Chris Kamara has been responsible for some of the most memorable moments in recent British football broadcasting.
Whether it was his iconic ‘Unbelievable, Jeff!’ catchphrase or his limitless enthusiasm on the touchline during his Soccer Saturday days, the former Leeds United and Brentford midfielder remains one of every football fan’s favourite pundits.
But there was one gloriously awkward moment from his Sky Sports days that will go down as one of the broadcaster’s most fondly remembered bloopers.
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Kamara on his Vanden Borre mix-up
The moment came during Portsmouth’s Premier League clash against Blackburn in 2006, when Kamara was dispatched to the Fratton Park sideline to report on the match.
When Anthony Vanden Borre saw red, it sparked a hilarious scene in which Kamara attempted to put together the pieces of what had just happened while reporting back to an increasingly bemused Jeff Stelling back in the studio.
“If I’d tried to blag it at that time, that moment would have been lost forever!” Kamara admits to FourFourTwo, as he explains that rather than pretend he knew what had happened, he needed to talk through what he thought he had witnessed.
The incident had seen Pompey defender Vanden Borre receive a second yellow card, but Kamara interpreted it rather differently.
“With it being a foreign player, Anthony Vanden Borre, he just didn’t react the way I’d expect a player to,” he explains.
“He was shown the second yellow card and just walked away calmly past his manager Avram Grant, who also didn’t react,” with Kamara believing that this lack of reaction could not have meant the incident was so dramatic.
“So it looked like a substitution to me,” he continues. “An English player would have argued his case and caused a scene.”
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With Kamara having to face the camera and fill in the gaps, Stelling and the rest of the Soccer Saturday team in the studio would actually have more information to hand.
“Obviously they’d had reports of the sending off back in the studio, which I didn’t see myself,” he admits.
“Jeff’s reaction to my embarrassment was pure class and made the moment a great piece of TV.”
