Danny Kelly, award-winning music editor and broadcaster, dies at 69

Danny Kelly, the music journalist and football broadcaster, has died aged 69, talkSPORT confirmed. Baker, his longtime broadcasting partner, said Kelly died on the afternoon of 10 November 2026.

Kelly edited the music weekly NME in the late 1980s before taking charge of the monthly Q. At Q, he was named British magazine editor of the year, The Guardian said. He later launched the football website Football365 and became a radio presenter and podcast host.

From music magazines to football radio

Kelly began writing for NME around 1983 and edited it until 1992. He left Q in 1995, then launched Football365 in the second half of the 1990s as his work moved into online publishing.

He presented BBC radio shows with Baker in the 1990s and hosted a sports show on BBC London before joining talkSPORT in 2007. In the 2000s, he also launched The Game, a weekly football podcast for The Times. Later, he hosted The View from the Lane, The Athletic’s podcast about Tottenham Hotspur, the club he supported throughout his life.

The Guardian said Kelly had been receiving treatment for oesophageal cancer. The BBC said he stepped back from his talkSPORT role after a throat-cancer diagnosis in March.