Mr Unbelievable

GOAL! 3–2

JEFF: ‘Fratton Park is not a place for people of a nervous disposition. Chris Kamara…’

KAMMY: ‘Jeff, unbelievable. I have to say, what a game this is. Magnificent. But who’d be a goalkeeper? Sylvain Distin goes down the left-hand side, crosses the ball into the box, Marcus Hahnemann comes out like Superman – only difference is, Superman gets the job done. Marcus Hahnemann doesn’t get the job done [cue: laughter in the studio]. Hermann Hreidarsson gets to the ball before him and the net is gaping. It’s in the back of the net off the top of his head. Three–two.’

MISSED PENALTY!

JEFF: ‘Penalty at Fratton Park. Chris Kamara!’

KAMMY: ‘Yeah! Thanks for coming to… I’ve been screaming at you for five minutes. Papa Bouba Diop [the penalty kick is taken behind me. Pompey keeper David James saves] … he’s given away a penalty, Nick Shorey has just taken it and what a save from David James. He’s made up for his error, he’s dived to the left-hand side, he’s grasped the ball, it’s bounced off his hands after he got hold of it, it squirmed away and there was Hreidarsson to kick it away. Papa Bouba Diop should be going for a bath right now because it was a ridiculous penalty, he just handled the ball for no reason. Still three–two.’

GOAL! 4–2

JEFF: ‘Only one word for it, Chris…’

KAMMY: ‘Well and truly buried the banjo. That’s four words, innit? [well, actually, that’s six]. Unbelievable, Jeff! One on one with Benjani and he just strolls past Marcus Hahnemann like he does it every week. There’s the hat-trick, there’s the ball in the bag and there’s the game in the bag for Pompey. Four–two.’

GOAL! 5–2

KAMMY: ‘They are absolutely running riot, Jeff! Reading have just thrown the towel in [I throw an imaginary towel to my left to emphasise the point. More laughter]. It’s Niko Kranjcar. Portsmouth were showboating down the right, the cross came in from Sean Davis and Kranjcar had no right to get the ball, but he did. Five–two.’

GOAL! 5–3

KAMMY: ‘Incredible. You have to admire their resilience because they have come back. It’s James Harper this time with a volley from 16 yards. Bang! David James didn’t see it. Five–three.’

GOAL! 6–3

JEFF: ‘There has been an … it is a rugby score now, isn’t it? Chris Kamara.’

KAMMY: ‘Unbelievable, Jeff. Ha Ha. It’s amazing. It’s raining goals, as they say. This time it’s Sean Davis with a speculative shot from 30 yards which took a slight deflection and sent Marcus Hahnemann the wrong way. What a game. What a game! Six–three.’

PENALTY!

KAMMY: ‘Benjani has gone off the pitch, he got a standing ovation. It is Sunny Muntari with the penalty…’

GOAL! 7–3

KAMMY: ‘And they have scored again, Portsmouth. There were five players fighting over the ball, Muntari got it first, Kranjcar was the player brought down. And I have lost the score, Jeff! What is it?’

GOAL! 7–4

JEFF: ‘There has been another – I know you’re going to find this hard to believe – there has been another goal at Fratton Park. Chris Kamara…’

KAMMY: ‘Jeff. Reading have scored, Nicky Shorey has just plundered one in from about 20 yards. It took a deflection off Sol Campbell. I can’t believe it. I honestly can’t believe it!’

JEFF: ‘Kammy is the only person who hasn’t scored. Referee Mark Halsey must have writer’s cramp by now. Goodness me. Phew. What a game.’

Indeed, what a game it was, one of those rare games that make me realise I should have stopped gaping out of that school window at the football pitches back in Middlesbrough and worked on my maths. Number of goals, not a clue. Number of penalties, not a clue. Number of times he should have hit a barn door with a banjo, not a clue. I own up: adding up isn’t my strong point and that game was the proof. As for hitting a barn door with a banjo, perhaps I should have studied a bit harder at English too, but hey, I’ve got the best job in the world and wouldn’t have got a better one if I’d got a degree or two.

CHAPTER THREE SMILE, YOU’RE ON KAMARACAM… (#ulink_9e30dfaf-1dc0-593e-a4fe-9aa92bd8d42b)

I’ll admit it, when I was first asked to take on the job as a touchline reporter in 1999, I was sceptical. Following my departure from managing Stoke City I flung myself into the media, working for anyone, anywhere who wanted to hire me. I loved my football and needed to be involved, and radio and TV was a good substitute for being on the touchline. Sky producer Jonty Whitehead invited me to work on a show called Soccer Extra with presenter Matt Lorenzo and journalist Brian Woolnough. I also became a regular guest on the Football League live games. I really enjoyed the media work and the lads at the studio seemed to think I was pretty good at it. One of the reporters at the time for Soccer Saturday was my good friend Rob McCaffrey, who convinced his producer Ian Condron to get me involved with Soccer Saturday.

