It’s 04:30 on a freezing winter morning and Jeff Stelling’s alarm pipes up. A couple of seconds later he’s off the bed.
That is proper, he is all go from the primary beep. No dilly-dallying – straight right into a inflexible routine and out of the resort at a selected time. What did you count on from one in every of soccer’s most exuberant males?
Lengthy earlier than the solar will rub its bleary eyes, Stelling is already clocking in at talkSPORT’s base by London Bridge, getting ready for 4 hours of banter with Ally McCoist and jousting with the nation’s callers from 6am. That is Stelling’s typical scene on Mondays, Tuesdays, and typically Wednesdays.
Colin from Cockermouth thinks Pep Guardiola ought to be sacked. Warren from Wetwang dials in to announce that Colin is, biologically talking, a turd. Any individual from someplace, thanks to your name mate however you are mumbling such as you’ve acquired a sock in your mouth.
You must marvel on the man’s power at 70. Day by day Mail Sport speaks with him forward of the launch of his new podcast, The Jeff Stelling Present with OLBG. Sure, you heard that appropriately, he is beginning one other presenting dedication. And he nonetheless talks, smiles, and laughs with all of the gigawatts he poured into Soccer Saturday for 25 years till 2023.
‘I find it irresistible,’ he says. ‘I really feel precisely the identical as I did once I was in my mid-30s, my mid-40s, my mid-50s. I don’t see any cause to cease. So long as individuals ask me to do it, I’m going to hold on.
Jeff Stelling is launching a brand new podcast with OLBG – and he is nonetheless as enthusiastic as ever
He’s soccer broadcasting royalty and was made an MBE at Buckingham Palace in 2024
‘Folks will inform me, “you’re an outdated fart, you’re out of contact with trendy views,” and typically they do now! Generally I get referred to as a dinosaur – a pet hate, by the best way. If anyone texts me, don’t name me a dinosaur! It doesn’t matter if I’m 70 and also you’re 17. Our opinions have gotten equal advantage.’
At his coronary heart, Stelling is not only a sports activities nut – he is a gifted storyteller. In his new podcast with OLBG, he’ll have free reign to interview visitors from throughout the sporting world, and he is eager to listen to their deeper tales.
‘It was a chance to do a podcast which wasn’t simply sports-based however to search out out a bit bit about individuals’s lives,’ Stelling says.
‘Will probably be individuals from the world of sport however we could not consider which video games and trophies they’ve received. I’d like to listen to their backstory. At the present time, they’re so managed that we hear their solutions about that recreation, that race, that match, however we don’t essentially know them as human beings.’
That is Stelling’s first foray into podcasting and he’ll mix it along with his function at talkSPORT. He names his dream visitors as Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho – the latter an ‘enigma’ who he describes as ‘charming, swish, humorous, moody, offensive’.
The media panorama has modified quite a bit since he began at Sky in 1992, and virtually unrecognisably since he started on the Hartlepool Mail after leaving faculty.
We don’t have to revisit the modifications to Soccer Saturday. It’s been greater than half a decade since Matt Le Tissier, Phil Thompson and Charlie Nicholas had been let go and Stelling has expressed his disappointment at that earlier than.
In reality, he was able to give up in 2020 and once more in 2022 earlier than Sky satisfied him to remain. He doesn’t pay an excessive amount of consideration to the beloved flagship present nowadays – principally as a result of he’s both attending a Hartlepool match or listening to the commentary – however he nonetheless likes what he sees.
Stelling’s new podcast will inform the deeper tales of individuals concerned in sport, away from simply their careers
He’ll mix this new dedication along with his common morning exhibits on talkSPORT
What he does worry extra broadly is the concept of relentlessly ‘chasing a youthful viewers’. Sky Sports activities have been criticised for an output which many really feel is engineered for social media clips relatively than informing their viewers. Ventures corresponding to Within the Field and Sky Sports activities Halo, alongside an interminable stream of influencer pundits spouting intentionally provocative views, have gone down like a lead balloon.
‘There’s a drive to get youthful viewers, proper all through the media. I’ve by no means been satisfied that was the suitable approach to go,’ Stelling says.
‘Everyone knows that youngsters as we speak don’t watch as a lot TV as they used to. Younger individuals will get their leisure in numerous methods, so chasing them as an viewers is misguided.
‘What you danger is alienating the viewers you’ve already acquired by altering to go well with a youthful viewers that isn’t [watching]. Follow what you’ve acquired, keep on with high quality programming, high quality presenters, high quality pundits, and hopefully when the individuals who get their information on social media get to their mum and dads’ age, they may discover themselves watching TV as a substitute and having fun with that very same high quality product that their mother and father watched.’
Nonetheless, he additionally admits: ‘Society strikes on, occasions change, and I believe TV has to replicate that.’
Regardless of his work – which requires first rate preparation – he nonetheless finds time for his hobbies. Following Hartlepool is his pleasure, although as he lives in Hampshire along with his spouse Liz, the away video games are normally extra manageable.
He was honorary president at Swimming pools from 2015 till Could final 12 months, when he resigned over frustrations on the new proprietor Raj Singh, who has now gone himself. One among Singh’s spikiest acts was to write down to all the opposite Nationwide League golf equipment and demand that they ban Stelling from their hospitality choices. It is protected to say that backfired.
‘There are quite a lot of opposing golf equipment who ask me to return within the boardroom anyway,’ Stelling reveals. ‘However I don’t need to go in and trigger any confrontation.
Stelling left Sky Sports activities in 2023 and is worried concerning the path they’re going in
‘I’m nonetheless with the followers and I’m only a fan anyway. I’ve not acquired a difficulty with it.’
There aren’t many gadgets left on his sports activities bucket record which he hasn’t ticked off and when requested, he replies that his major want is to see Hartlepool play in League One once more. They’re in with a shout on the Nationwide League play-offs this season, presently sitting ninth, however it’s quite a bit manner again to the third tier.
If push got here to shove, may Stelling do a job for them?
‘I performed within the Hartlepool Sunday league,’ he says. ‘I began as an inside ahead, a quantity 10 or eight you’d have mentioned on the time, and as I acquired slower, I acquired moved again. So I ended up as a full-back.
‘I moved to London and performed in a league referred to as the Octopus League. The primary 12 months there have been eight groups and anyone referred to as it that. The subsequent 12 months, 4 extra groups joined and all of us appeared actually silly.’
I give him carte blanche to match himself to any footballer and with out lacking a beat, he appears to be like me within the eye, utters the phrases ‘Paul Gascoigne,’ and lets out a hearty snort. After all he picked a showman. What else?
