Mr Unbelievable. Chris Kamara

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       CHAPTER THREE SMILE, YOU’RE ON KAMARACAM…

      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. СКАЧАТЬ