At the time, the programme was finding its feet in terms of reputation and audience, and it was nothing like the cult phenomenon it is today. They also had a pretty heavyweight crew of pundits. The panel was a Who’s Who of top-class footballers: George Best was one of the greatest players in the world in his time, Frank McLintock won the double with Arsenal in 1971, Clive Allen scored 49 goals in one season for Spurs in 1987, and Rodney Marsh was a flair player who excited fans of England, QPR and Manchester City. The fact that they had plenty of medals and top-class experience between them meant that they could criticise the best players and teams in the Premiership.

Meanwhile, I’d had a decent playing career, including an international call-up for Sierra Leone – if I remember rightly they reversed the charges – and I had managed Bradford and Stoke. I had a lot of experience for sure, but my medal haul didn’t match the other guys. Condo had heard me on other programmes talking about the game and he just told me to go ahead and do more of the same for him. Things went really well. Besty was not just a legend but a really top bloke and Marshy kept you on your toes. I loved the odd Saturdays when I was with them, and I became a permanent fixture on the midweek shows which Jeff Stelling used to present in those days. After six months of me being a studio guest Condo decided he had a different role for me.

‘Kammy, I want you to put a camera on you during games,’ he said. ‘As you know we are not allowed to show the action live from the grounds on a Saturday afternoon for contractual reasons, but we want to film you watching the game with the fans in the background.’

I was unconvinced. ‘It won’t work,’ I told him. ‘People are not going to be interested in me watching a game from the stadium.’ Besides, I liked my stints in the studio. Working with Besty and Rodney was a dream come true. Even so, I decided to have a stab at it because it was a new format and nobody had ever tried it before. To my amazement, Sky didn’t help me out at all as regards how I should approach this new venture. I was thrown in at the deep end and shoved in front of a camera, which is generally how they operate. It’s very sink or swim – if you’re good at something, you survive. If you don’t, you’re out.

I know the Beeb sent Gary Lineker away for media training before he started hosting Match of the Day. He returned perfect and polished. There was none of that with me. Instead they just shoved me in front of a camera to see how it worked and, in the beginning, it didn’t. In fact, it looked to a lot of people as if we were filming in a garage with a cardboard cutout of the fans behind us. For some reason we kept getting our angles all wrong. I remember during the 1999–2000 season we did one practice show, but it took well over a month for us to get the look right.

Our first attempt took place at Cambridge, and thankfully it was not live. As I stood on the touchline, I was a nervous wreck. My shakes weren’t helped by the fact that I had managed only three hours’ sleep the night before because I’d been covering a match between Lazio and Chelsea in the Stadio Olympico for Radio 5 Live with Alan Green and Mike Ingham. I arrived back in London late and had to get up very early to make it to Cambridge. I soon discovered that this was an occupational hazard for a ground-hopping touchline reporter.

By the time I got to the post-match interviews, I was all over the place. My chat with Cambridge manager Roy McFarland was a complete disaster. He kept taking the mickey out of me because I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. ‘You don’t know what’s going on, do you, Kammy?’ he kept laughing as I faffed around with my microphone. I really wanted it to work as the recording was going to be shown the following weekend on Soccer Saturday and I knew people would all have opinions on how it went. So I ignored the wisecracks and ploughed on.

The following Saturday I sat in front of the TV to watch Jeff and the boys. I was devastated when it got to three o’clock and the piece had not got an airing. I thought, ‘That’s the end of that, then.’ I had told everyone I knew, and a few thousand that I didn’t know, that I was going to be on with this new format. I thought my TV career as a roving reporter was over. After a sleepless weekend I rang Condo, and he explained that Jeff and the boys had overrun with all their yakking and my piece would be shown the following week. Even better, it would become a regular fixture in the show.

After our second game I really did think that my Sky career was over for good. Oxford versus Walsall was my first live game. Before kick-off, because I was new to the job and unhappy with the camera angle we were giving back to Sky, I was driving rigger/cameraman Colin McDonald crazy! ‘This looks like we are in a garden shed,’ I grumbled. I can’t tell you what he mumbled back under his breath, but I think he wanted me to go forth and multiply. The crowd just looked a hazy mess behind me. With contact made back to the studio through my new headphones (an essential piece of equipment I am never without!), Condo told me, ‘You are going live in 30 seconds.’ That was the cue for a rival cameraman to make himself busy. He had arrived late and hurriedly began setting up his own gear, regardless of me, the keen new reporter getting ready for my big moment. He reckoned I had taken his regular spot. ‘I’ve been coming here for 20 years,’ he ranted. ‘I am here every week.’ He was not a happy man and was not going to bow down to anyone that day. But it didn’t matter to me – he was late, we were ready to roll and I was staying put. Still, I wasn’t expecting him to make an attempt at settling our differences on air! As I went live, he walked across in front of me and the camera, momentarily blacking out the screen for the viewers at home and in the studio. Then, just to make his point, he tried to walk back again, but this time I was ready for him. I put out my left arm to keep him at bay as I spoke to the cameras, but there was clearly a struggle going on. God knows what the viewers at home must have thought. In the studio, Jeff looked pretty surprised, but I put his mind at rest.

