Mr Unbelievable. Chris Kamara

       CHAPTER ONE GROUND-HOPPING WITH KAMMY PT 1 (ON THE ROAD WITH SOCCER SATURDAY)

      To the untrained eye of your girlfriend or granny, Soccer Saturday looks like a nuthouse in action. If you haven’t seen it, here’s the basic idea behind the show: four ex-professional footballers of varying repute – Phil Thompson (Liverpool fan club), Paul Merson (reformed gambler), Matt Le Tissier (saint) and Charlie Nicholas (playboy) – sit at a News at Ten style desk every Saturday afternoon and each watches one of four Premiership games on a row of tellies positioned in front them.

      Over the course of 90 minutes, their job is to explain the action as it happens, usually through a series of shouts, groans and girly squeals. Meanwhile anchorman Jeff Stelling (or ‘Stelling, Jeff Stelling’, as he introduces himself to members of the opposite sex) delivers the news of every goal, booking and red card around the country via a vidiprinter that runs at the bottom of the screen. Even to the well-trained eye, Soccer Saturday looks like a loony bin.

      My role in all of this is to act as a roving reporter. Every weekend, I’ll be sent to some far-flung corner of the country to report on a game from a TV gantry, whatever the weather. It’s a risky business. One day I’m standing in front of thousands of Pompey fans at Fratton Park in the pouring rain, the next I’m dangling under the roof at White Hart Lane. I bloody love it.

      There are a lot of perks to being an intrepid touchline reporter with Soccer Saturday. For starters, I stay in some of the best hotels around the country and can eat as many motorway service station sarnies as I want. I also get a complimentary Sky Sports coat, which makes me look far more important than I am. When it comes to a Saturday afternoon, I watch some of the best footballers in the world strut their stuff, for free.

      The biggest bonus as far as I’m concerned is that I’ve got the freedom of most of the stadiums in the Premiership. I can pop into the manager’s office at White Hart Lane or wander into the dressing-rooms at Sunderland without any hassle. I’ve sat in the stands with Arsène Wenger at the Emirates and made reports from the dugouts at Craven Cottage. I’ve even had a heated discussion with Gérard Houllier on the touchline at Anfield, though I always draw the line at taking liberties at Old Trafford. The thought of getting a Sir Fergie ‘hairdryer’ scares me, although I have to say I get on well with him these days.

      Generally, I get a greater access to the inner workings of a football club than most other football reporters would because people know me from the telly. If I’m at Goodison Park or Stamford Bridge, I rarely have to flash a pass and I can sometimes have a free run of the stadium, which is a bit like getting the keys to Disneyland. It also helps that I’ve built up a level of trust among the boys in the game. Most managers know that I won’t take the mickey too much when I’m wandering around their ground with the cameras. Often they will tell me things over a cuppa that they wouldn’t tell another reporter (but only if we’re off air). They know I’m a football person and I’m not going to blab my mouth off for the viewers. Well, not all of the time.

      Most of the Premier League managers and Football League managers look after me when I’m on the road. Harry Redknapp at Spurs is as good as gold. I’ll visit him before a game when I’m reporting at White Hart Lane and we’ll have a chinwag, usually about football and horses. We’ll watch the early kick-off together, then around ten to three he’ll kick me out: ‘All right, Kammy, off you pop, I’ve got a spot of work to do.’

      Most of the gaffers will invite me in for a drink with them after the game. Sam Allardyce is good for a beer in his office. Alex McLeish at Birmingham, Steve Bruce at Sunderland and another old-school manager, Roy Hodgson, will always tell me to come into their offices for a bevy. I used to have a small shot of brandy with my old mate Gary Megson when he was in charge at Bolton. Once or twice it was before the match. Who can blame him? The abuse some of the fans were chucking his way at that time was unreal. They didn’t like the way Bolton were playing and would boo him, whatever the result. And I just needed it (hic!).

      As a former manager myself, I know when I’m not wanted. If a mate’s team has lost or even drawn, I’ll always stay away from the office, unless I’m invited in. Losing is bad enough for a player, but I know from experience that losing as a gaffer is much, much worse. You feel a real pressure on your shoulders and Big Sam or Brucey wouldn’t want me sitting at their desk, taking the mickey with a complimentary bottle of lager, especially if they had been hammered at home.

      I always used to love seeing Bobby Robson whenever I travelled around the North-east, because he was such a great man. He was always hospitable at Newcastle and he would talk your ears off about this player or that player. Sometimes he wanted to chat about a game he had watched on the telly, and it was always a joy because he was so knowledgeable. It was hard to see him as he fought cancer at the end of his life and he was being pushed around in a wheelchair. Bobby wasn’t the same person and it was heartbreaking.

      It won’t come as a great shock to learn that I still feel intimidated when I bump into Sir Alex Ferguson. He has an attitude which makes you feel like you’re imposing on his time, wherever you are, but the little insights you get from him in interviews are always fascinating. In general, the managers from the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea have kept me at arm’s length, so far. I’ll always talk to Arsène Wenger when I’m at the Emirates, but I don’t go into his office, and Rafa Benitez has never invited me into the famous Liverpool boot room either.

      The exception to that rule was José Mourinho. He was great with me when he was in charge at Chelsea. Well, he was for a while. It eventually turned sour with Sky and The Special One after an incident involving Chelsea midfielder Michael Essien, but we’ll come to that in a moment. We first met before a Carling Cup tie at Fulham and seemed to hit it off.

      ‘I like you very much,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘I like listening to you and Andy Gray. You educate the public on the game.’

      It was really uplifting hearing it from a football man like him. I could hardly get the headphones on my swelling bonce afterwards. We struck up a great friendship immediately and he always made me feel at home whenever I visited Stamford Bridge. José loved Soccer AM and its silly humour and I remember we really took the mickey on the show while he was serving a European touchline ban after an ugly bust-up with referee Anders Frisk.

      It happened during a Champions League game with Barcelona in 2005–06. José had been unhappy with the way the game had been handled and made some derogatory comments about Frisk. UEFA were not happy and banned José from the touchline for two games. They even called him an ‘enemy of football’. The punishment also prevented him from having any contact with his players once they had arrived at the ground, which meant he effectively had to stay away from the game completely.

      That didn’t stop José from influencing the match. On the evening of Chelsea’s next Champions League fixture, he sat at home (well, that’s what we