Dan keeps his eye on the ball as he plots path to Mastermind victory

But this weekend, Dan swaps the comfort of the Football Focus studio for the terror of the Mastermind chair; and when he does so, a Sheffield charity will benefit.

Dan is patron of TASTE, a local charity that provides clean drinking water for rural communities in Central Nigeria.

“I’m always up for a challenge”, says Dan, “and this gave me an opportunity to help TASTE at the same time.

“It costs around £3,000 to provide clean water to a needy community, so I was delighted to be able to make a contribution towards their next project.”

TASTE was registered as a charity in September 1999, and was set up as a result of first hand experience of one of the Trustees, Ben Udejiofo. He originates from a village (Amankpunato Achi) in Nigeria where they have difficult access to clean water.

Ben, expressed his gratitude for Dan’s support. “One of the villages we helped last year had to dig into the river bank to collect dirty drinking water.

“Dan contributing his TV fee will help us to help another community who are suffering similar deprivation.

“This will also help us to raise our profile in the city – many people have heard of WaterAid but very few have heard about TASTE.”

Dan explained that his graduate studies were in history and his dissertation focused on the 1605 Gunpowder Plot so it was not very hard choosing his specialist subject.

To find out how well Dan did you will need to watch him in action in the Mastermind chair on Sunday at 5.35pm on BBC1. All he would say was that it was a very high scoring game. For more information on his chosen charity, TASTE, visit www.taste.org.uk