‘Don’t worry, Jeff,’ I said through gritted teeth, ‘he won’t be doing it again’, and still holding my adversary at bay I continued with my pre-match report.

When the camera had stopped rolling, the pair of us went toe to toe. We were both braying at each other until Colin pulled us apart. I was furious with him, but moments later I was furious with myself for losing my rag live on air. I was convinced the boys at Sky would be thinking, ‘Thanks, Kammy, but no thanks.’

Thankfully, with the help of Tim Lovejoy and Helen Chamberlain on Soccer AM, the producers saw the funny side. Tim and Helen showed the clip on their Saturday morning programme and absolutely loved it, laughing their heads off. By the second viewing, even I was laughing. By that time, I knew that my job was safe and I was so surprised, it may have been the first time I used the term ‘Unbelievable!’

In those early days, in order to get things right for Kamaracam, myself and Colin the cameraman would often go to the stadiums a day early. We’d scope out the best places to stand and get the background shot just right. At first, I think that a lot of the people who watched the programme back then really believed it was all just a gimmick and we were producing the show in a studio with a blue screen behind us on which we then played crowd images. To shut them up we included more crowd scenes. Occasionally we’d even encourage the fans to jump up and down, just to prove we were really there.

It was important for me to work on my delivery too. My mate Rob McCaffrey – who would later go on to be my co-presenter on Goals on Sunday – spotted the Oxford United incident and called me shortly afterwards. He had found the whole thing hilarious, but said, ‘That wasn’t the Kammy I know, you are coming across like a TV news reporter on location. It was as if you were trying to be like Kate Adie, on the front line in the Falklands.’

He went on to explain that I should be myself in front of the cameras. He knew I could be a very excitable character and he reckoned I should make the most of it, no matter how much of a wally I looked. It was the best advice anyone had given me. These days, I act as naturally as I can. It seems to be popular with quite a few people.

Sometimes it can be tough work, because for every four-all thriller, there can be a crap, goalless draw. Generally, though, there’s always something to get excited about, whether it’s a goal-line clearance, a controversial penalty decision or even a sending-off. I’ll try to inject as much enthusiasm as I can into each incident, because I think that’s what Soccer Saturday fans expect of me. They don’t want me to be negative – they can get that from the guys on the other channel! It also comes naturally because I’m genuinely buzzing to be watching football for a living. I act like a fan when I’m reporting on any game of football: I’m so excited, and I just can’t hide it. Hang on, perhaps I should have been a songwriter thinking up words like that!

Sometimes, it’s very easy to get lost in the moment. I remember Heurelho Gomes dropped a clanger when Spurs lost to Fulham at Craven Cottage in 2009. The ball bounced in front of him and he flapped with his arms as the ball dropped into the net. It was the easiest catch to make, but Gomes blundered big-time. I patched through to the studio that a major incident had taken place and Jeff lined me up.

JEFF: ‘Heurelho Gomes, the Tottenham goalkeeper, has his head in his hands at Craven Cottage. Let’s find out why: Chris Kamara…’

KAMMY: ‘Ha, ha! And so he should have, Jeff! He is absolutely shocking. There’s a shot from Simon Davies … well, he could have thrown his cap on it. And it’s bounced in front of him and, somehow, it’s bounced off his chest and gone into the back of the net. It’s laughable. Unless you’re a Spurs fan…’

I felt bad afterwards because I had got carried away. I was laughing my head off at him. It’s not intentional, you just lose it when you’re commentating. Thankfully, I’m able to say now what a fantastic player he is. A season later he played out of his skin for Spurs at Craven Cottage and kept a clean sheet. I was able to say, ‘Look, this is a different fella. He’s a class goalkeeper.’

Over the years, the mistakes made on the programme have given TV critics – the likes of Ally Ross in the Sun and Ian Hyland in the News of the World – plenty of material. I’m as likely as anyone to make a faux pas. I’m not precious. I love people taking the mickey out of it because what we do isn’t rehearsed. It can’t be. Most of it comes straight out, instinctively, and I’ve always been pretty good at saying it as I see it and retelling the action as accurately as I can.

The official term is Kamaracam. Everyone who goes out on the road now – whether it’s Ian Dowie, Scott Minto or John Solako – works under that title. It’s even on the production sheet, and it used to confuse people at first. I’d have friends from Everton or Newcastle ringing me before games. They’d say, ‘I see you’re at our ground today – fancy a beer after?’ I’d have to explain to them that I wasn’t actually going to be there, it was another presenter working under the term Kamaracam.

I don’t really have any preferences on where I do my reports. To be honest I love going to all the grounds. I’ve always said that you should never judge a book by its cover. In a football match you don’t really know what’s going to happen. I could be freezing my nuts off in front of Bolton versus Wolves, but then you might get a wonder goal out of the blue that could change the whole complexion of the game and indeed unfreeze my nuts. Stoke versus Wigan could be 5–0, but unpredictability is the beauty of football.