John Roberts was born in Stockport and joined the staff of his local paper, the Stockport Express, shortly after leaving school, becoming sports editor of the paper at the agoe of nineteen. At twenty-one he joined the sports desk of the Daily Express in Manchester. Since then he has written for the Guardian and the Daily Mail and is the former tennis correspondent of the Independent. As Matthew Engel wrote in the British Journalism Review: I suspect posh-paper sports writing changed forever the day John Roberts left the Daily Express to join The Guardian in the late 1970s, was handed a piece of routine agency copy and picked up a telephone to start asking questions. He is married with three children.