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Gary Lineker point made as BBC bosses warned on Match of the Day future
BBC bosses have been warned that keeping ‘exceptional’ Gary Lineker is the best way to keep Match of the Day’s audience.
Rumours have been growing that this could be the final season at the helm for Lineker, who started presenting BBC’s flagship football highlights programme 25 years ago. The Leicester hero is nearing the end of his current contract and he confirmed on his Rest Is Football podcast earlier this month that talks had just started about what happens next.
He has faced scrutiny over his salary and headline-grabbing comments away from the show but leading national football writer Martin Samuel insists he is an integral part of the institution and looking away to chase a younger market would actually have the opposite effect.
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Samuel writes in the Sunday Times: “There is a reason Match of the Day has had the same theme tune since 1970. It feels like home. A chap called Barry Stoller wrote it, given the flimsiest of briefs. He's not actually much of a football fan. The rest of us, on hearing it, think childhood, family, the remembered thrill of being allowed to stay up late, as well as the colourful cavalcade of action, elation and sporting heroes coming to life before our eyes.
“Even the BBC knows not to mess with that. It hasn't stopped the corporation trying, but the pushback is invariably so great that the old theme returns in a matter of weeks. And it's still the original that you hear. A trio of Stoller, a session trumpeter, and a drummer called Stuart Vincent recorded it in a basement studio in north London. A version with a full orchestra was tried, but didn't carry the same heft. And now it's Gary Lineker's turn.
“He has a new boss, Alex Kay-Jelski, who succeeded Barbara Slater as BBC director of sport, and there is now talk of this being Lineker's final year. The obvious motivation would be to seek a younger audience. It usually is.
“Yet just as Match of the Day is wedded to what is basically a 54-year-old piece of glorified library music so it is bonded to Lineker. Given that he started presenting the show in 1999, the young generation that are being targeted have grown up with him, and nobody else. He is Match of the Day to them; he's done a whole decade more than Jimmy Hill, a full 14 years longer than Des Lynam.
“So if the BBC wants somebody to front the programme that the kids all know: that's Lineker.”
It is Lineker’s knack of ‘shaping the mood’ on Match of the Day so that it isn’t just looking for morning headlines that Samuel thinks makes him the ideal presenter.
He said: “Where Lineker's employers may have a point is his salary is £1.35 million and some of his most newsworthy lines appear on his own podcast, the Rest Is Football. Apart from his political views, nothing Lineker has said since promising to present Match of the Day in his underpants if Leicester City won the league has had the impact of calling England ‘****’ at the European Championship after a 1-1 draw with Denmark. His BBC bosses were no doubt envious of the headlines that generated.
“Yet is that really what Match of the Day requires? Back to the studio, Lineker looks down camera one, ‘Well, a right load of old ***** from Arsenal there, Alan...’ One, it's crude, two, it's not his job. He's there to link, to present. He offers the odd opinion but mainly he guides the conversation, brings in the guests, provides the platform for their analysis.
“On his podcast he gets to editorialise. Does the BBC now wish for Match of the Day to be an extension of the Saturday evening radio shouting match? It has never been like that. Never short of a view, but one that is informed, educated, insightful. It is supposed to be more than a hot take, or a grab for the morning headlines. Lineker is exceptional at shaping that mood. He's in his comfort zone, surrounded by old friends, but that's part of the show's appeal too. It is why we trust it; because we trust him.
“And some argue it's dying. That everyone has already seen the goals and read the reports, that it's old hat and outdated. This is the biggest misreading of all. Match of the Day figures hold strong, which is little short of incredible given the access to the action we now have.
“Yet people tune in anyway and for a new generation that music, and the late-night tale it foretells, still contains a shimmer of excitement. And when the trumpets subside, the face sharing it all and smiling back at us belongs to Lineker.”
