who wanted to talk about The Good Doctor, or Kenny Deuchar, the one time Gretna and Northampton striker who was also a practising doctor. Like a handful of characters in the game, I'd made a point of referring to his trade whenever he scored - he was a man of medical science, after all - and given his quick thinking in front of goal, I found I was mentioning him quite a lot. It was apparent by the reaction of these lads that, purely by accident, I had created a cult hero.
But The Good Doctor wasn't the only one. Over the years I have name-checked the previously anonymous Adam Stansfield (‘Sister Lisa will be pleased’) of Exeter City, and Arbroath's Kevin Web-ster (‘Sally will be pleased’), not to mention Hartlepool wonderkid, James ‘I Feel Good’ Brown, who gets a mention - and a song -whenever he hits the back of the net. For those of you currently scratching your heads at these ‘gags’, you will be pleased to know that you're about to receive a thorough explanation of each one over the next few pages.
Anyway, I have to admit that in writing this book I've been forced to think of the impact of my jokes as ‘the incomparable ringmaster of Sky's six-hour slog, Soccer Saturday’ (the Independent) and ‘Ranting Jeff’ (the Northern Echo). Unlike broadcasting doyens such as Kenneth ‘They think it's all over …’ Wolstenholme and Les ‘If it's up there I'll give you the money myself’ Dennis, I don't have one single catchphrase to hinge my public image on, which is probably a blessing because on the rare occasions I am asked to sign autographs I can stick to a simple, ‘All the best, Jeff.’
Instead, I've amassed an armoury of silly quips, throwaway gags and ill-advised rants. Some of them have gathered a small amount of cult interest over the years. They also tend to appear on YouTube quite a lot. Maybe it's about time I explained the methods behind the apparent madness …
‘Lisa will be pleased,
Adam Stansfield has scored!’
This was one of the first catchphrases that I ever delivered on the show. Adam Stansfield was playing at Yeovil Town, though he later moved on to the mighty Exeter City. I said it as an aside one afternoon, the link being a reference to 90s pop sensation Lisa Stansfield. Well, we'll use the term ‘sensation’ in the same way that the press refer to Robert Earnshaw as a ‘goalscoring sensation’, that is, a bit hit-and-miss. Of course, they're not really related, but for quite a while people were approaching Adam and asking about the wellbeing of Lisa. Funnier still, the catchphrase threatened to get out of hand. A local newspaper even ran a story revealing how the pair were not really siblings, such was the interest surrounding the Soccer Saturday reference.
Since then, there are a number of variations on the gag: Kevin Webster of Arbroath fame is linked to Sally because of the fictional couple in Corrie; Fulham keeper Tony Warner was linked to his non-existent brothers, after the movie company Warner Bros (do keep up at the back), and Kevin Nolan of Bolton is referred to in the same breath as The Nolan Sisters whenever he scores (‘Kevin Nolan has scored for Bolton, his sisters will be dancing’). I once received a very nice message from Kevin explaining that he doesn't actually have any sisters. He then went on to point out that he does have a lot of brothers, though they're not as easy on the eye as the girl group, I'd imagine. In hindsight, I guess this revelation could have been considered as something of a threat.
‘The Good Doctor’
While flicking through one of the many mountains of local papers I have to absorb every week (by way of research rather than any onset of OCD) I began reading about Kenny Deuchar, a prolific striker for Gretna. According to one report, he was a qualified doctor and still practised in his local hospital from time to time. This was remarkable by any footballer's standards. Can you imagine Cristiano Ronaldo even applying a Band-Aid to a stricken Page Three model, let alone practising lifesaving techniques at his local A&E? Given his worthy day job, I figured Deuchar was somebody who deserved some recognition, so I began referring to him as ‘The Good Doctor’ whenever he scored, which, to his credit, was quite a lot. I even got a very nice letter from him one day thanking me for the publicity.
His biggest fan was Granny Mae, his, er, grandmother. By all accounts, she was an avid viewer of the show and was bowled over by the regular mentions of her grandson on digital telly. In time, I began to mention her, too, and the pair became a bit of a fixture in the cache of Soccer Saturday catchphrases. One day we even went up to Scotland to do a piece on Granny Mae as she watched the show from her living room. Of course, The Good Doctor did what he always did best and popped up with a goal or two, which made for a really nice afternoon. I think Granny Mae was beside herself.
I guess the show is good at bringing out characters like Deucher. He was a player that wouldn't have got any publicity if it hadn't been for us, and to bring personalities to life like that is a vital part of Soccer Saturday. After all, the show would be pretty boring if the only coverage we dedicated to the lower leagues was the results and goalscorers. It really raised his profile – he even got a loan move to Northampton – though the fact he was quite handy in the box must have helped, too. He went to play in the States with Real Salt Lake (only in America) against the likes of David Beckham. God knows what Granny Mae must have made of that, but he's back in Scotland with Hamilton Academical now.
‘They'll be dancing in the streets
of Total Network Solutions!’
This was a play on the famous phrase, ‘They'll be dancing in the streets of Raith Rovers tonight’ which came from TV commentator Sam Leitch in the 1960s. I remember seeing the team name Total Network Solutions on the screen one afternoon and thinking, ‘What the hell is this?’ They happened to be a real team, of course, and a very good one at that – they were based in Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain (thank god they play under a different name) in the Welsh Premier League and tended to score a lot of goals. The more they won, the more their name lent itself to some form of acknowledgement. After yet another TNS goal, and in a flash of quick-witted humour that only a man with several O-levels could deliver, I yelled, ‘And they'll be dancing in the streets of Total Network Solutions tonight!’ It soon became compulsory to throw in the phrase with every TNS win.
It wasn't long before Mike Harris, the managing director of Total Network Solutions, began sending me a pack of TNS-related goodies every year, which included a Total Network Solutions T-shirt, but I've yet to parade this around the high-fashion emporia of Winchester. The club even invited me to their European games in the UEFA Cup, but the journey to Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain always seemed to be a trip too far.
Still, the name is an indication of how football has changed. The club flogged off their real title (Llansantffraid) to a sponsor for £250,000 when they qualified for the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1996, but they weren't the first – Dutch giants PSV are named after a company. But according to the excellent book Prawns In The Game: How Football Got Where It Is Today! by Paul French, which details the state of modern football, ‘Total Network Solutions are the most successful example of a sponsored team … thanks to Jeff Stelling’. That wasn't intended, of course, and I was gutted when they changed their name to The New Saints. It just didn't carry the same punch.
‘Guylain Ndumbu-Nsungu —
local boy made good!’
In the modern age, there are so many foreign players plying their trade across the country, but when an exotic-sounding player ends up in an unlikely location, like Rotherham for example, or Sheffield Wednesday in Guylain Ndumbu-Nsungu's case, it adds extra comedy spice. Some of these player-pronunciations are a real mouthful, and, to be honest, you get through it with trial and error. I think that when players come to this country we tend to anglicize their names, which is fair enough. Sometimes the players even
