Jeff Stelling: ‘I want to watch people who know what they are talking about, not influencers’

Jeff Stelling is unlikely to be appointed head of BBC Sport at any time in the near future. But if he were, the first big decision he would be obliged to make would be a simple one. For him, the next presenter of Match of the Day is the most obvious choice.

“Chappers is the man for the job,” he says of Mark Chapman, the current anchor of Match of the Day 2. “Great presenter, nice sense of humour, good rapport with the guests, he’s got to be the man, surely.”

As endorsements go, Chapman could not ask for a more significant one. Stelling is, after all, unquestionably the finest sports broadcaster since Des Lynam hung up his mic. There is, though, just one caveat. Rather like Stelling, Chapman is a middle-aged white bloke (albeit a few years his junior). Which, in a television world in which every executive seems obsessed with the pursuit of a youthful audience, where decisions are made more to satisfy demographics than in the pursuit of excellence, makes his accession far less straightforward than his unmatchable credentials would suggest. Though it is not wise to use a word like demographics in the company of the man who, over the years, single-handedly transformed Saturday afternoon telly.

“Demographics?” Stelling sighs. “I’ve never bought the stuff about a new demographic. It’s a forlorn pursuit to look for a younger audience that probably aren’t interested in the programme anyway by having younger presenters, influencers, social-media types. I’ve never believed that was the way forward. Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve always felt the way to attract an audience of any demographic is to make sure you put out a high-quality product.

“If the programme is watched by mums and dads in their forties, make sure it is good enough so that when the new generation reach their forties it is something they want to watch. If I’m going to hear somebody talking about a football match, I’d rather it was somebody who had played the game and is able to see things people like me standing on the terraces can’t see, than is a big figure on social media.”

Back in 1994, when he began fronting Sky’s Soccer Saturday, decision-making in his business was guided less by demographics and more by instinct. Though in truth, at the time, instinct appeared to have conjured up the most unlikely concept in broadcasting history: a bunch of blokes staring at monitors commenting on football matches the viewer could not see. Under his steerage, however, it quickly became unmissable. Because Stelling proved an alluring combination of mastermind knowledge (honed from hours of meticulous research), comedian’s timing and an unfailing ability to enhance the drama of the moment. Marrying Reithian authority with schoolboy mischief, his aim was to deliver news and laughs in equal measure.

And he was aided and abetted by a first-class roster of former players. Initially it was Frank McLintock, George Best and Rodney Marsh, with Chris Kamara providing the comedy interludes as live reporter. Then came Paul Merson, Phil Thompson, Matt Le Tissier and Charlie Nicholas. The result was unrivalled entertainment, beautifully conducted by Stelling, watched and loved by millions.

Then in 2020, without consulting the man who held it all together, the management hierarchy at Sky decided the programme needed a demographic update. It was all, they reckoned, a little too golf club bar, male, pale and stale. But rather than a gentle refresh, they decided on the mass delivery of P45s: Thompson, Nicholas and Le Tissier were evicted without notice. Stelling resigned in solidarity, but was eventually persuaded to stay on. And for another two football seasons he remained at the helm, with a new supporting cast. He did his best – the running jokes continued, the pace as crucial matches reached their climax was as unrelenting as ever – but somehow the heart of the show had been removed from the building. It was no longer appointment television.

‘It takes years and years to build chemistry’

“That chemistry once constructed was vital,” says Stelling, as he talks to Telegraph Sport after completing a shift at his new employer TalkSport. “Throw it out, you lose everything. It was very difficult to put three new people into that place and expect them to have the same connection. It doesn’t matter how nice they are – and by the way, Clinton Morrison, Boydy [Kris Boyd], Daws [Michael Dawson], they are really good guys – it takes years and years to find that chemistry. And there’s no guarantee you are ever going to find it. So, throw it out at your peril.”

Those last couple of years, he says, while still charged with the adrenalin rush of steering the programme through, were something of an anticlimax.

“I felt at times in the latter stages it was frustrating. I wanted to do things other people didn’t want to do. My ideas for the show, my ideas for features. We used to run lovely long features – we had six hours to fill. But they stopped. I was told features were too old hat, the future was talking heads. I disagreed with that hugely. But I lost out. At the end of the day it might have appeared to be my show, but it wasn’t. Other people made the decisions. That’s what management’s job is.”

Does he now regret that he did not stick to his original plan to resign back in 2020?

“Yes, I do,” he says. “But I’d been cocooned by Sky for so many years. This wonderful, privileged life. I was treated very well, got a good salary. I still enjoyed a lot of it, not maybe as much as I had done, but to step outside was a big move. I guess I was afraid of the big wide world. Ultimately, if I’d gone at the same time as them, maybe it might have been the right thing for me.”

‘I had the best job in the world for nearly 30 years’

Now he has left the company altogether – bequeathing the Saturday afternoon chair to Simon Thomas – Stelling has put pen to paper to deliver his side of the story. Saturday Afternoon Fever is his newly published autobiography. A rollicking whip through of his life, like the show itself it offers a consistently entertaining read. But at the book’s heart is the misjudged destruction of Sky’s crown jewel of a programme by its own executives.

“I didn’t want to offend anyone,” he says. “I had the best job in the world for nearly 30 years. I didn’t want to do any character assassination. But wherever I go I get people saying, ‘When are you going back on Sky Jeff?’. And I suppose I wanted to give an explanation why I’m not.”

The scale of the management mistake was something Stelling came to realise as he went on a nationwide theatre tour with Thompson, Nicholas, Merson and Le Tissier. The reaction from the audiences packing the halls was absolutely consistent: it’s not the same without you guys. Though Stelling appears to retain little rancour about what happened.

“Listen, life moves on. Everybody has accepted it and got on with it. None of us has any complaints.”

He pauses for a moment, then grins.

“Well, I say none of us. I know Tommo doesn’t, Charlie doesn’t.”

Le Tissier, the great conspiracy theorist, clearly reckons the firing must be connected to his views on Covid jabs and aeroplane trails.

Stelling certainly has moved on. His life now consists of presenting the breakfast show on TalkSport two days a week and fulfilling a plethora of theatre engagements, with a two-person show delivered with his former Sky colleague Bianca Westwood.

“Having stepped out into the big wide world to find people still want you at 69 is fantastic,” he says. “All I want to do is carry on doing what I can while people want to listen to me. Barry Hearn was in the studio this morning. He’s 76, he gets as much joy now from doing a deal as he did 30 years ago. That’s sort of the way I feel.”

‘We old white blokes have had our day in the sun’

So, given he has little intention of slowing down, maybe the BBC should do something really radical and appoint as the programme’s new presenter … Jeff Stelling.

He laughs at the very idea.

“No, no, we old white blokes have had our day in the sun,” he smiles. “Hard as it is – and believe me I’ve found it hard – we’ve just got to accept we had a great run, and say good luck to the next lot coming in. If they enjoy it as much as I have done, then they will have a wonderful time.”

Saturday Afternoon Fever, by Jeff Stelling, is published by Headline, out now.