I SUPPOSE we’ve all done it. I know I have.

The football is on, the commentator is in full flight and we say to ourselves: “This guy knows nothing – I could do a better job myself.”

Take it from me, you couldn’t. I spent Saturday afternoon in the commentary box at Middlesbrough’s Riverside Stadium. It may be the best seat in the house, but it is also the hottest.

I was there with BBC Radio Tees’ Boro commentator, Alistair Brownlee, and summariser Garry Gill to give my own, layman’s views on the match with Manchester United.

I know it seems the dream job, watching football matches for a living, but it is not as simple as that. Unlike spectators, commentators don’t just have to watch the game, they have to read it, interpret it and make sense of it to a live audience. They have to keep their cool, concentrate for 90 minutes and make a number of crucial, split-second decisions – a bit like the players do, or should be doing.

They also have to entertain. That Alistair and Gary do so week in, week out, in what for a couple of Boro fans, must be fairly trying circumstances, is a tribute to their professionalism and patience. They’re a premier league outfit, let’s hope they have a Premier League team to comment on next season.

Whether they do depends an awful lot on what happens at St James’ Park on Monday, I suppose. There was a certain inevitability about Middlesbrough’s defeat on Saturday – and Newcastle’s. Once the first goal went in at the Riverside, the sparkle went out of the team and the crowd. I hope they do better on Monday, though it is sad that the survival of any of our region’s teams now depends largely on one or maybe two of the others going down.

They’ve reached that cut-throat situation not because of the losses to the Liverpools and Manchesters, but because of the scores of wasted points in winnable matches – what tennis players call unforced errors. Let’s hope there are fewer of them in the matches and seasons to come. All three top flight teams are assets for the region and their communities – we need them all to do well.

Talking of tennis, I was lucky enough this week to meet a player who, unlike our football teams, is definitely on the way up.

Sarah Borwell, from Middlesbrough, has become Britain’s number one doubles player and just broken into the top 100 worldwide.

She is a product – like so many other talented players – of Tennis World, a facility in Middlesbrough which, to the thousands who use it, is every bit as important as the Riverside.

Sarah is a tremendous sportswoman who thoroughly deserves her success and should reach her goal of making it to the top 50. She has come up the hard way and if you want an insight into the life of a professional athlete, read her entertaining blog, at tennishead.

net/locker-room/Sarah-Borwell-Blog/ The top dozen or so tennis players may lead the lives of cosseted celebrities, but for those working for the big break, there’s little glamour, a lot of hard graft and a non-stop round of travel and tournaments.

I often wonder what keeps people like Sarah going. There’s that universal motivation, the need to pay the bills, but there are also the crucial ingredients of self-belief and self-esteem, and the knowledge that you’ve given so much of yourself in years of training and sacrifice and now deserve the rewards.

It is a hugely powerful incentive and one that makes champions.

Let’s hope that in the coming weeks some of our footballers find it.