‘It wasn’t meant to finish this manner’: Lineker indicators off from Match of the Day | Gary Lineker

Gary Lineker bade farewell to Match of the Day and his profession on the BBC on Sunday night time in the one acceptable method: with a montage.

There have been deep breaths, noises off, the checking of notes. There have been tears and celebrations. There was Bobby Robson and Johan Cruyff. There have been tributes from colleagues, friends, family and friends and an invite to “go gallivanting” from Gazza.

“You don’t consider it however you may be missed,” mentioned Pep Guardiola.

The 64-year-old largely held it collectively as he was taken down reminiscence lane and ushered in the direction of the exit door of the BBC’s prime sports activities programme after 26 years of internet hosting. Solely a sniffle betrayed his deeper emotions as he signed off for the final time. “Relatively like my soccer profession, everybody else did the exhausting work and I acquired the plaudits”, he mentioned. “It’s been completely joyous.”

Lineker has typically described the chance to be a custodian of a programme he himself had grown up watching as “a privilege”. In reality, the previous England captain’s stint as presenter dwarfs that of each different host. From David Coleman to Des Lynam, the host of Match of the Day has additionally been the face of the BBC’s sports activities programming and Lineker continued that custom, however solely his presence has been constant throughout a complete technology.

After an preliminary stint as a pundit, Lineker’s presenting debut got here on 7 August 1999. He launched himself with a Lynam-esque second of fourth-wall breaking. “Hey, inform you what, soccer’s again,” he mentioned, earlier than including: “Any good? Did I get the job?”

His first match was Chelsea at house to promoted Sunderland, a thrashing led by Gianfranco Zola; his punditry panel Alan Hansen and Trevor Brooking.

Twenty-six years later and Lineker noticed out his final 90 minutes of motion and evaluation within the firm of Alan Shearer and Micah Richards. Each males are greater, louder and snappier than their predecessors. In addition they work with Lineker all week lengthy as a part of The Relaxation Is Soccer, the hit podcast produced by Lineker’s Goalhanger studio. There, their personalities are given looser rein and banter gushes freely. The extra mannered variations of the trio on MOTD can appear somewhat awkward by comparability.

Through the years Lineker discovered a particular voice as a broadcaster, conveying his enthusiasm for the sport whereas adopting an avuncular method to the athletes he was watching. He additionally indulged his fondness for wordplay and made many deprecating references to the achievements of his profession.

His boyish appears endured for many years, his ageing betrayed solely by his whitening hair. In 2015 he agreed to current MOTD in “simply my lingerie” if the staff he had as soon as performed for and all the time supported, Leicester Metropolis, received the Premier League. The Foxes duly pulled off the miracle and Lineker half-honoured his dedication: the white bloomers have been extra shorts than pants.

At that time in his profession it was as near controversy as Lineker had come. The participant who by no means obtained a yellow card had turn out to be the great man host, even-handed in his observations and mild in his humour. However his pants pledge got here through a submit on Twitter and Lineker’s social media exercise was to vary the notion the general public had of him.

He used Twitter to articulate his private political opinions. His help for refugees introduced assaults from the press and strangers into his house. Two years in the past, criticism of the earlier authorities’s language on asylum led to debates over impartiality and a short suspension, just for Lineker’s pundit friends to stroll out in solidarity.

Scrutiny of Lineker’s exercise away from the studio has solely grown since, concurrently his independence from the BBC has deepened. The choice that Lineker would start to step away from his BBC tasks was made final autumn, with the promise of a final dance on the males’s World Cup subsequent summer season. Lineker’s choice two weeks in the past to repost content material referring to the Gaza battle that contained an antisemitic image then put an finish to plans for an prolonged farewell.

“It wasn’t meant to finish this manner,” was how Lineker opened his ultimate present, however there was to be no confessional. After all it was a arrange for a joke. “With the title race over, the Champions League was all we had left to speak about,” mentioned Lineker as Richards grimaced keenly, however the digicam didn’t linger.

As ever with a present that’s edited with army precision, the match motion needed to be cued up. “We’ll take it in desk order,” Lineker mentioned. The present rolled on.

There have been little chuckles on the prospect of free pints at Shearer’s Bar at St James’ Park and a recital of regulation 12 referring to the management of the ball in a goalkeeper’s hand. The Chelsea defender Levi Colwill was in comparison with a “prime Lineker within the field” by Richards and giggles have been had over unrevealed remarks referring to Sunderland made by Shearer within the inexperienced room.

There was a graphic that acquired the West Ham supervisor improper and Lineker momentarily confused Brighton and Bournemouth. It was all as acquainted and as comforting as a heat tub. Then, lastly, the plug was pulled.