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

TIME: 4:01

THE SECOND HALF

The only way to deal with the big rush of information that invariably hits the videprinter in the second half is to babble your way through the latest scores and scorers as quickly as possible, desperately hoping that you haven't missed anything out. I always try to make sure to mention at least every goal, even if it's disappeared off the screen - it's awful for a fan to turn their back for a split second or disappear for a cuppa only for their score to flash up. Over the years you develop a sense of how to separate the important news from the trivia, and goals are the most important part of the show.

When they flood in at the business end of the show - which is basically the last 10 minutes of a game - you have to dispense with the gags, puns and banter. There's simply too much information to relay to the viewer. And even if Kenny ‘The Good Doctor’ Deucher has scored (a cult Soccer Saturday figure, more of which we'll come to later) and you want to make a gag about Granny Mae (likewise), there simply isn't time. You always have to remember that, despite the humour that's so prevalent in the studio for much of the show, it's vital to keep the flow of results going. Making gags only serves as a needless distraction at this stage.

Behind the cameras, it is chaos, but it's organized chaos. The show is orchestrated by two people: Karen Wilmington (Wilma) and Ian Condron, our director and producer respectively. These two have to be absolutely on the ball behind the scenes, watching for scores, deciding which match reporters to cut to and debating where the action is so we can seamlessly switch from report to report. Obviously the tempo and pace of the show increase as we reach the final whistle. My role is to organize everyone on the panel, ordering them to be succinct and straight to the point when they're relaying the information from their TV screens to the viewer. The usual cry from the producers at that time is, ‘Walshy be brief! Walshy be brief! Fucking hell, Walshy, be brief!’ as panellist Paul Walsh rumbles on through an update. Despite his prolific goal-scoring record for Liverpool and Spurs, he has absolutely no idea what the word ‘quick’ means.

By this stage of the show, I am in my stride, and shouting and babbling like a madman. If I had to start at this pace from three o'clock, then it would be a bit of a problem, but because the whole show has been building towards these final dramatic minutes, I don't really notice the increased drama or tempo. If there is late drama – which there always is – then the shouting and the cries among Thommo, Charlie or Le Tiss make it so much more exciting. It's brilliant fun and the chaos works really well on air.

At the same time, you have to write all of the information down as it's happening, because later, as you recap, you'll need to know who has scored the goals as the games come to a close. I must say that in the last 10 to 15 minutes, the Scottish Second Division and Third Division fall by the wayside. I'll still pay them lip service and mention the scores, but I won't always catch up with the scorers and events until the final results. Something has to give slightly in the last five minutes.

This part of the show has to be the most entertaining. There are lots of different ways of maintaining excitement, though not all of them are popular with viewers, depending on how your team have done that afternoon. I remember there was a game at Manchester United and I was about to go to Charlie who was commentating, leading in with the words, ‘There has been a late penalty at Old Trafford, so you won't need me to tell you who it's gone to.’ it's a common complaint that the penalties always go to Man United at Old Trafford, especially in the closing stages of games, so it was our way of acknowledging the fact.

You have to be careful, however. I once got an email from a very angry fan of bottom club Derby who had been enraged by one of my links. After cutting to their game against in-form Spurs, I announced, ‘There's been a goal at Pride Park and it might not be the way you'd expect it to go [that is, to Spurs]. But on the other hand it might be.’ Derby had conceded and the next day a fan complained that I'd teased him, and demanded a public apology:

‘Jeff Stelling is bang out of order. I'm a Derby fan and he insinuated that we'd scored against Spurs when we hadn't. It was infuriating. He must be reprimanded.’

I understand it can be bloody irritating to people, but it's only irritating if it's going against you. When the results are going your way, you tend to feel less annoyed about the presentation of facts. And of course, there's a lot more riding on these results than simply pride - football spread betting is so big these days that the number of corners in a game can swing huge amounts of money either way, especially on the panel, all of whom are shameless gamblers. Often, the likes of Charlie and Merse are sitting there with their spread-betting coupons, counting the goals and hanging on my every word - when they should be watching the game in front of them.

