SOCCER SATURDAY IS LIKE CHAMPAGNE WITHOUT BUBBLES .. . SO FLAT
JEFF STELLING is a brilliantly warm and relatable TV host but first and foremost a fine journalist, which is why he had the confidence to criticise Rochdale’s players for the 10man pile-on that followed their equaliser against Crewe on Saturday.
‘Hardly in the spirit of social distancing,’ said Stelling on Soccer Saturday.
Stelling, 65, pretty much owns that programme. It has been built around him over the years. But right now he must wonder what on earth Sky have done to it and why.
For those without satellite television, Soccer Saturday has been the central point of Sky’s weekend football coverage for 22 years.
With Stelling as host, it f eatures a panel of f ormer professionals watching chosen matches on TV screens and reporting on developments.
It is the kind of concept that sounds like it shouldn’t work. But it always did, brilliantly, and the best thing about it was that it was never really about analysis, tactics or gravitas.
Sky happen to be t he market leader of all that on their other shows. They have raised the bar on the serious stuff and others have had to follow. One of the reasons that BBC’s Match of the Day is now so improved is that they had no choice other than to chase the trail blazed by Sky.
But the intrinsic beauty of Soccer Saturday was that it was never about that. It didn’t want to be.
No, it was about the drama, fun, unpredictability, ridiculousness and — on occasion — sheer mundanity of football.
I t was, in essence, f our middle-aged blokes shouting at TV screens that nobody else could see.
A rather niche framework for sure, one that was held together at the edges by the impeccable Stelling and carried that irresistible feeling that it might fall apart at any given moment. But it never did and instead became so popular that other stations such as BT Sport and BBC One felt compelled to follow.
Which brings us to today and the sad realisation that — on Saturday’s evidence at least — other people are now doing it better. And we should not be surprised.
It was back in August that it emerged Sky were shaking up their roster of Soccer Saturday pundits. And when we say ‘shaking up’, we mean getting rid of the people that everyone liked and made the show work and bringing in new ones.
So out went Phil Thompson, Matt Le Tissier and Charlie Nicholas and in came a younger, more diverse crowd. It felt like a catastrophic error of judgement at the time and there was nothing at the weekend to encourage an alternative view.
Stelling featured with Clinton Morrison, Matt Murray and Sue Smith on Saturday. Tony Cottee was there, too. Maybe they f orgot to l ook at his birth certificate.
There was nothing particularly wrong with the show. None of the guests were ill-informed or under-prepared. They were all fine. The only problem is that ‘fine’ doesn’t make for great television, particularly on a format that always relied on the rapport of its guests to make it what it was.
S a d l y, Soccer Saturday is now like champagne without any bubbles. It’s flat.
BT’s panel this weekend was just better, more interesting. The station now appears t o be winning a race it never even seemed to be in, and that just feels a little bit sad.
We know why Sky made their changes. Diversity is important, but so is good television and it looks as though the broadcaster has sacrificed one for the other.
On Saturday, Stelling looked like a bloke wondering when all his mates were going to come back to the pub.
I would be surprised if he sticks around much longer. He won’t be short of offers.