When Soccer Saturday first hit the airwaves, few would have dared to predict just how deeply it would embed itself in the fabric of British football culture.
The long-running Sky Sports show would go on to revolutionise how supporters consumed the sport, as a panel of pundits watching television screens quickly became essential Saturday afternoon viewing.
But when one of the show’s most iconic presenters was pitched the concept, he struggled to believe it would go on to carve out its place in football history.
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Chris Kamara’s Soccer Saturday doubts
Chris Kamara didn’t take long to establish himself as one of the programme’s most beloved characters, with the chemistry between and Jeff Stelling the beating heart of the show.
But that only came after initial scepticism from the former Brentford and Leeds United midfielder.
“It didn’t sound like an idea that had legs, I must admit!” Kamara tells FourFourTwo. “I said, ‘Are you sure about this?’
“But they were right. It soon turned into a hit,” admits, acknowledging just how important the show soon became for generations of football fans.
Kamara’s cameos from the sidelines quickly saw him become a viewer’s favourite, although his famous catchphrase somewhat snuck up on him.
“One Christmas, I turned on TV bloopers show,” he recalls. “It was a montage from Soccer Saturday and it was just of me, over and over, shouting, ‘Unbelievable Jeff!’ at different games.
“I honestly had no idea I’d been saying it, let alone so often. It hadn’t even occurred to me.”
Kamara also soon realised that it wasn’t just fans watching from their sofas when he heard that a group of students had devised their own drinking game based on the programme.
“I remember one day, we got a letter to the studio from some students saying they’d been playing a Soccer Saturday drinking game. They’d all meet up in the students’ union and would have to drink every time something specific happened.
“They’d drink when Jeff went on one of his rants or when one of the other pundits got a footballer’s name wrong. Whenever I said ‘Unbelieveable Jeff!’ they’d have to all down their whole pints.”
