Jeff Stelling

About

Jeff is a much-admired English sports journalist and one of the country’s best presenters. His presenting style is characterised by his great sense of humour and professional wit as seen on both Sky Sport’s Gillette Soccer Saturday and Countdown.

Jeff Stelling’s first broadcasting position was as a reporter on Middlesbrough F.C. on Radio Tees. He was a sports presenter on London’s LBC Radio Sportswatch programme in the early 1980s before moving to BBC Radio 2’s weekend sports programme Sport On 2, covering the Los Angeles and Seoul Olympic games. He later spent time as a sports newsreader at TV-am, Channel 4, Eurosport and British Satellite Broadcasting before moving to Sky in 1992 to present coverage of horse racing, snooker and darts.

In 1994 he became presenter of Sports Saturday, which became Gillette Soccer Saturday in 1998 and featured a panel of pundits including Frank McLintock, Chris Kamara, Rodney Marsh and the late George Best.

In January 2009 he took over as host of the Channel 4 quiz show Countdown, and also appears during an episode of The IT Crowd in the same role. In May 2011 it was announced that he would leave Countdown at the end of the year due to his commitments with Sky Sports.

Stelling has been named as Sports Broadcaster of the Year for five successive years by the Sports Journalists’ Association of Great Britain, based on a poll of its members. He has so far been the only broadcaster to win the award.

Geoff has also completed the London Marathon on eight occasions and his best time is 3 hours and 28 minutes.

On 12 March 2010 he was granted the title of honorary freeman of his hometown of Hartlepool, along with the town’s former MP Lord Mandelson.

As one of the country’s leading presenters and sports experts, Geoff is in demand for his hosting talents.