Kate Gale

Sports Reporter – Channel Nine Perth

Kate began her career far removed from the world of television and even further removed from sport. From 1993 to 1995 she studied at the University of Western Australia, studying a Bachelor of Commerce and spending the whole of 1996 working for an accounting firm.

Having decided that accounting wasn’t the job for her, Kate went back to study, spending two years at the WA Academy of Performing Arts studying Broadcasting.

During her last six months of study, she worked for PMFM as a weekend news writer/reader. This invaluable experience led to a full-time position with Southern Cross Broadcasting (96FM & 6PR) in their newsroom as a general reporter.

Whilst Kate covered a wide variety of stories, she took every opportunity to cover sport including live sport crosses from the Hopman Cup as well as reporting from around the ground during Westar Rules games.

Her breakthrough into television came in the middle of 1999. Nine Sports Director/Presenter Michael Thomson invited her in for an audition. Suffice to say she got the job and commenced as a regular sports reporter on National Nine News in August.

At the 2000 Football Media Awards Kate was awarded the WAFC Football Media Award (Television) for Best News Story for her story on the Dockers SAS pre-season training camp held at Port Beach in 1999.

On the personal front Kate’s love of sport means she personally loves to do anything active and outdoors. She grew up watching Australian Rules football and most of the males in the family played in local clubs.

Her great-grandfather and grandfather played for East Fremantle; her father and uncle for Claremont; two cousins Peter Mann and Jeremy Guard also played for Claremont and later for North Melbourne and Fitzroy – finally returning to the West to play for the Fremantle Dockers in 1995 and Claremont in 1996/97 respectively. Her brother-in-law Ben Allan played in Hawthorn’s 1991 premiership team before returning to Perth as the Fremantle Dockers' inaugural captain and caretaker Coach in 2001.

In 2001 Kate married Mark Gale - former Fremantle Docker and St Kilda player.

Kate also plays golf. She’s been learning for the last few years. Her father-in-law is WA professional golfer Terry Gale - and she has a cousin who was a former pro-golfer.

Snowboarding is a favourite pastime and she takes any opportunity to get to the snow to improve her skills.

Kate is lucky to have the chance to scuba dive in her role as a presenter on Channel Nine’s summer series Just Add Water. Swimming is also another favourite activity and Kate has competed in the Rottnest Swim over the past years.