Chris Kamara remembers the first email arriving as if it was yesterday. For six years, the former footballer had been working on Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday, giving live match updates to studio presenter Jeff Stelling. Unknown to him, for most of the audience, it was not his analysis that made him compulsive viewing. As he discovered one day in 2004, when the ping on his laptop announced incoming mail.
Chris Kamara 61, has gone from a cult drinking game to a mainstream TV presenter, his grin a regular on panel shows, as well as the ITV Saturday evening programme Ninja Warrior. And this year he has embarked on the ultimate celebrity status project; a Christmas album
‘It came from someone at Durham University,’ he recalls. ‘It was about the Chris Kamara drinking game they had up there. Apparently they watched the programme every Saturday and whenever I came on air, everyone had to hold up their drink. And when I said “unbelievable Jeff”, they all had to down it in one.
‘I had no idea I even said it and they were telling me that I said it so often they were getting wasted every Saturday.’
‘Soon I was getting emails from every university in the country,’ he cackles. ‘All these students doing Chris Kamara drinking games. Turns out I’m responsible for much of the alcoholism in higher education.’
In the 15 years since, Kamara 61, has gone from a cult drinking game to a mainstream TV presenter, his grin a regular on panel shows, as well as the ITV Saturday evening programme Ninja Warrior. And this year he has embarked on the ultimate celebrity status project; a Christmas album. Here’s To Christmas offers a mix of familiar classics such as Let It Snow!, Winter Wonderland and Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, as well as the title number, which was composed for Kamara by Robbie Williams’s songwriter, Richard Scott. But the thing that might surprise his student followers the most? Chris Kamara can hold a tune.
Kamara insists his new career as a purveyor of croon classics came about by chance. ‘I was on the celebrity version of All Together Now, which was on telly last Christmas Eve. My hero is Elton John, so I sang Your Song. I didn’t win, I was kicked out, and I was on my way home thinking no more of it. Then I got a call from someone asking if I wanted to do a Christmas album. They’d heard me on the show and thought I had something.’
This is not the first time he has garnered attention for doing an Elton number.
‘When I signed for Leeds, the first game I played was over in Ireland, pre-season. We were out at a restaurant and there was a pianist there. I said to him, “Can you do Your Song?” He could, so I sang it. I’d hardly met any of the lads. I remember skipper Gordon Strachan saying, “So you’re our shy new signing.” ’
There’s not a day someone doesn’t yell ‘Unbelievable Jeff!’ at me. I love it
But then Kamara was never bashful about celebrating his good fortune, in part because he could not believe his luck at being allowed to play football for a living. It almost didn’t happen at all. His father, a mariner from Sierra Leone who had settled in Middlesbrough and married a local woman, insisted he joined the Royal Navy the moment he left school. ‘He physically marched me down to the recruitment office. Imagine that happening these days! But it worked out for me. I got spotted by Portsmouth playing for the Navy and they signed me up. It’s fate, isn’t it?’
After he retired as a player, he worked as a manager at Bradford City and then Stoke City. While still in the dugout, he was asked to act as a pundit on Sky. So naturally enthusiastic was he that when he lost his managerial job, it was an effortless transition into full-time television work.
But it was a misdemeanour live on air in 2010 that gave him prominence beyond the university halls. While reporting on a match at Portsmouth, he missed a vital sending-off of a player. When Stelling asked him what had happened, he was a picture of confusion, spluttering ‘I dunno Jeff’ into the camera.
‘I’m the luckiest man around,’ he says. ‘I’ve even got my own catchphrase. Not a day goes by that someone doesn’t shout “Unbelievable Jeff” at me in the street. I love it, it’s fantastic.’
‘It wasn’t all my fault that day,’ he smiles. ‘I genuinely couldn’t see what was going on. You either blag it and lie or you tell the truth. I had to admit I hadn’t a clue. All I could hear was laughter from the studio.
‘I got a right b******ing afterwards from the programme director and I thought that was it. Then the texts started coming in. The world loved it. Now it’s had millions of views on YouTube.’
The faux pas seemed to propel his career even further. ‘I’m the luckiest man around,’ he says. ‘I’ve even got my own catchphrase. Not a day goes by that someone doesn’t shout “Unbelievable Jeff” at me in the street. I love it, it’s fantastic.’
Though he insists there was no chance of him calling his new album by the familiar slogan. ‘No, not at all, that would have been very unfair on the band. They are the ones who make this sound good. In my head, I sound ten times better than Michael Bublé. Trouble is, when I listen back to it, I don’t.’
And with that, he roars with laughter. For Kammy, life has been one long giggle. ‘It really has,’ he guffaws. ‘Unbelievable, Jeff.’
Chris Kamara’s new album, ‘Here’s To Christmas’, is out now