It happens outside the studio, too. A friend of mine, Harry Findlay, who is a professional gambler, watches the show religiously every Saturday. He always says to me, ‘You do my bloody brains in, because you never know which way the goal has gone when you introduce a match report.’ I'm quite proud of that. You have to create some drama to entertain the folks at home.

It can be difficult to keep your composure when the scores of my team, Hartlepool, flash up on the videprinter. I might be reading out another result and then see their name appear at the bottom of the screen. It takes all my concentration to remain focused, because like any fan, I want to know how they are doing on a Saturday afternoon. Off-screen, I'll be punching the air or, more than likely, looking like a picture of doom and gloom.

The other distraction I face is that, as the excitement builds during the afternoon, my vocal cords are put under a tremendous strain. There's a lot of shouting going on, but so far I've managed to maintain my voice, though there have been some close calls. I had one email after a particularly hoarse afternoon saying, ‘Jeff, mate, you sound like Rod Stewart after eating a bale of hay, man! Get someone to the chemist's to get you a bottle of Sanderson's throat specific mixture, it'll have you singing like Chris Kamara during a 10-goal thriller. Get well soon, from Leon the Burnley fan.’

I'm not like Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston - I'm not one for drinking milk-and-honey concoctions before I go on air, though I do treat my body like a temple the night before and try not drink too much alcohol.

TIME: 4:45-ish

THE FULL-TIME SCORES/POST-MATCH ANALYSIS

It's a job to keep your concentration at this point. The panel are a constant distraction. Because they've finished for the afternoon, they're often talking and messing around, but generally they know not to push it too far. Still, there have been times when I've had to say, ‘Look guys, will you shut the fuck up?’ Offmic, of course. Former Villa striker Alan McInally is the worst, because he's a right old woman. He'll be sitting there with the other maids - John Salako (former Palace midfielder) and Paul Walsh - gossiping away. I always think, ‘Do you mind?’

Sometimes you can hear the research team working away in the Sky Sports studio behind us. I remember Rodney would often stand up - sometimes we would even be live - and shout, ‘Will you lot shut up?!’ Then he'd carry on as if nothing had happened. So it can be distracting, yes, but I use all of my professional experience and charm to remain composed.

TIME: 5:17

POST-MATCH INTERVIEWS

This is the most difficult part of the day in many respects, mainly because it feels like the calm after the storm. During the first part of the show you're building up to kick-off. There are a lot of laughs, the adrenaline is racing and it's really good fun. When the games start, the show and my job increase in tempo until I almost hit fever pitch at four-thirty. The pace doesn't relent until around five o'clock, give or take a few needless minutes of injury time (at Old Trafford usually) and delayed kick-offs.

After this rush and the reading of the final scores, there's a natural lull. It's important to keep some sense of momentum going, but that really depends on the post-match interviews we're picking up from around the grounds and the assessment you get from the guys on the panel. When it comes to evaluating the games, what we don't want from the likes of Charlie and Thommo is, ‘Well, in the 10th minute, this happened. In the 32nd minute, this happened …’ and so on and so forth. What we need is a succinct evaluation of the game and some recurring themes – poor defending, exposure at set pieces, the form of one or two particular players – to summarize the results. We don't want lists. We want interpretations of what has happened, just like every watching fan.

You hope these summaries are lit up by some entertaining postmatch interviews. Gordon Strachan was always a dream to get on the show when he was the manager at Southampton and Coventry City. I remember one reporter asked him if he could have a ‘quick word’. In a flash, Gordon responded, ‘Yes. Velocity,’ before turning on his heels and walking away. It was fantastic moment. In another one of his post-match press conferences, a hapless journalist asked, ‘Gordon, do you think you're the right man for the job?’ He sighed. ‘No, of course I'm not. I'm nothing like the best man for the job, but I'm the best they could get at that moment in time.’

