Farewell Gary Lineker, you won’t be missed

Gary Lineker is to leave Match of the Day at the end of the current football season, and to exit the BBC entirely after the 2026 World Cup. It was 1999 when he took over Match from Des Lynam, though in a strange discord with the usual swift passage of time, it feels much longer. 

Because despite his close association with it as a player and a pundit Lineker is really nothing much to do with football. His punditry, as we all know, is far wider in its scope than such enjoyable trifles.

It’s still startling, still incredibly odd, that such formerly bland and amiable figures as TV presenters now come with opinions and feel the need to propagate them. Is there to be no escape from politics, anywhere on television, even in the most innocuous sections of the schedule? Can you imagine back in the day tuning in to the BBC’s Pebble Mill at One to find Bob Wellings and Marian Foster gnashing their teeth about Ted Heath? Why do we expect this from presenters now? I never felt the slightest curiosity about Rustie Lee’s views on the miners’ strike, nor did I expect her to volunteer them.