The BBC must replace Gary Lineker, not reinvent Match of the Day

Lineker quitting Match of the Day is a very big deal (Picture: Getty)

As far as ‘Big Days in British Broadcasting’ go, the BBC confirming that Gary Lineker will step down as the host and anchor of Match of The Day takes a bit of beating.

For once, ‘end of an era’ doesn’t feel like overkill –  for as long as I can remember, Match Of The Day has been a highlight of the sporting week and indeed an important point of punctuation in my own life. 

As a boy I’d beg my parents to be allowed to stay up and watch some of it as the 1030pm start crept further past my bedtime. 

A few years on, I felt privileged to sit and have a beer with my own Dad as we watched the highlights of the Arsenal game.

Of course in later teenage years and my 20s, the Saturday night ritual of Match Of The Day was replaced by the Sunday morning ritual, seeing what I’d missed with a cup of tea and a hangover. 

But now I’m a bit older, with children of my own, I’ll again bookend a busy week by pushing past the tiredness to stay up to that blessed time of 22:35, to sit and watch Gary introduce the show with a dad-joke and a smile, watch Arsenal, and then likely switch it off before it gets to the inevitably dull final game highlights. 

Honestly, I probably at some point imagined that me and my son would one day spend our Saturday nights watching Lineker.

Lineker has been a feature on our screens for years (Picture: Getty Images)

People say that familiarity can breed contempt, and while Lineker certainly had his critics (not least when he dared to have a political opinion that was critical of the then governing Tory party), whether it be for his politics or his overly scripted jokes, he has still managed to maintain his status as Mister Saturday Night.

But let’s be honest, as good as the former England striker has been, he was never the main star of the show. Football was. 

We enjoyed the banter and the calming familiar presence, but we watched for the highlights. 

So I’ll still one day share that same beer with my son watching Match of the Day no matter who is hosting – providing the BBC resists the temptation to tinker with the format

Already words like ‘reboot’ and ‘revamp’ are being thrown around, and that’s a concern. 

Even without Lineker, Match of the Day ain’t broke, so there’s no need to fix it. 

Has it all got a bit stale? Probably. Is it as forward thinking as other football shows, as high tech as Sky, as personality-driven as America’s CBS Golazo? 

Definitely not. But it’s always felt very BBC, very British, that Match Of The Day has stuck with the same formula, right down to the theme. 

It meant Lineker provided something of a blank canvas for the football itself to really take centre stage, something that feels increasingly rare. In other spaces, the football has almost stepped back to let the pundits become the stars. 

Micah Richards is one of the names linked with the job (Picture: Getty Images)

Gary Neville, the full-back-cum-venture-capitalist, spotted the trend towards podcasts and longer form content a while ago and launched his own YouTube channel, The Overlap. 

While they do still discuss football, viewers are also treated to watching them eat croissants, try Nandos, discuss clothing, and take Roy Keane on endless trips, presumably on a quest to one day make him smile.

In terms of Match Of The Day, there are rumours of rotating hosts and a retooling, new formats and, no doubt, some attempt from the BBC to attract more of ‘The Youth’. 

It seems like the much-loved programme is at risk of becoming, *shudder*, content. 

Amongst all of this noise, Alan Shearer has joked that, if Micah Richards were to be given the hosting seat, he would walk away from the show. 

Obviously Shearer was kidding, but in his gag, the Beeb should see what the future of what Match of the Day should be.

And spoiler, the future of Match of the Day should look a lot like its past and present.

There was lots of controversy over Lineker’s political views (Picture: Getty)

Any temptation to go for younger, rotating hosts or a new format that appeals to that key demographic of 16-24 year olds should be skipped immediately. 

Sky Sports have tried similar, bringing in vloggers and influences into their coverage, and it has fallen flat, with their core audience of older generation football fans reacting angrily every time they see the latest TikTok star instead of a retired midfielder. 

Match Of The Day should learn from this – when I was young I watched every week because I had to, there was no other way of catching up on the football I had missed. 

Nowadays, teenagers don’t need a show on a Saturday evening to show them the day’s goals – by half time they’ve already seen every goal flashed on Twitter, they’ve streamed live games illegally, and they’ve watched big moments dissected by annoying YouTubers. 

Lineker has moved on, Match of the Day shouldn’t (Picture: Getty)

Tell a Gen Z football fan that we used to avoid even finding out the results until almost midnight and they’d look at you like you had two heads. 

They don’t need Match Of The Day.

Well I do. I’ve got kids. I barely have time to watch one game of football, let alone keep up with all the others. 

I also remember the pundits as footballers, and I want to hear what they think about what’s happened during the day. 

There are millions of other sad, tired football fans like me who don’t just want this, we need this. It’s all we have left.

So the Beeb should consider what works already about Match Of The Day, the chemistry, the banter, the fact that, ultimately, it doesn’t really appeal to the youth, it appeals to knackered old dads like me who push themselves to stay up until half ten, who wish they were at the pub but instead enjoy banter vicariously through the middle aged men they watch on the screen, and who are already invested in the setup that’s there. 

Young people have already got Twitter, they’ve got TikTok, YouTube, every social platform is built for them, every piece of cringeworthy football ‘content’ catered to their every need. 

So on behalf of the sad old men like me, please leave Match Of The Day as it is, no matter who is presenting. 

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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