Product Description

The cult SkySports Soccer Saturday anchorman delivers a volley of entertaining and informative anecdotes about life in front of the videprinter. Jeff Stelling is a legend amongst football fans. To the millions unable to get to their teams' games on Saturday afternoons, the next best thing is undoubtedly the pleasurable company of Jeff and the Sky Sports videprinter for a cosy marathon on the sofa. If someone's got to reveal that your beloved team have just gone 3-0 down away from home and had a man sent off, it's best if it's consummate professional Jeff who breaks the news to you. Avid Hartlepool fan Jeff knows our pain and shares our joy!but mostly he knows our pain. The long-time host of SkySports' iconic Soccer Saturday show has become a cult figure, universally admired for his encyclopaedic knowledge of the game, his genuine and unlimited enthusiasm for ALL levels of football, and his wicked sense of humour which makes the six-hour long show simply whiz by. Jellyman's Thrown a Wobbly is a deliciously chaotic, hugely entertaining, anecdote-ridden, humorous taste of life in the Soccer Saturday studio. Hear what Jeff has to say about some of the show's legendary pundits over the years -- ex-players such as George Best, Rodney Marsh, Chris Kamara, Charlie Nicholas and Matt Le Tissier. Be a fly on the wall of the hotel bar on Friday nights as Jeff and his guests gather for a natter and few drinks. Get the inside track on all those great one-liners: / "Mansfield Town's Gareth Jellyman has been shown the red card for dissent. Looks like Jellyman's thrown a wobbly." / "Darlington's equaliser has been scored by Guyain Ndumbu-Nsungu. Very much a case of local boy makes good." (He's from Congo.) / "They'll be dancing in the streets of Total Network Solutions tonight." / "James Brown's grabbed a second for Hartlepool. I feel good!" Jellyman's Thrown a Wobbly goes a long way to demonstrate how a six-hour long, studio-based show with no live action pictures and featuring men gazing into TV monitors which the viewer can't see, can hold a huge audience enthralled every Saturday afternoon between August and May.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #450 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Review
Jelleyman is a fascinating peek behind the scenes, and like Soccer Saturday itself, the warmth of the friendships, and sense of fun in the banter comes across. It's what makes the programme compelling viewing, and what makes Stelling's book such an enjoyable read.
--FourFourTwo Magazine

About the Author
Jeff Stelling is a lifelong supporter of his hometown side, Hartlepool United. After an apprenticeship on the local newspaper Jeff became a sports presenter on London's LBC Radio Sportswatch programme in the early 1980s before moving to BBC Radio 2's Sport On 2. He later spent time as a sports newsreader at TV-AM, Channel 4, Eurosport and British Satellite Broadcasting before moving to Sky in 1992 to present coverage of horse racing, snooker and darts. In 1995 Stelling became presenter of what is now called Soccer Saturday. In November 2007 he was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Teesside, and in 2009 he was voted the Sports Journalists' Association's Broadcast Journalist of the Year for the fourth year running, and also became host of Channel 4's Countdown.

Customer Reviews

The cult book of the cult TV show
If, like me, you're both a football fan and a Sky Sports subscriber, you'll probably be familiar with Soccer Saturday (at six hours, the longest regular live show on British TV). In this book, Jeff Stelling lifts the lid on the magic box and reveals the secrets behind the show and its panel of ex-player pundits. It's revealing (lots of genuinely interesting behind-the-scenes stuff), refreshingly frank (Stelling isn't afraid to point out the weaknesses and foibles of his fellow panellists), and frequently laugh-out-loud funny.

Jeff Stelling is a broadcasting god, presiding over six hours of unscripted mayhem every Saturday with wit, preternatural cool and some genuinely awful puns (the book's title is but one of many). He's deservedly a cult hero to footy fans everywhere, for whom this book is a must-read.

Jeff Selling superstar
Anyone who is familiar with Jeff Stelling's Saturday marathon on Sky Sports will be fascinated and entertained by this book. Some brilliant behind the scenes stories and some great reminiscances of George Best, Rodney Marsh et al as well as an insight into this legendary broadcaster's career from humble beginnings with Radio Teesside to his recent Countdown appointment. Highly recommended.

Not as good as the show
I'm a huge fan of Jeff Stelling and Soccer Saturday, so I greatly looked forward to reading this book. Sadly, I ended up being rather disappointed. It has a rather rushed feel, and a times I got the impression that Jeff's busy schedule didn't allow him to spend much time on the project.

Although the back-stage insights are entertaining enough, Jeff's jovial, slightly laddish humour tends to fall rather flat on the page, and the jabs at Soccer Saturday pundits become rather tiresome.

What really lets the book down is the editing. On screen Jeff is a stickler for getting the facts and stats right, and he should understand that his viewing audience, and hence readership, greatly appreciate and expect this level of accuracy. So it was especially galling, in an anecdote from his youthful LBC days, to see both young Arsenal players' names spelled incorrectly. The two in question, Paul Davis and Chris Whyte went on to have long and distinguished careers which makes the mistake almost, yes, unbelievable.

There are numerous other examples of this sloppiness, such as "Morecombe" instead of Morecambe, and I would question whether Richard Nixon needs to be identified as Richard "Watergate" Nixon.

It's still an enjoyable read, and perhaps I'm guilty of expecting too much from a light-hearted book from a TV presenter, but ultimately the TV show always takes the subject matter seriously. The book sadly does not display the same level of dedication.