Robert Jeffrey Stelling (born 18 March 1955) is an English television presenter. He presented '' Gillette Soccer Saturday'' for

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British broadcasting of sports events, subscription sports channels operated by the satellite television, satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television ...

from 1994 until 2023 and hosted coverage of the Champions League between 2011 and 2015. He also presented the

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

quiz show '' Countdown'' (2009–2011) and ITV game show '' Alphabetical'' (2016–2017). On 30 October 2021, Stelling announced his intention to leave ''Soccer Saturday'' at the end of the 2021–22 season. However, on 28 March 2022,

announced that Stelling would be staying until at least the end of the 2022–23 season. He left the show on 8 May 2023.

Early life

Stelling was brought up in a

council house A council house, corporation house or council flat is a form of British Public housing in the United Kingdom, public housing built by Local government in the United Kingdom, local authorities. A council estate is a building complex containing ...

Hartlepool Hartlepool ( ) is a seaside resort, seaside and port town in County Durham, England. It is governed by a unitary authority borough Borough of Hartlepool, named after the town. The borough is part of the devolved Tees Valley area with an estimat ...

. He attended Rift House Primary School and West Hartlepool Grammar School. After leaving school his first job was as a journalist at the '' Hartlepool Mail'' where he remained for four years.

Career

His first broadcasting position was as a reporter on Middlesbrough F.C. on Radio Tees in the late 1970s. He was a sports presenter on London's LBC Radio ''Sportswatch'' programme in the early 1980s before moving to BBC Radio 2's weekend sports programme ''Sport on 2'', covering the

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

and

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

Olympic games. He later spent time as a sports newsreader at TV-am, Channel 4,

Eurosport Eurosport is a group of pay television networks in Europe and parts of Asia, owned and operated by Warner Bros. Discovery through its WBD Sports unit, it operates two main channels—Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2—across most of its territorie ...

and

British Satellite Broadcasting British Satellite Broadcasting plc (BSB) was a television company, based in London, that provided satellite television, direct broadcast satellite television services to the United Kingdom. It started broadcasting on 25 March 1990. The company ...

before moving to Sky in 1992 to present coverage of

horse racing Horse racing is an equestrian performance activity, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its bas ...

greyhound racing Greyhound racing is an organized, competitive sport in which greyhounds are raced around an oval track. The sport originates from Hare coursing, coursing. Track racing uses an artificial lure (usually a form of windsock) that travels ahead of th ...

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, billiards table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets: one at each corner and ...

and

darts Darts is a competitive sport in which two or more players bare-handedly throw small projectile point, sharp-pointed projectile, projectiles known as dart (missile), darts at a round shooting target, target known as a #Dartboard, dartboard. Point ...

. In 2003, he won a sports presenter special edition of ''

The Weakest Link ''Weakest Link'' (also known as ''The Weakest Link'') is a television game show which The Weakest Link (British game show), first appeared in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on 14 August 2000 and originally ended on 31 March 2012 when its host ...

''. In 2004, Stelling was offered but rejected an offer from the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

to front ''Score''—their new Saturday results service. The job was given to Ray Stubbs. In May 2013, Stelling joined ''twentyfour7 Football Magazine'' and wrote columns for the magazine's Dream Team. He has also been featured in the in-game presentation work for EA Sports' '' FIFA 14'' and '' FIFA 15''.

''Sports/Soccer Saturday''

In 1994, Stelling became presenter of ''Sports Saturday'', which became '' Gillette Soccer Saturday'' in 1998, hosting a programme lasting up to six hours of football discussion and live reports on the afternoon's games with a panel of pundits including Frank McLintock, Chris Kamara, Rodney Marsh and

George Best George Best (22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005) was a Northern Irish professional association football, footballer who played as a winger (association football), winger, spending most of his club career at Manchester United F.C., Manchester Un ...

. Much of the programme's popularity was put down to Stelling, with ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' praising him for "exceptional professionalism and élan". In October 2021, he announced that he would be leaving the show at the end of the football season. However, in March 2022, it was announced Stelling would be staying until at least the end of the 2022–23 season. At the start of the 2005–06 Premiership football season, Stelling replaced Ian Payne as the host of Sky Sports' '' Monday Night Football'' programme. However, Stelling's appointment coincided with a new, shorter format of the programme, with Stelling presenting the show live from the ground of that evening's game. Previously, the show had been presented from a studio, and had featured some coverage of the prior weekend's games. Moreover, in previous years on Monday nights without a live game, a ''Monday Night Football Special'' would be broadcast, which included only the analysis from the weekend's games. This appears to have been dropped from the 2005–06 season, indicating that Stelling's appointment is to a smaller role than that held by his predecessors. In 2011, Stelling replaced the departed Richard Keys as the main presenter of Sky's live Champions League coverage and hosted between 2011 and 2015. Stelling left Soccer Saturday at the end of the 2022–23 season after 25 years as host.

