I lose my temper at my kids: Gary Lineker

When I present myself at the appointed hour at Gary Lineker's strawberry gothic villa backing on to the common in Barnes, west London, there is no one home, and only a dog barks when I ring the bell. But I know it's his house. The gleaming Range Rover Sport with blacked-out windows (he is the highest-paid star at the BBC, on a salary of £2 million) and a racy navy BMW convertible give it away.

The national sporting hero, three times Golden Boot winner, Match of the Day pundit, face of Walkers Crisps and one of the anchors of Olympics 2012 on BBC One may be late, but an entourage has already gathered by the Lineker residence. There's an estate agent, who turns out to be selling the villa, a rock star's tall, blonde ex-wife, who's buying it, her assistant, two home audio technicians, and me. So when he arrives, on foot, moving fast - fast as a footballer cleared of racism leaving the court - in belted jeans and a tight white shirt, his smooth, brown skin and terrier-tufty hair silvering at the temples, he quickly scopes the welcoming committee. The dog barks louder. He looks hopefully towards the towering Hitchcock blonde in dark glasses, then his melting-Malteser eyes revert to me. "You're the journalist from the Telegraph," he says, in his flat East Midlands vowels. "And she's buying my house."

We all enter his house, including two of his four boys, Tobias, 16, and Harry, 18, to a rapturous welcome from Snoop Dogg, a golden Lab. It is all very rock'n'roll. Dark purple walls, rough-hewn stone floors, wall-mounted flat screens, monochrome art, surprising splashes of bold colour - including a bright yellow fur throw the colour of a field of rape in bloom. "It's very trendy," I remark. He looks around surprised, as if seeing his home for the first time, then gives a sigh. "That's my wife, Danielle (Bux)," he says. "She does up houses, sells them, moves on." It turns out he's only been in this one for 18 months, and is moving to another, also in Barnes, shortly.

We settle at a huge refectory table in an extension to the oak-beamed kitchen of this converted mill. The wall opposite me is covered with blackboard paint and white-chalked scrawl. There's no question: the man looks bloody fit, even though I'm catching him in the middle of probably his busiest broadcasting summer ever, between Euro 2012 and the Olympics, and also between visits to Florence and Majorca, where he's going for a family beach holiday. He explains that his second wife, Danielle, some 19 years his junior, can't come, as she's "got a part in Silent Witness". He seems proud. His first wife was Michelle Cockayne, with whom he had his four sons. I briefly consider pretending my name is "Rachelle", for obvious reasons, but I am here to talk about the Olympics, and his starring role in bringing them to us, so I come in with a hard-ball question first.

"You look amazing," I gasp. "You look younger every year!" I decide, quickly, that I can't ask "Do you work out?" as it sounds like a pick-up line, so I go with: "What's your fitness regime?" He laughs.

"I train three times a week: heavy weights, recovery work, stamina work, with a personal trainer," he says. "Jump squats - it basically kills me." I decide to go for a tough follow-up.

"And how much golf are you playing with Alan Hansen?"

"None," he replies. This is stunning news. According to press cuttings, he has a handicap of four. I have to ask my husband what this means. "It means he plays one hell of a lot of golf," my husband explains.

"I play considerably less now. I got fed up with myself," Lineker says, explaining that it was "ridiculous" how much he used to play, not to mention practise, and how it "brings out the worst in people, golf". So we move on to broadcasting, at which point Lineker says it's right that BBC One will be wall-to-wall Olympics from dawn till dusk, aside from the main news bulletins.

"Hopefully [the Games] will go down better than the Jubilee," he jokes. "That wasn't my fault - I wasn't there." But when it comes to the Olympics, he's not just being on-message. He sounds genuinely keen.

"It's a once in a lifetime thing," he says, "It's right for the BBC to do it. You can watch whatever you want, whenever you want: if basketball's your thing, you can do that. Everything's covered properly, with computers, with red buttons." He pauses and warns me not to quiz him on the technology because he doesn't understand it. "I think the beauty of the Olympics is that we'll all suddenly care about … taekwondo, say. So long as a Brit's involved.

"Once it arrives," he assures me, "it will be more special than people think."

After he retired from football (he describes himself on Twitter "as ex-Leicester, Everton, Barcelona, Spurs, and Japanese team with just eight players, MOTD bloke, and spud-flogger extraordinaire"), he swapped his caps and captain's armband for the football presenter's ubiquitous black shirt (although he swears he only has one and it's actually dark blue). At MOTD, where he took over from Des Lynam, he writes his own scripts - "I've always enjoyed writing" - he says, and is now as prolific a tweeter as he was once a goal-scorer. "It's a bit like my football," he has said of his career of two halves. "I've made my runs into space at the right time." I observe that the un-silver-tongued David Beckham couldn't convert, in the same way he did, to broadcasting at the highest level, but Lineker shrugs at this.

"But [Beckham] is such a brand isn't he," Lineker says. "[David and Victoria] seem to be doing all right between them. At the same time, we'd have him on MOTD if he wanted to do the odd show. He's box office. Our viewing figures would go up!" What about Beckham's failure to make the Olympic Team GB football squad?

"It's a shame. He's been led down the garden path a little bit. There was always the presumption that he was going to be in it. I think inwardly he must have felt that as well. Then he made the short list and suddenly he was left out right at the end." He looks affronted for his fellow footballer. "You can make an argument about whether he should be in it or not: he did wonders for the bid, he's a great ambassador for sport in this country, but is that enough to make a selection in the team? But it's a shame. If they'd said a year ago you will struggle to play six games in 16 days… but they didn't. And then to put him on the short list. I think it's a bit inconsiderate and disrespectful personally."

This is quite close to Gary Lineker sounding cross. Does he ever lose his temper? He lays his head on his arms and groans out loud.

"I've lost it occasionally, for a few seconds… kids mainly." He gives me his Colgate smile, fit as a Walthamstow whippet. What about on the pitch? Famously, the former player has never been booked. "Mmm," he says. "No. Not really." What about during the stress of broadcasting live? Does he ever lose it? "If something goes wrong - the Autocue starts going backwards during live transmission, for example - I always say, 'Share it with your audience.'?"

And he smiles again. I can't help but smile back. It seems this is a man with no dark side. Only dark shirts.

Gary Lineker will present 'Olympics 2012' every evening during the Games, on BBC One.