Читать книгу Mr Unbelievable - Chris Kamara - Страница 11

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.

There’s no class distinction either, because you’re just as likely to get a flat game at Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge as you are at Goodison Park or the Stadium of Light. When it comes to choosing the games, I try to share it around as best I can. People also moan on about how often I go to the grounds of other teams. They say, ‘You never come to the Emirates, you must hate Arsenal,’ or ‘What’s your bloody problem with Liverpool? You’re never there.’ In truth, it all comes down to geography. I have to think about how easy it will be for me to get back to London that night to present Goals on Sunday the next day. Some grounds are harder than others – Hull is tricky to get back to London from; getting in and out of Birmingham is always a headache. Until I have a massive win at the Grand National, my private plane – Air Kammy – will remain grounded.

On Saturday mornings I’m up and running from the moment I awake, often with a sore head after a night out with Jeff Stelling and the gang in the hotel bar. The boys – Jeff plus Charlie Nicholas, Phil Thompson and sometimes Matt Le Tissier – always meet up on Friday for a drink. It’s a great night out and an essential part of the show. Jeff will usually hold court over several pints of Hoegaarden (I hear he’s angling for a sponsorship deal), while I’ll go to the steam room with Charlie Nicholas for a gossip. After that we’ll go for a drink, usually into the early hours.

This might sound like a jolly boys’ outing to most of you, but the truth is, the hotel bar plays an important role in the success of Soccer Saturday. What we talk about that night usually sets the tone of the show the next day. Jeff will go through all the hot football topics that week and gauge everybody’s opinions. He’ll also pick up rumours and news of what’s been going on in the game from us, the stuff the papers might not have reported. I’m still involved on a day-to-day basis with players, agents and managers, as are Thommo and Charlie, so we can pass on plenty of info to Jeff. He would never categorically come out and reveal the gossip we have passed on, but he might float an idea or an opinion as a result of that confidence.

Different presenters have different methods of preparation. Jeff, for example, drives to a motorway service station in Winchester with a bag full of newspaper cuttings, magazines and an info pack from Sky on all the players, goals and stats. He’ll memorise as much as he can. For me it’s Sky Sports News from the moment I am awake. If I’m covering Stoke against Liverpool at the Britannia Stadium my preparation would be to watch the games of both teams from the previous weekend. I’ll take a look at the teams and if there are any new faces in the side, I’ll ring around and find out a bit more about them. If there’s nothing new, then my work is done. I’m not there to deliver stats and facts on the teams, that’s down to Jeff.

When Jeff comes to me on air, he wants to hear what’s going on in the game, as do the viewers. They want the goals, the drama, the blunders and the controversy. It’s no good me yelling, ‘Unbelievable, Jeff! This is Everton’s sixth win in 10 games! Tim Cahill has just delivered his eighth assist of the season!’ The hard stats are Jeff’s party piece and he works tirelessly on getting them right all week. I’m not going to tell anyone how to do their job, but some Soccer Saturday reporters try to cram their broadcasts with facts and trivia. That’s wrong. You have to tell the studio what you’re seeing, how both teams are playing and who has scored the goals or who has been booked, rightly or wrongly. In other words: ‘Unbelievable, Jeff! Louis Saha couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo! Phil Jagielka is as useful as a fish up a tree today! Marouane Fellaini hasn’t trimmed his beautiful haircut for nine weeks! One–nil!’ I wouldn’t dream of telling the viewers that I had the same hairstyle as Fellani when I was a player. The referees used to blow on my head like a dandelion to check the 90 minutes was up but I’d rather keep that a secret – whoops!

In the words of Roy Walker in Catchphrase, ‘Just say what you see.’

From mid-morning, Kamaracam is up and running. I usually get to the ground as early as I can so I can catch up with the team news and have a chat with a few people at the ground, just to get some extra background on the game and what’s going on at the club. At around 2.30, climbing into the commentary gantry can sometimes be an uncomfortable business. I remember our position at Portsmouth used to be particularly dangerous, until they eventually moved us. Nobody ever actually got injured, but that was a miracle really.

Once the game gets under way, Carly Bassett will communicate with me. She can see me on camera in the studio, but I can only hear her. The production guys also watch all the games, so as soon as someone scores in my game or an incident of note takes place, they can cut to me shortly after.

As the game progresses, Carly will tell me when I’m due to go live. ‘We’ve got three waiting to come in and you’re next.’ It’s a bit like air-traffic control at Heathrow, but without all the drunk pilots and near misses, though some people would argue that we suffer a lot of those as well. It can be a frustrating business. Sometimes there might be a penalty decision or goal and the studio can’t get to me until minutes later. Other times they want me to give a report even though absolutely nothing has happened at all. That’s when I have to say, ‘Boring game, nothing has happened here.’

Sometimes, though, the action goes on behind me without me even knowing. The most famous instance of this – and I say famous because everyone who missed it on Soccer Saturday could watch it on the internet, and plenty have ! – happened when I was commentating on Fulham against Middlesbrough at Craven Cottage. My monitor shows all the action so I can see in detail what’s happening on the pitch when I have to turn my back on it to deliver my report. At one point that day the monitor decided to pack up. Typically this was the moment Fulham chose to score, as you can see from the action replay:

JEFF: ‘Is there any way back for Fulham against Middlesbrough, I wonder? Chris Kamara…’

KAMMY: ‘Well they’re trying, Jeff. Papa Bouba Diop, the man mountain himself, is playing as a striker and he’s got [David] Healy on one side of him and Diamansi Kamara on the other side and … it’s Papa Bouba Diop with a header! AAAAGH! AH! It’s a goal! It’s a goal, Jeff! Is it David Healy? He’s running away… Andy D’Urso’s playing on… Sorry, my monitor’s down again! [Turning around frantically] I’m looking over my shoulder… What? I don’t really know … the assistant… Has he given it? [Complete panic flashes across my face] Oh, the assistant hasn’t given it, I don’t think, Jeff. No! The referee hasn’t given it either… Don’t really know what’s happening, Jeff. Ha, ha! [cue: laughter from the studio panel] Could be, could be not… Ha, ha, ha!’

JEFF: ‘I tell you what, Kammy, it’s not the first time you’ve not known what’s happening, but I can tell you, well, the ball went in from close range, Schwarzer got both hands to it, it’s over the line! There’s no question the ball is over the line, but the referee has not given it. And Fulham, well, 2–1 behind, Middlesbrough still lead, but that ball was a foot and a half over the line before Schwarzer managed to scramble it clear. They’re still playing and there’s going to be real controversy over that one.’

These little disasters have made the show an unbelievable success. Soccer Saturday has definitely revolutionised football coverage – other TV channels have tried to copy it, but they’re still nowhere near as good as we are. It’s also made a name for all the lads working on the show. Most of them had much greater success and fame during their playing careers than I did, and yet today my popularity as part of the Sky gang never fails to amaze me.