Meet the new stars of TV's Countdown

HE HAS become a cult figure for thousands of football fans in awe of his seemingly limitless supply of stats on goalscorers and matches won.

But now Sky TV sports presenter Jeff Stelling is to become a familiar face for a new audience after he was unveiled yesterday as the host of Countdown.

He will be joined on the show by a 22-year-old replacement for Carol Vorderman – a brilliant but unknown Oxford University maths graduate. Rachel Riley beat more than 1,000 other applicants to win her place on the programme.

Opinions were split after yesterday's announcement over whether Channel 4's choices were a stroke of broadcasting genius or a desperate gambit by programmers whose mishandling of Vorderman sparked a viewers' revolt and a dive in ratings.

Stelling became a household name on Soccer Saturday on Sky, celebrated for his encyclopaedic knowledge of sporting facts and figures. "I am delighted to be hosting Countdown, and follow in the footsteps of such great broadcasters as Richard Whiteley, Des Lynam and Des O'Connor," he said.

His co-host passed a series of interviews, screen tests and maths games to replace Vorderman, who has been on Countdown since it was launched in 1982.

Ms Riley says she has had the Countdown clock music as her mobile phone ring tone "for years".

"This is the best graduate job in the world," she enthused. "There's only one cool maths job around and I was lucky enough to get it so I'm absolutely thrilled."

She faces the daunting challenge of living up to Vorderman, who was on the very first Countdown in 1982 as an awkward 21-year-old maths "expert".

Countdown's troubles began with the 2005 death of Whiteley, who launched the show with Vorderman. She quit in July, soon after O'Connor said he was leaving, and it emerged producers had asked her to take a 90 per cent cut in her £800,000 salary.

Reports said Ms Riley would be paid closer to £100,000. With A-Levels in maths, further maths and physics, she said she bought five Countdown puzzle books and practised 500 numbers games ahead of her audition.

Mark Borkowski, a celebrity PR agent, said the show had struggled for replacements after a "huge backlash" over Vorderman. "She (Riley] will have to be more than good to sit in that seat because I'm not sure there's an audience," he said. "It's a wounded brand."

But Charles Fletcher, of Caledonia Media, said: "Jeff's a good guy, he's a solid presenter, a smarty-pants, but likeable. It needs an injection of fresh skills. You're going away from the showbusiness celebrity, so it goes back to its roots. We've seen dumbing down – this may be braining up."


PROFILE

WITH his encyclopaedic knowledge of statistics, quickfire wit and famous passion for football, Jeff Stelling, below, has long been one of television's most popular personalities.

His Facebook appreciation society boasts more than 13,000 members and he has a number of other fan clubs.

For 14 years, Stelling has hosted Sky's Saturday afternoon results show, a six-hour bonanza of discussion and live reports. Using pundits such as Rodney Marsh and Charlie Nicholas, the show gives fans quick-fire updates from around the country, but does not show live footage.

Stelling, who hails from Hartlepool and is a lifelong fan of his hometown side, had an apprenticeship on his local newspaper before reporting on the fortunes of Middlesborough for Radio Tees.

He was a sports presenter on London's LBC Radio's Sportswatch programme in the early 1980s before moving to BBC Radio 2's weekend sports programme Sport On 2, covering the Los Angeles and Seoul Olympic games.

He later spent time as a sports newsreader at TV-am, Channel 4, Eurosport and BSB before moving to Sky in 1992 to present coverage of horse-racing, snooker and darts.

Stelling was named sports broadcaster of the year by the Sports Journalists' Association for the third successive time earlier this year.