The twinkle has returned to Des Lynam's eyes and that silver-grey moustache is bristling with new vigour.

The reason? After years of waiting, the Mr Smooth of TV football has finally got his way.

Once the embodiment of BBC sports coverage, Des did the unthinkable and defected to ITV in 1999 for a reputed £5 million four-year deal.

Now that move has proved to be one of the canniest things he has ever done - and not just financially.

The FA Premiership has not only been won by ITV but the commercial TV giant is to devote prime-time Saturday nights to football - in total contrast to the BBC's past policy of shunting it ever later into the schedules.

Des said: "I've always said it should be earlier and at a regular time.

"I think it's ambitious to do it in prime-time, but it's part of the evening's entertainment, it's part of showbusiness."

It is a sweet victory for the 58-year-old, once dubbed "the Tom Cruise for the menopausal woman" by TV comic Mrs Merton.

Football pundits pontificated about his controversial 1999 transfer, declaring that it was a tragic mistake at the time. Now they have had to change their tune.

Des insisted the outcome is the result of pure luck.

He said: "When I left the BBC I came to do the Champions League and the FA Cup. I didn't envisage that I would be back doing the Premiership, although I always suspected that ITV would be in the running for it when it came up.

"I certainly didn't move with the idea of doing a Saturday night show again. There was no guarantee of that, not even a likelihood at one stage.

"I went to the ITV party a few weeks ago and Bruce Forsyth said to me: 'You must have known when you left the BBC that you were going to get it back'. I kept telling him I didn't, but in the end I let him believe it."

The victory means that Des is having to revise his weekend plans and that means there will be one less fan at Brighton and Hove Albion games. He said: "The one thing I will have to give up is going to watch Brighton play.

"In the last two seasons - you may laugh and you're probably right to laugh - I have been watching them with some regularity.

"I shall miss that. But there is nothing else I do on Saturdays that I can't do on any other night."

His marriage to beautician Susan Skinner by whom he has a grown-up son, Patrick, ended in divorce back in 1974.

For the past 20 years his partner has been interior decorator Rose Diamond.

The couple share homes in Chiswick, west London, and Sussex, where Lynam grew up after his family moved to from Ireland when he was ten.

He went to the local grammar school and then onto Brighton Business College. When he left, he spent six years as an insurance salesman but in 1969, at the age of 27, he took a gamble and moved into journalism.

Des had already written some freelance pieces for The Argus, but it was when local radio started that he discovered his natural element and a broadcasting legend was in the making.

He went on to spend 30 years with the BBC and, despite his defection, has remained close friends with many of the people he worked with there, commiserating with them at the loss of the Premiership rights.

He said: "I felt for my old friends at the BBC because I knew it meant so much to them, I knew they'd miss it.

"But two of the main producers are now with us. In fact a lot of ex-BBC people are now here at ITV. It's like the family has been moved in a way."

ITV's bold move in showing The Premiership at 7pm with a second extended and updated programme later in the evening, has sent waves of despair through many a female heart.

But Des is convinced the early slot will be a winner with both sexes.

He said: "It allows people to get together and watch it as a family.

"Our later programme is another opportunity to catch all the action. Viewers needn't miss a thing. I honestly think it's all there and you can pick and choose.

"At least it's available to everybody now. It will be proven in the long run if we are all doing too much of it. The audience will vote with their feet and stop watching."

The new format means a busy schedule for Des, who will also be covering the Champions League from September.

He added: "I'm doing more programmes than I have in the last two years.

"But, funnily enough, in television you always feel more comfortable with that continuity.

"I felt it at the Olympics. When you're doing it every day it becomes second nature, you forget about the complexities of it, you forget about yourself and you just get on with it.

"It's good to be back on the bike a little more often."

The Premiership is on ITV on Saturdays from August 18 at 7pm.