x 5cm.

Because of my work in the Observer, in 1995 I was nominated in the Sports Cartoonist of the Year category in the Cartoon Arts Trust annual awards. This should have been the start of a long career on the paper but, a few months later at the start of 1996 (after a change of editor) I was told my services were no longer required.

I then jumped ship to do a similar weekly sports cartoon for the Daily Express, not really a natural fit for my cartoons, though I was grateful for the opportunity. The format was about six times bigger and really should have been an illustration rather than cartoon. I got bogged down in drawing detail rather than concentrating on the joke. To my mind these Express cartoons never really flew and I wasn't surprised when, a year or so later, the gig ended. (I must try and dig some of them out though)