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August 2006

Boots of Gold

After a tough season at Millwall what better way of a quick recovery then the World Cup! The invitation to go back to India as guest for the Times Now TV station and to be an analyst on a show called Boots of Gold was readily accepted. A year after leaving I was returning to where I had three successful years as National Team Coach and a chance to see some old friends and of course the lads.

Let me first try to establish the amount of interest in the World Cup in India supposedly a country that has no real interest in football. There were 5-6 national TV stations that were going to be having football related shows, which did not include the main provider of the live games ESPN and of course each state in India there are 26 of them all have there own local stations and they too would be having there own programmes on the beautiful game. Almost every commercial was in some way related to the World Cup or football and of course the commercial opportunities for all are huge in India and especially in Indian football.

Stephen & Kelly presenting the Boots of Gold Show

Unlike the other shows Boots of Gold was approaching things in a slightly different way of course! Instead of going over what the viewers have already seen we were to do two shows a day, the idea being we would do an evening show before the games where we would try to show the strong points and the weak point of the teams playing toy around with possible formations and give a general overview of what could happen. Naturally I would then have to put my skinny neck on the line and come up with predictions! Of course it was sods law that I got 90% of the games right and didn’t have a penny on it. The morning show would then figure out tactically what went wrong or right and we would chat about various happenings.

The first predictions came early on when I was asked who would qualify from the groups and here I must admit I got one wrong! Czech Republic to qualify instead of Ghana and even the Czechs are wondering how they didn’t get through.

The host of the show a former male model and currently an actor in India was a chap called Kelly Dorji and I must say a lovely guy, granted he knew nothing about football but his enthusiasm and the fact that he didn’t pretend to know the game was in his favour. It was kind of like he was learning the game with many of the viewers and asking the questions that viewers might it worked really well and of course ,Kelly also has the ability to make something ordinary seem special and I must say we had a good chemistry going and I think it reflected well in the show.

My schedule went something like this, up around 5am and into the studio by about 6am a coffee and then we would go over the show there is of course a script which Kelly would go over. The questions would not be rehearsed so there was a natural flow to the show and it ended up working well. By around 7:30 am we would go in and start to get ready for the 8am live show. Once the show was over it was another coffee and back to the hotel for breakfast, by 10 am I was tucked up in bed catching up on some sleep. I would generally drag myself out of bed about 12:30 shower have a cup of tea while reading the papers and then it was time to head back to the studio so that by 3pm I was there ready for the next show. You will notice no lunch! The next show was at 5:30am and after more coffee and a quick check on my emails it was make up time! And well they must have used a ton of it to take the shine off my bonce! We then went in and did the after noon show and by 6:15pm I was flying out the door rushing back to the hotel to catch the first game of three.

The last game in India would be shown at 12:30 am and that would mean about 3 hours of sleep it got worse if you like in the knockout stages as extra time and penalty’s could take the time to 3am so I would always be hoping it would not go to penalty’s so I could get to bed!!

On the whole I thoroughly enjoyed watching all the games but then I could do that on any given day! It was of course interesting for me to see how the coaches would set there teams up there reaction when winning or losing and the after pre and post match interviews were always a fascinating part of the battle for me. I thought right from the off that there could be six to eight teams that were capable of wining the Cup and here they were, Brazil, Argentina, England (yes I really felt we had half a chance) Italy, Holland, France, for me the outsiders could have come from Czech Republic, Spain, and Germany. As for the rest of the world well hopefully someone else outside Europe and South America will win the next one in South Africa. I can hardly wait.

I think we should change the format for the World Cup its just my opinion but the business of seeding only helps the big teams advance and yes the sponsors want to see the best in the finals but I really think we can change things a little and give everyone a real chance of winning the World Cup.
In the initial drawing of the groups fair enough seed the top eight and keep the draw as it is. But once we have finished the group stages let’s have all the teams put in the pot and drawn out one at a time as it was in the 1970 World Cup in Mexico and what a tournament that was! The beauty of the FA Cup in England is that occasionally there will be huge upset and one of the unfancied teams comes out of nowhere to win it! I think this way we may just get a team from another continent winning it and that can only be good for the game, its just an idea and you never know.

In ending this latest news I would like to thank everyone at Times Now and all those involved on the Boots of Gold show they were fantastic towards me and gave me a real insight in how things work behind the scenes great job and I look forward to doing more TV work in the future.

For me the hunt for a new position begins and hopefully someone will be seeking my services sooner rather then later, as I am not too good doing anything other then what I love best, coaching.

Thanks as always for visiting the site and I wish all of you a great summer and well not long to go now and the new season will be upon us.

All the very best.

Stephen