Jeff Stelling special: The departing face of Soccer Saturday on an incredible 29 years
The Sky Sports Football Podcast
Sky Sports
4 • 718 Ratings
🗓️ 28 May 2023
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jeff talks us through his three decades in the hotseat, what he’ll miss most about being the face of Saturday afternoon TV and the best and worst moments that stick in his mind down the years.
From George Best to Chris Kamara and everyone between, Jeff reveals how he made guests feel so at ease in the Soccer Saturday studio, how he seemed to have a statistic about every player from every league and why fronting ‘Sports Saturday’ back in 1994 didn’t seem like the most appealing job in the world back then – how times change.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Sky Sports Football Podcast brought to you by Bet365, where every now biting nil-nil, every bizarre VAR, every foregone conclusion, bad pass, slam dunk, tap-in, full-start, dead heat, and absolutely expected defeat is amazing. |
| 0:17.3 | From football to tennis and ice hockey to motorsport. Whatever the moment, it's never |
| 0:22.8 | ordinary at Bet 365. |
| 0:35.2 | Hello and welcome to a special edition of Essential Footfoot from Sky Sports. |
| 0:40.3 | I'm Ron Walker and when I say today's show is a special edition, I'm not joking because I'm joined by a member of TV royalty on today's edition in the form of the man, the myth, the legend, Jeff Stelling on his final day in the Sky Sports News hot seat after 29 years at the top. |
| 0:58.9 | Now, Jeff, thank you so much for your time for today's show. |
| 1:02.6 | As we start this podcast, it's about 90 minutes before your final show, your final soccer special. |
| 1:10.5 | How are you feeling on what must be a bit of a strange day? |
| 1:12.6 | It's a very strange day. |
| 1:13.6 | It's a sort of out-of-body experience, really, because, you know, even in the years I've |
| 1:20.6 | been here, you know, when I was in my 40s, you never think this guy is going to come in my |
| 1:25.6 | 50s. |
| 1:26.6 | Even till the last two or three years, didn't think this day was going to come. |
| 1:30.3 | But, you know, as they say, oh, good things come to an end. |
| 1:34.3 | I've had a lot of years of doing the best job in the world. |
| 1:37.3 | And I mean that the best job in the world, you know. |
| 1:41.3 | Couldn't really play the game. |
| 1:43.3 | It was a Sunday morning football. They called me |
| 1:45.1 | Chopper Stelling. So to be able to talk about the game, mix with some of the legends of the game, |
| 1:50.7 | and have a lot of fun in doing so over the years. It's just been fantastic. But yeah, |
| 1:56.8 | slightly surreal feeling at the moment. I mean, it doesn't sound too bad when you put it like that. |
| 2:01.6 | What are you going to say of all of those things and anything else that you're going to miss most about this big job? |
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