''They Think It's All Over'' is a British comedy
panel game
A panel show or panel game is a radio or television game show in which a panel of celebrities participate. Celebrity panelists may compete with each other, such as on '' The News Quiz''; facilitate play by non-celebrity contestants, such as on ' ...
with a sporting theme produced by
Talkback and shown on
BBC1
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and Flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includ ...
. The show's name was taken from
Kenneth Wolstenholme
Kenneth Wolstenholme, DFC & Bar (17 July 1920 – 25 March 2002) was an English football commentator for BBC television in the 1950s and 1960s. He is best remembered for his commentary during the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final; in the closing min ...
's
1966 World Cup commentary line, "
they think it's all over...it is now!" and the show used the phrase to sign off each episode. The show was originally broadcast from 1995 to 2006.
Overview
The show was originally presented by comedian
Nick Hancock. Retired England
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...
team captain
Gary Lineker
Gary Winston Lineker ( ; born 30 November 1960) is an English Sports broadcasting, sports broadcaster and former professional Association football, footballer who played as a Striker (association football), striker. Lineker is the only player t ...
and former England
cricket
Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...
team captain
David Gower
David Ivon Gower (born 1 April 1957) is an English cricket commentator and former cricketer who was captain of the England cricket team during the 1980s. Described as one of the most stylish left-handed batsmen of his era, Gower played 117 T ...
were team captains from 1995 until they announced their retirement from the show in 2003. They were replaced as team captains by former England football
goalkeeper
In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie, or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or i ...
David Seaman
David Andrew Seaman (born 19 September 1963) is an English former footballer who played as a goalkeeper. In a career lasting from 1981 to 2004, he is best known for his time playing for Arsenal. He won 75 caps for England, and is the country ...
and former England cricketer
Phil Tufnell
Philip Clive Roderick Tufnell (born 29 April 1966) is an English former international cricketer and current television and radio personality.
A slow left-arm orthodox spin bowler, he played in 42 Test matches and 20 One Day Internationals ...
. Former
footballer
A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...
Ian Wright took over from David Seaman in autumn 2004. From October 2005,
Boris Becker
Boris Franz Becker (; born 22 November 1967) is a German former professional tennis player. He was ranked as the List of ATP number 1 ranked players, world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). Becker won 49 c ...
replaced Tufnell and
Lee Mack
Lee Gordon McKillop (born 4 August 1968), known by his stage name Lee Mack, is an English comedian and actor, famed for his quick wit. Mack’s better known work includes creating, writing and starring in sitcom ''Not Going Out'', and featuring ...
took over from Hancock as host.
Occasionally, a team captain was unable to appear on the show due to other commitments so guest captains were drafted in. Six times World Snooker Champion
Steve Davis
Steve Davis (born 22 August 1957) is an English retired professional snooker player who is currently a Sports commentator, commentator, DJ, electronic musician and author. He dominated professional snooker in the 1980s, when he reached eight ...
was a regular choice as guest captain, while
Matthew Pinsent,
Mark Lawrenson
Mark Thomas Lawrenson (born 2 June 1957) is an English former professional association football, footballer who played as a Defender (association football), defender for Liverpool F.C., Liverpool, among others, during the 1970s and 1980s. After ...
,
Mick McCarthy
Michael Joseph McCarthy (born 7 February 1959) is a professional Manager (association football), football manager, pundit and former Association football, footballer. He was most recently the head coach of Blackpool F.C., Blackpool.
McCarthy b ...
,
Sam Torrance
Samuel Robert Torrance (born 24 August 1953) is a Scotland, Scottish professional golfer and sports commentator. He was one of the leading players on the European Tour from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s, with 21 Tour wins. Torrance was a membe ...
,
Steve Backley,
Sharron Davies,
Linford Christie
Linford Christie (born 2 April 1960) is a Jamaican-born British former Sprint (running), sprinter and athletics coach. He is the only British man to have won gold medals in the 100 metres at all four major competitions open to British athletes ...
and
Michael Johnson also appeared in this role. Additionally, Ian Wright was a guest captain before becoming a permanent team captain.
