Читать книгу Jelleyman’s Thrown a Wobbly: Saturday Afternoons in Front of the Telly - Jeff Stelling - Страница 10

So what really happens when Soccer Saturday takes to the air from midday to six o'clock every weekend? Well, dear reader, picture yourself in the following scenario and I shall talk you through a couple of hours of chaos and calamity …

DATE: A Saturday between the months of August and May.

TIME: Twelve-ish.

LOCATION: The living room. The pub. A shop window of Dixons, Currys, or maybe the electrical goods floor of any popular department store.

Ladies and gentlemen, you are watching Sky Sports.

Welcome to Soccer Saturday, a TV magazine of madness, mayhem and general buffoonery that somehow, comprehensively, details the afternoon's football happenings – goals, scorers, bookings, sendings-off, half-time scores and final results – as presented by me, your host, Jeff Stelling. But it's not just a goals and results service. From roughly half past two in the afternoon, when we travel around the grounds for team line-ups and injury updates, until the rundown of final scores at five o'clock and post-match interviews until six, we provide a comprehensive football news-feed. It is, as the Independent once argued:

‘The very next best thing to watching a game in the flesh and an unmissable part of every Saturday afternoon for those who either live on their own, or might be doing so soon if they “don't stop watching that bloody programme”. Apart from live football, it is the biggest ratings-puller in the Sky Sports firmament …

The pitch document must have made quite interesting reading, but if you love football this is almost all you need. It is hardcore football pornography and can be accessed on Sky Sports from noon to 6pm every Saturday during the football season and occasionally midweek.’

Sounds great, doesn't it? And it is, but of course it's also bloody chaos because while the show does have a structure, this is a very loosely-scheduled timetable and in no way a formalized itinerary of events. It's generally best not to plan too precisely for an afternoon of football action on the telly. As anyone in tune with our award-winning, laugh-a-minute, comprehensive, all-singing, all-dancing show will be aware: it's generally best to expect the unexpected, especially when match reporter and cult hero Chris ‘Kammy’ Kamara is involved. But more of that later.