Gary Lineker forced to improvise as final Match of the Day nearly went wrong
Things very nearly went pear-shaped.
Gary Lineker has revealed he had to improvise while presenting his last-ever Match of the Day after 26 years on air.
Last night, accompanied by fellow pundits Micah Richards and Alan Shearer, Lineker bowed out of the BBC highlights show, which he first fronted in 1999.
Lineker, 64, was seen wiping away tears after a montage was played revisiting the successes of his career in both football and punditry, later getting choked up as he thanked viewers for their support over the years.
He’s now reflected on his final show on his The Rest Is Football podcast, which is produced by his company Goalhanger Podcasts, admitting that things almost went pear-shaped.
Lineker told Richards and Shearer, who regularly appeared on the show with him, that he’d lost the copy sheet of information to read out over the Premier League table last night, meaning he had to ad-lib.
He explained: ‘For the first time ever, because of everything that was going on, I completely lost what we call the copy, which is basically the written form of what I read out over the tables.
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Previous Page Next Page‘It’s written by the subs; it needs to be accurate, obviously, for all the things; you can’t make any mistakes.
‘For the first time in 26 years, I couldn’t find it, and it wasn’t there, so I just (improvised), which was a bit different.’
Elsewhere during the recording, Lineker admitted that he struggled to get through his closing lines while ‘fighting back’ the waterworks.
‘I was a bit tired and a bit emotional last night. I’m fine,’ he began.
‘I’m good, and thank you both for your very kind words last night,’ he added to his co-hosts.
‘I must say, when they played the montage, obviously, I knew something was coming, but I didn’t know what it was at all.
Lineker hosted his final episode with Alan Shearer and Micah Richards (Picture: Match of the Day/BBC/PA Wire) The pundit has been hosting MOTD since 1999 (Picture: Match of the Day/BBC/PA Wire)‘(I was) struggling to keep myself (together), especially when I saw my boys, you know what it’s like when it’s family and stuff, and thankfully that wasn’t the last clip, because I’d gone at that point. I needed time to get myself together to try and get through the end of the show.’
The former Barcelona striker was stunned when messages were sent in from pundits past and present, including Richards, Shearer, former Liverpool defender and pundit Alan Hansen, Danny Murphy, and former Arsenal striker Ian Wright.
There were also words from Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola, and former Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri, plus former teammates Alan Smith, Paul Gascoigne, and Peter Shilton, as well as Lineker’s sons George, Harry, Tobias, and Angus.
Comment nowWill you miss Lineker on MOTD?Comment NowAs he was then given the final word, Lineker looked down the camera lens and told viewers it had been an ‘absolute privilege’ and ‘utterly joyous’ to front the show for so long.
His departure from the broadcaster follows a row after he shared a post about Zionism, which featured a depiction of a rat, historically an antisemitic insult.
Lineker, the BBC’s highest-paid presenter on a £1.4million salary, issued an unreserved apology over the Instagram Story, as it was confirmed he would leave his presenting role at the BBC early and would no longer front coverage of the 2026 World Cup or next season’s FA Cup.
Lineker left after a row over a social media post about Zionism (Picture: Alex Pantling/Getty Images)To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
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Previous Page Next Page‘Rather like my football career, everyone else did all the hard work, and I got the applause. It’s been an absolute privilege to host Match of the Day for a quarter of a century,’ he told those watching.
‘Thank you for watching, thank you for all your love and support over the years; it’s been so special, and I’m sorry that your team was always on last,’ he joked.
Gabby Logan, Kelly Cates, and Mark Chapman will replace the Leicester-born star and share the presenting role from the next Premier League season, and Lineker wished them ‘all the very best when they sit in this chair’.
His MOTD stint then concluded in a special way, as he received a farewell message from Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, who sang Nessun Dorma at Leicester’s title celebrations in 2016 and then Time to Say Goodbye while the credits rolled.
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