When I was young, and random old people my parents knew would ask what I wanted to do with my life, I’d always answer: “Be Des Lynam,” – at the time mainly to end the conversation so I could go back upstairs and play Sensible Soccer. But it seemed like a fun thing to do.
So it was with some excitement a couple of weeks ago that I received a screengrab of the odds for the next host of Match of the Day. I was sixth favourite at 12-1! Gratifying stuff – it was now simply a case of somehow disposing of Dan Walker, Colin Murray, Jeff Stelling, Manish and Chappers and the chair was mine. I guess people might have got suspicious after the first couple disappeared.
It was only a few days later I realised that these were odds from 2015 – I shouldn’t have forwarded that screengrab so many times. Almost a decade on and I don’t appear to be among the runners and riders. Not so much as a mention – even Richard Osman is 100-1. Osman’s had more success than all of the hot dinners we can collectively remember eating; no doubt he’d be good at MOTD too.
From a purely broadcasting perspective, hosting Match of the Day probably isn’t that difficult. I’m not saying I could do the show with my eyes closed, but there’s a high chance I would do the show with my eyes closed given what time it starts. The biggest skill would be staying awake for 10.30pm having been in the office from midday.
Those with proper jobs might scoff, but sitting around all day watching football while people bring you food and coffee is weirdly tiring. Everyone in that office must be thinking: “We’ve got this all done by 7pm, if we pre-record it we could be home in time for Match of the Day,” – arguably tricky to not find out the scores if you’ve worked on the show that afternoon.
The actual job of saying hello and inserting a joke about the follicular challenges of Alan Shearer and Danny Murphy before telling us that Guy Mowbray was at the Emirates feels eminently achievable, even for the 2015 sixth favourite.
Perhaps it’s blasphemy to say it – as it is often seen as the zenith of sports broadcasting – but hosting live football is the easiest thing I’ve had to do in this industry (open goal for those who’d like to suggest I make it all look incredibly difficult). People aren’t really tuning in for you, they’re tuning in for Manchester City’s latest defeat – Spurs fans know what’s actually coming this weekend.
You have pundits who want to talk – compare that with, say, a three-hour Saturday morning comedy football show where your guests are a nervous QPR striker and an indie band who were out all night.
Essentially you are just trying to work out a few different ways of saying: “What did you make of that, Brian?” And with a highlights show you don’t even have to react on the hoof to the action. It’s all there for you. You know how much good stuff there is already in the can.
That said, Gary Lineker is an absolute master of it, as is Mark Chapman on Match of the Day 2. In fact you can say the same of all those at the top of the profession: Kelly Cates, Dave Jones, Gabby Logan, etc. It’s a competitive business, and you very rarely get to the top of it without being good at it.
The huge interest in who hosts a football highlights show is fascinating, especially now you can easily see those highlights hours before the show has started. Part of it is that there aren’t many institutions left on TV. Part of it is just Lineker himself. His salary and his willingness to care about other human beings regardless of where they are from are great opportunities for people with too much time on their hands to yell about the licence fee. These culture wars won’t write themselves.
For anyone to have hosted a major TV show – sporting or otherwise – for 25 years in a fickle industry is a staggering achievement. It must be strange for Lineker that by now so many viewers will see him as broadcaster first, footballer second (I know from experience how unsettling that is; you get used to it over time).
What hasn’t been mentioned much in the “Who will be the next host?” discussion is the fact that Match of the Day is an absolutely brilliant show. The real stars are the editors: to condense up eight football matches into an hour and a bit, without losing the story of each game, in a few hours after the full-time whistle is a genuine art form.
Anyone who has attempted football commentary will know how difficult it is and that’s before you consider the amount of preparation required. Done well, it is an extraordinary talent. And to find enough of them to maintain the quality each week is truly impressive.
There is a great deal of lazy social media punditry about the often excellent Match of the Day punditry. To pick out two or three key parts to a game and break them down tactically in a couple of minutes takes real skill. Often it’s obvious – “Was this a penalty?” “What a great goal this was” – but when you’re choosing three examples of Brentford’s press or why Curtis Jones was key to Liverpool’s dominance, finding that, cutting it down and explaining it is not straightforward.
All shows need freshening up now and again, but the foundations of MOTD are incredibly strong. Much like Arne Slot, whoever comes in should look around and realise this is a pretty good thing that doesn’t need messing with. And if the 30 or more people ahead of me in the pecking order suddenly mysteriously disappear, I am not ruling myself out.
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