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Jeff Stelling
| Jeff Stelling | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Presenter | |
| First appearance | 12 January 2009 |
| Last appearance | 16 December 2011 |
| Appearances | 675 |
| Episodes with Jeff Stelling | |
| Guest | |
| First appearance | 21 August 2023 |
| Last appearance | 25 August 2023 |
| Appearances | 5 |
| Episodes with Jeff Stelling | |
Jeff Stelling (born 18 March 1955) was the presenter of Countdown from 12 January 2009 to 16 December 2011, and a Dictionary Corner guest. He took over from Des O'Connor at the start of Championship of Champions XIII pre-Series 60, at the same time when Rachel Riley replaced Carol Vorderman.
Stelling is best known for hosting Sky Sports' Soccer Saturday programme for over 30 years which is 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 who was greeted with the comment of "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 on posing the question, "How did "Agger do, do, do"?", relating to a pun on 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 2011 in order to focus fully on his Sky commitments. [1]. He later said that he would like to stay on the programme but on 30 August 2011, Stelling's decision to stay was rejected by Channel 4 bosses. [2]
On 16 November 2011, it was announced that Stelling will be replaced as presenter by Nick Hewer [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 only two series in 2016 and 2017.
Since leaving Sky Sports, Stelling returned to Countdown in 2023 as a Dictionary Corner guest in Series 88 to make him the second person after Des Lynam (although Lynam only made one appearance) to appear in Dictionary Corner after standing down from the presenter 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 presenter. In the last show of his week in Dictionary Corner, he switched seats with Colin Murray to reprise his role as presenter of the programme for the final part of the show while Murray sat in Dictionary Corner.
External Links
- Jeff Stelling on Wikipedia.
- Jeff Stelling on the Internet Movie Database