If you ask Strach a stupid question, you're going to get murdered, but it makes for great telly. One of our guys even asked whether he became depressed after losses and poor performances. ‘Depressed?’ snapped Strach. ‘Depressed?! I get suicidal. I'm going to go home and lock myself in a dark room, I'm not going to come out. Not ever.’

This turned into a five-minute rant on what he was going to do when he got home and brightened what was an otherwise dull close to the evening. You can also rely on the likes of Fergie, Arsène Wenger and Paul Jewell to deliver good interviews. Martin Jol was very good when he was in charge at Spurs. And, of course, there was the Special One, Jose Mourinho. He was a godsend. But again, he could be miserable. During one interview he answered every question with the words, ‘Yes, no, yes, no …’ much to the despair of the Sky crew at work. Eventually Mourinho said, ‘Have you got any more of these questions?’ before walking off. But even though he was being rude to a reporter (who I believe was making his Sky debut), it was great to watch.

Managers and players can be difficult at the best of times, and even more so at the worst - when they've lost. I can understand why it's difficult for footballers to articulate their art minutes after swapping shirts and applauding the fans. They must be knackered. It's also worth noting that a TV crew would never grab Phil Collins as he walked off stage from a Genesis gig (my guilty pleasure, I apologize) to talk a live audience through a particularly powerful drum solo. So, put in that context it seems absurd to quiz a player on things they probably can't even remember. Then, of course, there is the political implications of giving a controversial answer: criticizing a referee or team-mate can land you in hot water with the club or the FA. Having said that, players and coaches are celebrities - without the public interest, they wouldn't be in the privileged financial position they find themselves in today, so they should just grin and bear it.

If it's any consolation, it's also bloody tough on our side of the cameras. I remember a radio interview I did at Arsenal when I was a reporter for LBC in London. You used to grab players as they walked through the marble halls at Highbury and I remember I'd been asked to talk to two young players who had just made their debuts - Paul Davies and Chris White. I approached Paul as he came out of the dressing rooms and convinced him to do a live link.

I said, ‘Well Paul, you must have been pleased with your contribution there …’

He looked confused. ‘Well, er, yeah …’

‘And you nearly came close a couple of times …’

‘Well, not that much, but I'm still pleased.’

‘And how do you think you teamed up with X, Y and Z in mid-field?’

‘Well, OK, but it's not really my role.’

‘Well, thanks, Paul.’

‘No problem, but why do you keep calling me Paul? My name's Chris White.’

So I understand, painfully, the difficulties of interviewing players under pressure – that was probably one of the most embarrassing moments of my career. That said, I, more than anyone, can become frustrated at the interviewing techniques of many football reporters. It really should be a simple business, but sometimes they will answer their own questions before the interviewee has had a chance to open his gob, which is really infuriating. For example, someone will thrust a mic in front of Rafa Benitez and say, ‘So great result today … well done, the way you set out your side with so and so on the left and so and so on the right, it was perfect, absolutely perfect … it worked a treat.’

And all the manager can say to that is, ‘Thanks.’

Crikey, it's hardly Sir David Frost taking down former US president Richard Nixon, is it? So generally, after the dramas, the highs, the lows, the shouting and the screaming of a Soccer Saturday afternoon, it can be a low-key end.

TIME:

6:00 AFTER THE SHOW

With the show over, we'll sort out the various bets which have been laid before the programme began. At this point, the two real challenges are to get Charlie Nicholas to pay up in something other than Scottish notes and to get any sort of cash out of Paul Walsh. He never has any! By this point, I am absolutely exhausted. I'll just drive home to Winchester and watch Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway. The likes of Charlie and Thommo get a plane home. Sometimes they'll bump into people who have been involved in the games. Referee Mark Clattenburg will often run into them. When he sees the boys, he'll often say, ‘How did I do today?’ And they'll reply, ‘Crap.’

