Unbelievable – Jeff Stelling to leave Soccer Saturday with famous Portsmouth red card exchange with Chris Kamara a notable highlight

The 66-year-old broadcaster has anchored the programme for the past 25 years, becoming a huge favourite among all football fans, with his hilarious ‘I don’t know, Jeff’ exchange with former Pompey player Chris Kamara following a red card incident at Fratton Park in 2010 no doubt a highlight.

Stelling, who revealed the news during yesterday’s show, said he will also be departing Sky Sports, but plans to carry on working.

He insisted he has not been forced by Sky bosses to leave.

His exit comes after Matt Le Tissier, Charlie Nicholas and Phil Thompson were controversially stood down from the show last year.

Stelling said: ‘Before we do the team news from Newcastle, I have got some team news from Sky Sports and Soccer Saturday to tell you about.

‘I will have been at Sky for 30 years next year, and hosted Soccer Saturday for the past 25 or so – I am not too clever at statistics – but I have come to the decision, an incredibly difficult decision, that this will be my final season.

‘It has been my decision. There has been no pressure whatsoever. Sky have been absolutely brilliant with me, as they always always have been.

‘I am going to be here until May, and then I am leaving the show and the company so that is about seven months of Saturday afternoon parties, so let’s get this party going.’

In April, 2010, Stelling famously went to match-day roving reporter Kamara at Fratton Park for details of Pompey full-back Anthony Vanden Borre’s 60th-minute sending off against Blackburn in the Premier League.

But when asked who had been dismissed, Kamara replied, ‘I don’t know, Jeff, has there? I must have missed that! Was there a red card?’

In response, Stelling – amid laughter from the studio – told the former Blues and Leeds ace to ‘get your fingers out and count up the number of Portsmouth players on the field’.