TV star Jeff Stelling has revealed a fan threatened to throw him down some stairs at Stockport last weekend because he was too gobby.
Sky Sports’ brilliant but highly-excitable Soccer Saturday presenter is not only Hartlepool’s honorary president but is the club’s most famous loudmouth supporter.
And last night Stelling said he couldn’t promise to behave himself on Sunday either when Pools meet Torquay in the National League Play-off Final at Bristol City’s Ashton Gate ground.
Stelling, 66, is often seen shrieking on camera alongside the likes of Paul Merson when the Hartlepool score flashes across his screen.
And the presenter couldn’t contain his highly-charged emotions in the Stockport directors’ box last Sunday when Rhys Oates crashed home a late 20-yard semi-final winner.
Stelling confessed: “I’m a hooligan in the nicest possible way.
“I may be the honorary president but I am just a supporter at heart and you’ve got to shout.
“I’m a proper nuisance. Consequently, when I am sitting in the directors box or wherever my heart is racing and I am screaming my head off.
“Ask anybody who sat behind me on Sunday and they will tell you what I am like.
“And just towards the end when tempers were boiling over a little frustration got through to somebody who offered to throw me down the stairs-but it was no big deal.”
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Star-struck Stelling just couldn’t control himself after the final whistle.
He was even seen screaming ‘Rhyso, Rhyso, Rhyso’ when the match winner was being interviewed on TV.
And the president hung around afterwards like a schoolboy so that he could hug and clap his heroes onto the team bus.
Stelling makes no excuses adding: “I am just a supporter at heart and I shout like mad really.
“And I can’t promise I will behave at Bristol although I hope you don’t hear me in the press box.
“This final is so hard to call but surely it can’t be any harder than the Stockport game.
“Gary Johnson has done a brilliant job – not just at Torquay but wherever he’s managed.
“He’s going for his seventh promotion which is incredible but our manager Dave Challinor has won a few as well at Fylde.
“I’ve never seen a Hartlepool team with so much togetherness and Dave is a brilliant bloke.
“I’m told by people watching the match on television that he looked like the coolest customer on the park in the dug-out!”
Well, Stelling can never be accused of being a cool dude especially when his hometown boys are playing.
And his fanatical support gets him a lot of stick from the ex-professional punters on his Soccer Saturday shows.
He recalls one painful afternoon this season when Pools were playing an evening match against Torquay on the box.
“I recorded it and told everybody in the studio I didn’t want to know the score because I was rushing home to see it.
“Merse knew the result and didn’t tell me but he was p****** himself inside because we lost 5-0 at home!
“Torquay were absolutely breathtaking that day and could have won by more-but we are a different team now.
“We got our revenge on them at their place but the final will be tense and I will be nervous – I just hope I can keep it together.”
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Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
