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Jeff Stelling

From Countdown
Jeff Stelling Speech.jpg
Host
First appearance 12 January 2009
Last appearance 16 December 2011
Appearances 675
Episodes with Jeff Stelling
Guest appearances of Jeff Stelling
First appearance 21 August 2023
Last appearance 25 August 2023
Appearances 5
Episodes with Jeff Stelling

Jeff Stelling (born 18 March 1955) was presenter of Countdown from 2009 to 2011, and a Dictionary Corner guest. He took over from Des O'Connor at the start of Championship of Champions XIII in January 2009, prior to Series 60, at the same time as Rachel Riley replaced Carol Vorderman. He remained host until the grand final of Series 65, and was replaced by Nick Hewer.

Stelling is best known for hosting Sky Sports' Soccer Saturday programme for over 30 years, an afternoon-long show of previews, reports and goal updates. He is noted for his frequent use of puns involving player names – a goal by an Arbroath player called Kevin Webster was greeted with the comment "Sally will be pleased" (in reference to the Coronation Street character of the same name who was married to Sally Webster). A red card for Gareth Jelleyman led Mr Stelling to comment that "Jelleyman has thrown a wobbly", a slang term for losing your temper which also relates to the consistency of jelly. In 2009, he published a book of that title which mostly concentrates on anecdotes from Soccer Saturday but also has a short chapter on his appointment to Countdown. One of his worst puns was used in conjunction with Matt Le Tissier, posing the question "How did "Agger do, do, do"?", relating to a pun on the song Agadoo and Liverpool defender Daniel Agger. Some of his puns overspilled into Countdown, drawing comparisons with Richard Whiteley.

On 24 May 2011, Stelling announced that he would leave Countdown at the end of Series 65 in order to focus fully on his Sky commitments. [1] He later said that he would like to stay on the programme. However, on 30 August 2011, Stelling's decision to stay was rejected by Channel 4 bosses, and he left the show. [2]

On 16 November 2011, it was announced that Stelling was to be replaced as host by Nick Hewer, famous for being one of Alan Sugar's assistants on The Apprentice. [3]

Stelling's final episode was broadcast on 16 December 2011. As with Richard Whiteley's final episode, it was a grand final match that went to a tiebreak conundrum.

Since leaving Countdown, Stelling hosted the former ITV daytime quiz show Alphabetical, which ran for two series from 2016 to 2017.

Since leaving Sky Sports, Stelling returned to Countdown in 2023 as a Dictionary Corner guest in Series 88, making him the second person after Des Lynam (although Lynam only made one appearance) to appear in Dictionary Corner after standing down from the host role. On Stelling's return, the conundrum solution – though a different scramble – was the same answer as the first of two used in his aforementioned last show as host. In the last show of his week in Dictionary Corner, he switched seats with Colin Murray, reprising his role as presenter of the programme for the final part of the show, while Murray sat in Dictionary Corner.

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