Jelleyman’s Thrown a Wobbly: Saturday Afternoons in Front of the Telly

Jelleyman’s Thrown a Wobbly: Saturday Afternoons in Front of the Telly
Jeff Stelling

The cult SkySports Soccer Saturday anchorman delivers a volley of entertaining and informative anecdotes about life in front of the videprinter.Jeff Stelling is a legend amongst football fans. To the millions unable to get to their teams' games on Saturday afternoons, the next best thing is undoubtedly the pleasurable company of Jeff and the Sky Sports videprinter for a cosy marathon on the sofa.If someone's got to reveal that your beloved team have just gone 3-0 down away from home and had a man sent off, it's best if it's consummate professional Jeff who breaks the news to you. Avid Hartlepool fan Jeff knows our pain and shares our joy…but mostly he knows our pain.The long-time host of SkySports' iconic Soccer Saturday show has become a cult figure, universally admired for his encyclopaedic knowledge of the game, his genuine and unlimited enthusiasm for ALL levels of football, and his wicked sense of humour which makes the six-hour long show simply whiz by.Jellyman's Thrown a Wobbly is a deliciously chaotic, hugely entertaining, anecdote-ridden, humorous taste of life in the Soccer Saturday studio. Hear what Jeff has to say about some of the show's legendary pundits over the years – ex-players such as George Best, Rodney Marsh, Chris Kamara, Charlie Nicholas and Matt Le Tissier. Be a fly on the wall of the hotel bar on Friday nights as Jeff and his guests gather for a natter and few drinks.Get the inside track on all those great one-liners:• "Mansfield Town's Gareth Jellyman has been shown the red card for dissent. Looks like Jellyman's thrown a wobbly."• "Darlington's equaliser has been scored by Guyain Ndumbu-Nsungu. Very much a case of local boy makes good." (He's from Congo.)• "They'll be dancing in the streets of Total Network Solutions tonight."• "James Brown's grabbed a second for Hartlepool. I feel good!"Jellyman's Thrown a Wobbly goes a long way to demonstrate how a six-hour long, studio-based show with no live action pictures and featuring men gazing into TV monitors which the viewer can't see, can hold a huge audience enthralled every Saturday afternoon between August and May.

Jellyman's

Thrown a Wobby

Saturday Afternoons in Front of the Telly

Jeff Stelling

Contents

Introduction - This is not a rant … (#ueb34222c-428f-51e3-b550-70ff73d905fd)

Part 1 - The Cult of Soccer Saturday (#u6fedc995-bd96-5fe2-ab6a-9b5a9fc44204)

Chapter 1 - A Short History Of Nearly Everything: (To Do With Soccer Saturday) (#u6dc9fabc-0e0a-5dc8-9f96-9cf0bd5fac49)

Chapter 2 - Any Given Saturday (#u79b025a0-87f3-5ff8-b47c-8aa23fc29fce)

Chapter 3 - Motorway Service Stations, Wimpy Burgers And Medium Lattes (Full Fat, Please): Preparing for Soccer Saturday (#u52ab81fd-75d0-54ee-8b1a-33b811ff9481)

Chapter 4 - You Can Say That Again: The Catchphrases Of Soccer Saturday (#uf058f546-dcc2-5978-9779-0bae22928d33)

Chapter 5 - The Jeff Stelling Drinking Game (#u0fe32940-9d12-54c6-9b61-bc247f113d19)

Chapter 6 - What The Critics Said (#uc5737aaa-5086-5d8b-972b-f73fbda8b5e6)

Chapter 7 - The Sky Effect (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 - Ranting, Raving and General Mania: Viewer Correspondence to the Soccer Saturday Studio (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 - Don't Touch That Remote Control! (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 - A Selection of Soccer Saturday's Greatest Gaffes, Bloopers and One-Liners (#litres_trial_promo)