I'm absolutely spent afterwards. I remember when Big Sam Allardyce came onto the show, he found that he enjoyed it, but he reckoned it was a long haul. And it is, especially for the boys: once they've done their match reports, they have very little to do apart from twiddle their thumbs and sit quietly. Me, I'm dreaming of my sofa in Winchester and a pint of nice, ice cold Hoegaarden.

3 Motorway Service Stations, Wimpy Burgers And Medium Lattes (Full Fat, Please): Preparing for Soccer Saturday (#ulink_e4c7239b-2e97-51c8-801a-ee0a027e4838)

To the untrained eye, Winchester's motorway service station, positioned as it is on the M3, is just a run-of-the-mill stop-off point: a loo break for passing travellers; a lunch haven for weary truckers travelling towards the south coast with a consignment of Kerry Katona-endorsed frozen lasagnes. Inside, there's not much more to pass the time than a Wimpy, some fruit machines, a WHSmith's and, in one corner, a modest branch of Costa Coffee. But despite these modest surroundings, it's from this very spot that most of my research for the well-oiled Soccer Saturday fact machine takes place.

Every week, with a stack of newspaper cuttings, stat packs and material downloaded from the World Wide Web (no, not that kind - not unless I'm researching a piece on Dwight Yorke's ex-girlfriends anyway), I'll load up on caffeine and absorb reams of info, figures and snippets of useless trivia. This is quite a down-at-heel environment in which to work, I know, and this revelation may come as a shock to some fans of the show, who, for reasons I cannot fathom, seem to think that I have a glamorous office at home, surrounded by up-to-the-minute data and TV screens playing sports bulletins and non-stop football. I wish. In fact, I have fantasized on many occasions about ‘The Stellodrome’ - an underground compound similar to the one used by Robert Downey Jr in Iron Man, its high-tech interior consisting of a cavern of HD plasma-screen TVs, with banks of blinking computers downloading the latest Opta Index stats. In one corner, a ‘Bat Phone’-style communications link even patches me through to the offices of Sir Alex Ferguson, Fabio Capello and Chris Kamara. Well, Chris Kamara at the very least.

The truth is far less glamorous. I can usually be found staring dolefully into a car park, the rain drizzling down the service station windows, as my latte turns cold. Kammy might ring on the mobile, and sometimes, if I'm feeling racy, I'll head into Winchester and take a corner in Caffè Nero. But generally much of the studio magic and preparation takes place from a plastic table in the corner of a food court, my thoughts interrupted only by the sound of a jackpot on the nearby ‘fruity’.

Why a service station, I hear you ask? Well, firstly, I live nearby, which means I can take a drive out there whenever I want, but I mainly visit this modest spot for a bit of peace and quiet. When I first started working on the show, my kids weren't quite school age and so doing any homework became problematic, especially as I found much of my research screwed into paper footballs and covered in a charming shade of pink crayon when my back was turned. Since then, Winchester Services has become a rather familiar makeshift office, though any ‘Stelling-ettes’ planning on mobbing me as I scan the sports pages of the South London Press should note that I tend to switch between the northbound and southbound stations, just to keep the stalkers on their toes.

Generally, I'm left to my own devices. Well, who would want to approach a man surrounded by bags stuffed with local newspapers and magazines? Occasionally people will recognize me, but they'll usually pass me off as ‘someone who looks like that bloke from the football show on the telly, only he's a lot shorter’, which suits me fine. I have a week's worth of news to go through, not to mention all the results, league tables and goalscorers from the previous weekend, so the less hassle the better.

In reality, this is probably the hardest part of the job - I get the groundwork done in the week so I have all the info at hand when it comes to Saturday afternoon. A lot of people have asked me whether I memorize the stats and information I present on the show, but the truth is that, while I do have a certain amount of knowledge that I can bring to Soccer Saturday without any assistance, I also have a set of papers positioned discreetly on my desk, so I can refer to them at all times. Each sheet has statistical info on all the games being played that day, along with interesting facts and figures on the teams involved, and all the vital info including league positions, numbers of games won and top goalscorers.