Baggies make me blue says TV Adrian

Television presenter Adrian Chiles has said his pessimism is inherent in being a West Bromwich Albion supporter.

The ardent Baggies fan who has said he is "inherently negative about everything" has said despite a happy upbringing, it is the team's performance that fills him with gloom.

So much so, after they were relegated from the Premier League in 2006 he even wrote a book called We Don't Know What We're Doing.

However, he added that hard work, his BBC 1 One Show co-presenter Christine Bleakley and God help keep the despair at bay.

Chiles, who turned 42 today and was brought up in Hagley, has become a household name after presenting the weeknight show, Match of the Day 2, the Olympics and returns to screens next Wednesday to front The Apprentice: You're Fired. Famed for his strong Brummie accent he has admitted he never takes anything for granted and even admits worries that the next series of the Apprentice spin-off show, in which he interviews the week's fired contestant, will not be as popular as the last.

"I just don't take anything for granted, I suppose," he said. "It's part of being driven. It would send some people mad. If I get 5.5 million viewers for a show, instead of thinking 'Oh, that's good', I think it's going to be awful when these figures start tailing off. It gets to quite deranged proportions."

His One Show colleague Bleakley has spoken of his dark moods as transmission approaches to which he said: "I get into a bit of a grump and Christine gives me a kick up the arse. I don't go round abusing anybody. I just turn into a bit of a pain in the arse."He added that his friendship with Bleakley had helped him get through a tough year in which he split with his wife, Radio 4 Woman's Hour presenter Jane Garvey, after 10 years of marriage. The pair met on Radio 5 Live and their daughters Evelyn and Sian were aged just eight and five when he left the family home in Shepherds Bush.

"It has been fundamentally really, really important and mutually beneficial as well," he said. "Those working relationships don't grow on trees. I count my blessings on that, although it has caused a certain amount of collateral damage with all the rumours.

"You truly do find that people believe anything they read in the tabloid press. But it was like West Brom being linked with Ronaldo. Look at her, and look at me. West Brom might quite like to sign Ronaldo but it is simply not going to happen."