Broadcaster Jeff Stelling says being awarded an MBE for his work with the Prostate Cancer UK charity is the “icing on the cake” of his incredible career.
Stelling is the highly animated presenter of Sky’s Saturday Football program, a position he held for 25 years until he resigned at the end of last season, and is known for giving his name to the phrase “Amazing Jeff”, which his colleague Chris Kamara often used. .
But he is most proud of his role as ambassador for Prostate Cancer UK, where he has walked 34 marathons since 2016 and led the charge to raise more than £1.7 million, and has now been recognized in the New Year Honors. List.
“I’m so proud to have the opportunity to do this,” he told the PA news agency.
“It was great to help raise awareness but the fundraising was done by the hundreds of people who walked with me. All I do is put one foot in front of the other and take the walks.
“People think these are going to be pretty miserable events but they’re not, they’re a celebration of life. Every day that does this is a joyful day.
“I do a job that most people would give an arm and a leg for. “While I have had a wonderful and fortunate career, I am glad the MBE is recognized more for its charitable work.”
Laura Kerby, the charity’s chief executive, said: “We are thrilled to have the ‘incredible’ Jeff Stelling honored. For almost a decade Jeff has been an incredible ambassador for Prostate Cancer UK, helping us raise vital awareness of the disease within the football community.
“During his years in the Sky Sports Soccer Saturday studio, Jeff proudly wore our ‘Man’s Man’ badge every week, inspiring football fans to learn more about this cancer that affects one in eight men, and many took action on the issue. saved lives.
“On behalf of Prostate Cancer UK and all the men and families we represent, we are incredibly proud to have Jeff on our team and grateful for his dedicated efforts. He thoroughly deserves this honour.”
Stelling himself recalled one such encounter in which simply wearing a charity badge saved a life.
“At the end of the first day (the first of 10 marathons from Hartlepool to Wembley in 2016) we found ourselves in Marske on the north-east coast; “I don’t think we can make it on the second day,” he said.
He was introduced to a woman who said she saw Stelling wearing the badge, discovered what it represented, and then continued reading to learn about the symptoms of prostate cancer.
“Look, her husband had all the symptoms. “He went, got tested, got treatment,” Stelling said.
“He just wanted to say thank you; She said she saved my husband’s life just by wearing the badge and he would be fine.
“The cancer was so advanced that if he hadn’t Googled it, the man would have died. It’s a story I’ve been told over and over again in the years since.”
Stelling was best known as the Saturday Football presenter due to the amazing statistics he always had at his fingertips.
When asked how he accomplished this, he said: “It was the old ‘painting the Forward Bridge’ thing. As soon as you finish one program, you start another.
“I would devote myself to statistics, probably from Wednesday onwards I would spend almost exclusively doing statistics and my wife would think I was the saddest man in the world.”
One statistic he was particularly pleased to have was that Gareth Jelleyman, then at Mansfield, had never been sent off. At least until the Stags’ League Two match at Cheltenham on 29 October 2005.
“Then in the 90th minute, there it was,” Stelling recalled.
“I can use the line I’ve been waiting to use for nearly a year: ‘Gareth Jelleyman has been expelled. Let’s hope he didn’t take a shaky shot.’
“What I do for a job is not a matter of life and death. “I had a lot of fun and my only goal is to keep having fun.”
Stelling recalled an instance where the essentially carefree schedule was more important.
“One day I received a surprising letter. “The message came from a young woman who was in the depths of despair and was considering ending her life, saying that she was in a long, dark tunnel and saw no way out of it,” he said.
“His brother was a football fan, he wasn’t at that time. He went to the football match on Saturday. He said he saw this crazy clown waving his arms, yelling at the camera, and coming up with all kinds of crazy statistics.
“And he said it would be an accomplishment if I was still alive next Saturday when Jeff was. He said he was still alive the next Saturday and the next, and his efforts to reach the next week became a strange game between himself and death.
“He made it out of the tunnel. As a nurse, she saved the lives of others. It was the most inspiring letter. Sometimes (while presenting the program) ‘what are we doing here?’ you thought. ‘Fun and bubbly but all a bit trashy’.
“But when you get a letter like this, it gives extra meaning to the program.”