Game shows

On 21 November 2008, it was reported that Stelling had been confirmed as the new host of the Channel 4 game show ''Countdown'' following the departure of Des O'Connor. He had reportedly also been approached for the role following the death of long-time host Richard Whiteley, but the role was given to former fellow sports presenter

Des Lynam Desmond Michael Lynam (born 17 September 1942) is an Irish-born British television and radio presenter. In a broadcasting career spanning more than forty years, he has hosted television coverage of many of the world's major sporting events, pr ...

instead. Stelling began recording ''Countdown'' in December 2008, with the show's new assistant Rachel Riley, and started broadcasting in January 2009. However, it was announced on 25 May 2011 that Stelling would be stepping down as presenter of ''Countdown'' at the end of the year, after three years at the helm, to concentrate on football, including his new Champions League role. He was replaced by Nick Hewer. Stelling returned to Countdown as a guest in Dictionary Corner in August 2023 and, at the invitation of the host Colin Murray, swapped places to present the final part of the week. In August 2016, Stelling presented a new 10-part daytime game show for ITV called '' Alphabetical''. The show returned for a second series of 20 episodes in October 2017.

TV series cameos

Stelling appears as himself in a number of episodes of the football comedy TV series ''

Ted Lasso ''Ted Lasso'' ( ) is an American sports film, sports comedy-drama television series developed by Jason Sudeikis, Bill Lawrence (TV producer), Bill Lawrence, Brendan Hunt, and Joe Kelly. It is based on a character Sudeikis portrayed in a series ...

''. He has also appeared as himself in '' The IT Crowd'', '' Dream Team'' and '' Mike Bassett: Manager''. He appeared in an advert for Sky Broadband in 2013 which spoofed a previous Sky Broadband advert which starred Bruce Willis.

Radio work

From 4 December 2023, he started presenting Talksport's breakfast show every Monday and Tuesday (6am to 10am) alongside Ally McCoist.

Honours and recognition

On 23 November 2007, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Professional Studies by the University of Teesside. Stelling was named Sports Broadcaster of the Year for four successive years by the Sports Journalists' Association, based on a poll of its members. On 12 March 2010, he was granted the title of honorary freeman of his home town of Hartlepool, along with the town's former MP Lord Mandelson. Stelling was appointed

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding valuable service in a wide range of useful activities. It comprises five classes of awards across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two o ...

(MBE) in the 2024 New Year Honours for services to sport, broadcasting and charity.

Personal life

Stelling lives in Bishop's Waltham, Hampshire, with his wife Liz and two sons Robbie (born August 1998) and Matthew (born November 1999) and a daughter Olivia (born June 2003). They were married in November 1998 in

Richmond upon Thames The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames () in south-west Greater London, London, England, forms part of Outer London and is the only London boroughs, London borough on both sides of the River Thames. It was created in 1965 when three smaller ...

. His son Robbie is also a journalist and currently works for the Hartlepool Mail. Jeff has completed the

London Marathon The London Marathon (also known as the TCS London Marathon for sponsorship reasons) is an annual marathon held in London, England. Founded by athletes Chris Brasher and John Disley in 1981, it is typically held in April, although it moved to Oct ...

on eight occasions and his best time is 3 hours and 28 minutes. In June 2013, Stelling, Colin Cooper, Craig Hignett and 12 others climbed Mount Kilimanjaro raising money for the children's charity The Finlay Cooper Fund. The climb raised £100,000. In 2015, Stelling was appointed president of Hartlepool United after accepting a request from the club's owners. In 2016, Stelling walked 262 miles from Hartlepool United to Wembley Stadium over 10 days raising over £420,000 for Prostate Cancer UK. He walked with his friend Russ Green, who was the Chief Executive of Hartlepool United at the time, and was joined by over 400 walkers including his friends from Sky Sports and the football world such as Chris Kamara, Matt Le Tissier, Charlie Nicholas and Paul Merson. On Day 3, Sir Ian Botham arrived to lend his support and walked with Stelling to Glanford Park, the home of Scunthorpe United, one of Botham's former clubs from his football career. In 2017, Stelling again pledged to walk to raise money for Prostate Cancer UK. In his book, "I've Got Mail" published on 17 September 2020, Stelling revealed he had been subject to a blackmail attempt via two letters sent to his home. The letters demanded a £50,000 payment in return for bogus accusations of sex assaults to be kept quiet. In a radio interview on BBC Radio 5 LiveBBC Radio 5 Live Interview, Wednesday afternoon show 2 December 2020. on 2 December 2020, Stelling recounted sharing the letters with his wife and together, through a family friend's contact at Scotland Yard, they learnt others had also been targeted by the same scammers.

References

External links

*
University of Teesside

''Hartlepool Mail'' June 2008

Interviewed by Ron Aitken, ''Independent on Sunday''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stelling, Jeff 1955 births Living people Darts people English association football commentators English game show hosts English television presenters Hartlepool United F.C. non-playing staff People from Bishop's Waltham People from Hartlepool Sky Sports presenters and reporters Members of the Order of the British Empire