Jeff Stelling: growing up, goals and gags

By Charlie Taylor-Kroll

Aside from an illustrious reputation as a sports journalist and broadcaster, Jeff Stelling shares the same passion for football as the millions who tune in to Soccer Saturday. First and foremost, he is a football fan.

He talks with what some might see as misplaced optimism about his hometown side, Hartlepool United, and their chances of staying in the football League – they currently sit firmly at the bottom of League Two, six points adrift.

However, as he observes, “You never know – if they could win three in a row to get back in it, then there’s a possibility, but when you’ve only won four times this season, it’s mighty difficult.” He concedes, that “it would be a pretty major miracle.”

Sixteen miles south, there is far more realistic optimism amongst Middlesbrough supporters – a team that Jeff knows well from his early career, having began his career in journalism covering the club.  This is a town he has often admired, most notably defending the area one Saturday afternoon during Soccer Saturday, following a report claiming it was the ‘worst place to live in England’. Jeff shares Boro fans’ hope that the side might rejoin the elite of English football – “I think they can go up. The manager has got them extremely well organised. They’ve bought some terrific players and I think that they have a fantastic chance.”

He laments being unable to be in the exhilarating atmosphere of a live game as much as he would like – whether at Middlesbrough’s Riverside stadium, Hartlepool’s Victoria Park or even Wembley.

“There’s nothing like a live game”, he admits. “It gives you a completely difficult perspective.”

However, hosting Soccer Saturday makes up for this and he speaks with gratitude about the role at Sky that he has worked so hard to achieve – “I do miss it [seeing live games] but I have to balance that with the fact that I’ve probably got the best job in the world. I can’t feel hard done by.”

The Sky Sports presenter can’t help but contrast his job to that of his father – a steel worker in Hartlepool in the 1980s. There’s no doubt that Stelling Jr’s job is stressful. He will often have a director, producer and a couple of other people in his ear while, as he points out, “you’re trying to watch a few games and you’re trying to talk to the boys and interpret scores.”

Yet, Jeff refutes the idea that the two types of work are even remotely comparable.

“I remember the days when I was a kid, when my Dad used to walk home covered in all sorts of stuff. He was absolutely knackered. I never think my job is hard because I always think back to what he did.”

His appreciation for tough industry in the northeast doesn’t stop with his father. This type of “manual work”, he concedes, made the northeast a tough place to grow up for his generation. “I didn’t appreciate it at the time but it was a pretty tough area and people did have to battle for a living, just as they do now.”

Alongside pundits including Messrs Merson, Le Tissier, and Kamara, the name Jeff Stelling has become synonymous with Soccer Saturday and the show has gained a cult status amongst football fans. Indeed, the show’s mounting popularity is largely down to him and it’s no surprise that he has been voted The Journalists’ Association’s Broadcast Journalist of the Year in four consecutive years for his work on the show.

The fact that catchphrases such as ‘Unbelievable Jeff!’ have become part of football folklore is testament to the show’s ever-mounting popularity over the last decade. “We tapped into a market before anyone else did”, the Hartlepool-born presenter explains. “There wasn’t really any sort of results service and at the time when it started 20 years ago, there was nothing remotely like it.”

The way in which scores are delivered to the audience is also fundamental to the show’s success.

“We treat the game as being important but entertaining as well, so whilst there will be heated debates, there will also be a lot of fun.”

Jeff says that he has Sky to thank for this. “They gave us the latitude to do that – to be opinionated, to say what we want. Thankfully my bosses have had the belief and trust to know we are giving an honest opinion and I think people find that refreshing.”

Even after all this time, Jeff seems surprised that other broadcasters have never reached the dizzy heights achieved by Soccer Saturday. “I think other broadcasters have produced watered down versions of it. They haven’t been bold enough. No one has the bottle to go out and copy us.”

He’s also quick to praise the Soccer Saturday team. “I think they work well together”, he explains. They bounce off each other; they’re different characters but they complement each other.”

One man on the panel, in particular, has gained Jeff’s admiration – fellow northerner, Chris Kamara. Jeff, who chuckles even now when retelling the story, reminds us of Kamara’s failure to notice that Anthony van den Borre had been sent off at Fratton Park.

“That has achieved cult status over the years – but then again most things that Kammy does fall into that category.”  He can’t hide his pleasure in Kammy’s bloomers. “We have a bit of fun with it”, he says.

But it is not just the panel that provides the show’s humour. Stelling himself is known to be partial to a gag.

“You have one or two of them that are there and waiting. Some of them just come to you when it happens”, he admits when discussing the origin of his one-liners.

When asked for his favourite gag, Stelling proudly talks to us about Gareth Jellyman, the then Rushden & Diamonds player.

“I was desperately waiting for Gareth Jellyman to be sent off, but he’d been booked once in thirteen years so I couldn’t believe my luck when he was finally sent off. I was sat in the studio punching the air when it came up on the videprinter.”

“Jellyman’s thrown a wobbly” would eventually become the title of Stelling’s autobiography.

Jeff’s highlight from his time on the show is – unsurprisingly – the remarkable finale from the Premier League season of 2011/2012 when Manchester city stole the League title, coming from 2-1 down against Queens Park Rangers to win the game and the rob the title from United.

“Paul Merson’s description of the closing stages at the Etihad will just live forever”, Jeff reminisces, “The panel were piling on top of each other, giving each other love bites and it was just brilliant. It was the most amazing day in Premier League football.”

Jeff also welcomes and acknowledges the evolution of the show over the years. As punditry advances, so does Soccer Saturday.

“Football punditry in general has become much more sophisticated over the years. People see things and explain things that they didn’t used to.”

So what of the future?

While he remains non-committal, he offers a tantalising clue. “There’s a TV show that I may get involved in this year. It’s a revival of an old TV quiz show. It’s a possibility but I would say not necessarily a likelihood.” Only time will tell. Until then, he will get on with the “best job in the world.”

See you Saturday, Jeff.

Photographs: Sky Sports