Part 2 - Introducing The Real Crazy Gang: The Soccer Saturday Panel (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 - Welcome To The Muppet Show (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 - Hotel Babylon (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 - Gorgeous George (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 - Bigmouth Strikes Again: The People Versus Rodney Marsh (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 - ‘Unbelievable!’: Eleven Facts You Didn't Know About Chris Kamara. And One You Probably Did (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 - Cocoa, Pipe and Slippers (Né Champagne) Charlie (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 - ‘Sit Down, Pinocchio!’ (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18 - The Magic Man (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 19 - A Big Fish In A Small Studio (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 20 - Uncle Frank (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 21 - Introducing The Best (And Worst) Of The Rest (#litres_trial_promo)

Part 3 - Being Jeff (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 22 - In The Beginning (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 23 - ‘I'm Not A Celebrity: … Get Me Out Of Here Anyway!’ (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 24 - Cable Guy: (Well, Satellite TV Guy If We're Being Pedantic, But There Isn't A Hollywood Movie Of The Same Title …) (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 25 - Supporting Hartlepool (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 26 - ‘One From The Bottom and Two From The Top.’: How I Got The Countdown Job (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 27 - The Real Jeff Stelling: (In A 1980s-Style Football Interview) (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 28 - Frequently Asked Questions: (At Cocktail Parties) (#litres_trial_promo)

Index (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Introduction This is not a rant … (#ubefcac5b-0814-58ac-9d64-91439f167c6c)

… But on the sixth day, God created Saturday.

Well, maybe, but during my more reflective moments, I'd like to think He designed it as a reward - something to look forward to during the working weekdays and those soulless evenings on the sofa in front of Corrie, Big Brother and Location, Location, Lo-bloody-cation. He stuffed it full of football, goals, drama, dodgy refereeing decisions and penalty appeals to cheer our souls and set our pulses racing. He gave us beer and pies as a refreshing accompaniment. And as an afterthought, He then gave us Sunday to deal with the hangovers and indigestion, while watching even more football and stuffing our faces with more food. Oh, and going to church, of course.

Minor blasphemy aside, though, I figured it would be a fitting way to begin this book by telling you exactly why Saturday is my favourite day of the week, mainly because I'm guessing it's yours, too, otherwise you wouldn't be reading these very pages. Unless you're a judge for the Pulitzer Prize, in which case you're permitted to hate Saturdays as much as you like as long as you look very favourably on these pages. But for most of us here, Saturdays represent a moment of weekly nirvana: twenty-four hours dedicated to superstition, strange rituals, long walks to the train station with siblings, friends and parents. It's about the little details: the rustling sports pages in the newspapers, the TV magazine shows (like my very own), listening to debate programmes on the radio, stumbling into drunken, post-match arguments in the pub, and engaging in long conversations during the late hours, all focused on one subject: football. Sweet, sweet football.

And god, it's great, isn't it? I remember that even as a kid, Saturday always held that extra special holiday quality from the minute I woke up in the morning to the moment my head hit the pillow in the evening. For years it was the bus to Hartlepool's Victoria Park ground, the short walk to the stadium, the smell of police-horse dung in the street, the whiff of frying onions, the first pint of the day in the local pub (after my 18th birthday of course), the first glimpse of the pitch, the ref's whistle, the shouting and the screaming and the ranting and the raving. Then there was the half-time pie and the half-time queue for the toilet. This was topped off with some more ranting and raving and screaming and shouting, before the shrill of the final whistle and the inevitable, crushing, demoralizing sting of defeat and the slow trudge home.

I wouldn't change it for anything else. Even now, the thrill of sitting in the hot seat in the Soccer Saturday studio is special. From the moment the first dab of make-up and ‘guy-liner’ has been stroked onto my face, through to the final results and post-match interviews, I'm usually on the edge of my seat, reacting to every goal, gaffe, sending-off, penalty decision and moment of high drama. Of course, it's not quite the same as sitting at Victoria Park in the wind and the rain from the North Sea, but it's up there.

And, of course, I get to spend my Saturday afternoons with some pretty impressive figures in football (and Paul Merson), among them Matt Le Tissier, Charlie Nicholas, Phil Thompson, Clive Allen, George Best, Rodney Marsh, Paul Walsh, Alan Mullery, Frank McLintock and Tony Cottee. And let's not forget our roving reporter, cult (yes, cult) hero and giggling moustachioed friend, Chris ‘Kammy’ Kamara. Who wouldn't want to shoulder this cast of football superheroes on a Saturday?