Читать книгу Jelleyman’s Thrown a Wobbly: Saturday Afternoons in Front of the Telly - Jeff Stelling - Страница 19

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.