Jelleyman’s Thrown a Wobbly: Saturday Afternoons in Front of the Telly. Jeff Stelling

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       6 What The Critics Said

      Sky Sports' Soccer Saturday. A form of worship for some us, but if you're not converted, or have a life, then let me explain. It's all talk and no action in the Soccer Saturday studio. A bunch of fat footballers who spend six bum-numbing hours trying (and often failing) to describe matches with nothing more dramatic for viewers to watch than the shaving adverts that arrive every 20 minutes …

      [They feature] a panel of four ex-pros every week. Typically Matt Le Tissier, Phil Thompson, Alan McInally and Charlie Nicholas. Fence-sitting ‘110 per centers’ to a man, all speaking a Yoda-ish, back-to-front footballers' English and each with their own verbal tics.

      Phil Thompson, for instance, cannot complete a sentence without punctuating it with the words ‘and everything’. A form of Tourette's that would drive a lesser man to beat him with a baseball bat.

      ALLY ROSS, THE SUN

      If Le Tissier is to make the chair his own, he will have to get used to jibes about his size, fitness and attachment to the south coast. ‘it's a joke decision,’ said Le Tissier of Steve Bennett's penalty award for Portsmouth. ‘Something's got to be done about him.’

      ‘Steve Bennett, Gordon Bennett,’ Stelling commented, a sigh accompanying the stiletto. Brilliant.

      ALAN FRASER, DAILY MAIL

      Sportscaster, Jeff Stelling

      Stelling is the presenter of Sky Sports' live football show, Soccer Saturday, and during his tenure his dapper style, lightning wit, corny one-liners and general over-excitement have earned him the title Broadcaster of the Year three times. Despite rumours of a big-money transfer, Stelling has remained loyal to the station, and that news should, as Jeff might say, delight football fans everywhere – from Kevin Nolan and his sisters to the supporters of Brighton and of Hove Albion.

      NO. 51 IN 100 BEST THINGS 1998–2008, GQ

      Who I Like This Week

      The redoubtable Alastair Campbell doesn't need me climbing aboard his bandwagon, but I couldn't help noticing that he wrote a letter to the Guardian this week in which he all but called for Jeff Stelling, the presenter of Sky's Soccer Saturday, to be canonised. Apparently, Campbell was asked a whimsical question before the last general election in 2005: if the New Labour campaign were a person, who would he like it to be? He said, ‘Jeff Stelling,’ to the consternation of those who didn't know Soccer Saturday from a row of onions. For what it's worth, I'm with him all the way. Stelling is a genius. And a cheerful genius, which makes him an even rarer animal. Soccer Saturday has to be the most difficult programme of all to present, but he makes it look a doddle. I'd canonise him, give him a peerage, and make him Rear of the Year.

      BRIAN VINER, THE INDEPENDENT

      [Soccer Saturday] sidekicks have included Rodney Marsh – who once drank 23 bottles of champagne in one session with Malcolm Allison – and George Best, who once took Miss World back to her hotel room, threw £25,000 up in the air and was asked: ‘Where did it all go wrong?’ They were playmakers and playboys, legendary hell-raisers who wouldn't be tamed. Until they met Jeff Stelling.

       DAILY MAIL

      Jeff Stelling, a man of almost average height and equable temperament, is charged with holding [the show] together.

      BILL BORROWS, THE INDEPENDENT

      Sky's Soccer Saturday, said one of the backroom boys, is a bit like the proverbial swan: all calm on screen while everywhere out of shot, people paddle frantically to keep Britain's longest weekly programme afloat.