Soccer Saturday began to develop into a word-of-mouth success – Sky never really promoted the show and some of our popularity came from the comedy of the afternoon. One idea at this point was for the panel to magically disappear from the studio desk at three o'clock. Each panellist would then sit in a little voice booth in another corner of the building to present telephone reports from their respective games. Why they couldn't stay on the panel and deliver their reports from there was beyond me. And why any right-thinking individual would believe that Frank McLintock had travelled from Middlesex to St James' Park to report on his game in the space of 10 minutes would require a massive leap of imagination.
This surreal situation was given an even stranger twist when our pundits piped their reports into the studio. As I introduced a new match, a picture of Rodney Marsh's face, say, would appear on the telly with his name underneath as he recalled the action at Highbury. Despite their close proximity, the phone lines would sometimes go down and we would lose contact, meaning the studio would be thrown into chaos. It was even less technologically-advanced than ‘Andy Townsend's Tactics Truck’ on ITV, and slightly more embarrassing. But only slightly.
Somehow, the show survived in this guise for a little while until a producer called Andrew ‘Buzz’ Hornet suddenly struck upon the idea of Soccer Saturday in its modern format. It was blindingly obvious really: rather than moving the panel into phone booths, why not place them in front of TVs on a visible panel so they could relay the match action more visually? With a studio facelift, we were away, and the current format of Soccer Saturday was in place. TV viewers were now watching a programme where four men watched live football on the telly. Almost immediately we realized it was a great idea.
I remember thinking the show had made its mark when I stumbled across a magazine interview with actress Patsy Kensit. In it, she began detailing the ins and outs of her marriage to Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher and described his surreal behaviour on a Saturday afternoon. This didn't involve hell-raising lager binges in his local pub, or hotel-trashing drug orgies. Instead, Liam's strangest act was when his wife found him watching Sky Sports on the telly, as four experts in ill-fitting suits watched football … on the telly. Apparently, she couldn't get her head around it, which was weird because I imagine she'd probably seen some very strange things in the Gallagher household at that time.
‘That's where Liam sits on Saturday afternoon,’ she explained to the journalist. ‘He is mesmerized by that mad programme on Sky where everyone is watching football on tellies you can't see. Honestly, that is the weirdest show I've ever seen and both my husband and my eldest son are riveted to it.’
She wasn't alone. I think a lot of other people felt the same way about Soccer Saturday at the time. Thinking about it, they probably still do.
* Apologies to Bill Bryson
So what really happens when Soccer Saturday takes to the air from midday to six o'clock every weekend? Well, dear reader, picture yourself in the following scenario and I shall talk you through a couple of hours of chaos and calamity …
DATE: A Saturday between the months of August and May.
TIME: Twelve-ish.
LOCATION: The living room. The pub. A shop window of Dixons, Currys, or maybe the electrical goods floor of any popular department store.
Ladies and gentlemen, you are watching Sky Sports.
Welcome to Soccer Saturday, a TV magazine of madness, mayhem and general buffoonery that somehow, comprehensively, details the afternoon's football happenings – goals, scorers, bookings, sendings-off, half-time scores and final results – as presented by me, your host, Jeff Stelling. But it's not just a goals and results service. From roughly half past two in the afternoon, when we travel around the grounds for team line-ups and injury updates, until the rundown of final scores at five o'clock and post-match interviews until six, we provide a comprehensive football news-feed. It is, as the Independent once argued:
‘The very next best thing to watching a game in the flesh and an unmissable part of every Saturday afternoon for those who either live on their own, or might be doing so soon if they “don't stop watching that bloody programme”. Apart from live football, it is the biggest ratings-puller in the Sky Sports firmament …
The pitch document must have made quite interesting reading, but if you love football this is almost all you need. It is hardcore football pornography and can be accessed on Sky Sports from noon to 6pm every Saturday during the football season and occasionally midweek.’
Sounds great, doesn't it? And it is, but of course it's also bloody chaos because while the show does have a structure, this is a very loosely-scheduled timetable and in no way a formalized itinerary of events. It's generally best not to plan too precisely for an afternoon of football action on the telly. As anyone in tune with our award-winning, laugh-a-minute, comprehensive, all-singing, all-dancing show will be aware: it's generally best to expect the unexpected, especially when match reporter and cult hero Chris ‘Kammy’ Kamara is involved. But more of that later.
TIME: 1:47
THE OUTSIDE BROADCAST
It's at this time that we put our already flimsy reputations into the hands of the goggle-box gods and set up a live interview with one of the many managers making their final preparations around the country. Now, in TV we always say, ‘Light, action, sound!’ but on Soccer Saturday we can get light, action, too much (or too little) sound! I remember we once managed to convince Sir Alex Ferguson to do a live post-match interview with us, which was absolutely unheard of. He never does interviews and we knew we had to be absolutely ready to go when Fergie gave us the green light to talk. Typically, the sound went down as Fergie stepped up to the microphone.
When a manager is talking to us in the studio, they can't actually see anything. They're just standing there, usually helpless, looking into a camera and listening to our questions and comments which are being piped in through their headphones. It's a nightmare for them. Thus Alex couldn't hear anything either, which added to his confusion. I could see he was getting a bit frustrated, and he began flashing us the sort of look usually reserved for card-happy referees. After a while, the technical creases were ironed out and we were away. With our questions in place, I could begin the interview.
‘So, we're happy to have Sir Alex Ferguson with us today …’ I said as an ear-shredding PA system at Old Trafford boomed across the stadium for a fire drill. Once again, Sir Alex couldn't hear a thing, which really didn't help his mood. For some reason, this was the moment I chose to ask a question about Wayne Rooney's temperament.
Sir Alex's face started to darken. ‘Ach,’ he grimaced. ‘You usually ask sensible questions, not rubbish like that. Who's telling you to ask these questions?’
I panicked like a frightened schoolboy. ‘Er, Charlie Nicholas actually, Sir Alex,’ I stammered. It was a blatant lie, and I think Charlie saw the funny side, but Sir Alex certainly didn't.
Then, of course, the pitchside sprinklers tend to get turned on when we go live, soaking cameramen, crew and the already disgruntled Premier League manager. I'm not sure if the ground staff are watching and waiting for their moment, but it happens with a suspicious regularity. I remember Sam Allardyce was spectacularly soaked once (which would serve him right for referring to me as ‘Stirling’ for a joke, on air). Later, when Gordon Strachan was at Southampton, he was splashed as well. Can you imagine the look on his face? Actually, it's probably best if