Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
BEST NOT TO PUT HIM IN ARMS WAY
THE biggest problem genial host Jeff Stelling endured during the early days of
Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday was getting George Best past the
Phene Arms.
If Best’s taxi driver was persuaded into stopping off at his Chelsea local, then the panel would be missing one of its superstars for that afternoon.
Best (above), Rodney Marsh, Frank McLintock and Clive Allen were the regulars under Stelling’s charge when the show began 26 years ago.
It has taken the coronavirus outbreak to temporarily halt it.
Stelling said: “When I said, ‘Good night, see you next week’ on March 7, I didn’t think we’d not have said hello again – and it’s the end of May now.” But the delay has given him time to reflect on the raw beginning of a programme which has become the flagship show of the station on a hectic Saturday.
His regular line-up today is Phil Thompson, Paul Merson, Matt Le Tissier and Charlie Nicholas – one which probably offers him fewer problems than in the programme’s infancy.
“Marshy was brought in as the agent provocateur, there to make the headlines for the show,” explained Stelling. “We had tiny viewing figures, so we needed someone to be controversial – and he was the master at that.
“George was great – on the Saturdays that he was there! Reliability was never one of George’s qualities.
“He would tell his wife to put him in a taxi. We would tell the taxi driver to take him straight to Sky TV – not to stop.
“But it’s difficult for a cabbie when the legend that is George Best says, ‘Driver, can you just take me past the Phene Arms, I just want to stop in there for 10 minutes’.
“What do you do? Two hours later, he’s still in there and won’t be appearing on the show.
“George was quiet, really, unassuming and yet was one of the world’s great footballers. I loved him to death, despite all of his shortcomings.
“He was told by Sky that he would have a job for life – it didn’t matter how often he didn’t turn up. There was only one George Best.” £69.90 inc. p&p
LUC NILIS didn’t just lose his career when he broke his leg playing for Aston Villa.
The Belgian striker has revealed how he was plunged into a “big black hole” of depression.
And then he developed a gambling addiction that cost him a fortune and tore his family apart.
Almost 20 years on from the horrific collision with Ipswich keeper Richard Wright that left Nilis with a double shin fracture so gruesome that doctors feared they would have to amputate his right leg, he earns a living as a sous chef in a friend’s restaurant.
He is happy again – but still harbours ambitions of returning to football as a coach after both Tottenham winger
Steven Bergwijn
(right) and former Manchester United forward Memphis Depay spoke about how he had helped their careers. The story of the player nicknamed ‘Lucky Luc’ when he was helping himself to 253 goals for Anderlecht and PSV Eindhoven before arriving at Aston Villa in the summer of 2000 at the age of 33 is a sorry one.
Nilis said: “I lost so much in my life – but that day I almost lost my leg as well.
“You can say it’s a miracle that I can still kick a ball as a coach because it took five