Each team also had a regular panellist. For the team which was originally captained by Gary Lineker this was
Rory McGrath for the show's entire run. David Gower was originally teamed up with
Lee Hurst. Hurst left the show in 1997 (although he made a reappearance in 2004 on David Seaman's team) and was replaced for the next two series by
Jonathan Ross,
Jo Brand
Josephine Grace Brand (born 23 July 1957) is an English actress, comedian, presenter and writer. Starting her entertainment career with a move from psychiatric nursing to the alternative comedy stand-up scene and early performances on '' Satur ...
,
Alan Davies,
Julian Clary
Julian Peter McDonald Clary (born 25 May 1959) is an English actor, comedian, novelist and presenter. He began appearing on television in the mid-1980s. Since then, he has also acted in films, on television and in stage productions, including n ...
and
Phill Jupitus
Phillip Christopher Jupitus (, ''Given name#Name at birth, né'' Swan; born 25 June 1962) is a retired English stand-up comedy, stand-up and Improv comedy teacher, improv comedian, actor, performance poetry, performance poet, cartoonist and podc ...
. Despite regularly admitting to having limited sporting knowledge, Ross became the permanent panellist until leaving the show in 2006, and was replaced by
Sean Lock for the
World Cup
A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...
and summer sports
special edition
The terms special edition, limited edition, and variants such as deluxe edition, collector's edition or expanded edition are used as a marketing incentive for various kinds of products, originally published products related to the arts, such as b ...
s. The third member of each team varied from week to week, and would typically be a notable sportsperson, broadcaster or comedian.
The show was originally produced for
BBC Radio 5, where it was hosted by
Des Lynam
Desmond Michael Lynam (born 17 September 1942) is an Irish-born British television and radio presenter. In a broadcasting career spanning more than forty years, he has hosted television coverage of many of the world's major sporting events, pr ...
. The devisers, Simon Bullivant and Bill Matthews, started work on a TV version in 1993 but it was two years before it made it to air. Lynam did record a pilot in early 1994 but decided not to do the already commissioned series, which was then put on hold.
In 1999 and 2001, as part of the BBC's
Comic Relief
Comic Relief is a British charity, founded in 1986 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Sir Lenny Henry in response to the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. The concept of Comic Relief was to get British comedians to make t ...
broadcasts, one-off special programmes were made called ''Have I Got Buzzcocks All Over''. They combined elements of the show with ''
Have I Got News for You'' and ''
Never Mind the Buzzcocks
''Never Mind the Buzzcocks'' is a British comedy panel game show with a pop music theme. It has aired on Sky Max since September 2021, having originally aired between November 1996 and January 2015 on BBC Two. The original series was first host ...
'', with
Angus Deayton
Gordon Angus Deayton (; born 6 January 1956) is an English actor, writer, musician, comedian and broadcaster.
Deayton was the original presenter of two successful British comedy panel shows, ''Have I Got News for You'' (1990–2002) and ''Woul ...
as host. In 2002 and 2004, as part of the BBC's
Sport Relief
''Sport Relief'' was a wikt:biennial, biennial charity event from Comic Relief, in association with BBC Sport, established in 2002.
It was the idea of Kevin Cahill, CBE, who had joined Comic Relief in 1991 to establish a new department as Dire ...
broadcasts, one-off special programmes were made called ''They Think It's All A Question of Sport''. They combined elements of the show with ''
A Question of Sport'', with
Stephen Fry
Sir Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director, narrator and writer. He came to prominence as a member of the comic act Fry and Laurie alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring in ''A Bit of ...
as host.
Kenneth Wolstenholme was unhappy with the use of the phrase for the title of the show. He wrote in his autobiography that he had contacted the BBC to find out what relevance the show had to his line. However, when the show was first commissioned, he did accept a fee to re-record his commentary for the opening titles, as the original was unusable.
Episodes
Controversies
Fatima Whitbread
During an episode aired on 13 May 1999, two panellists on the show suggested that javelin thrower
Fatima Whitbread had "unnaturally high levels of testosterone in her blood". Whitbread sued for libel and in November 1999, she accepted a public apology along with an undisclosed libel damages payment.
Luke Chadwick
In May 2020,
Luke Chadwick spoke to the media on how being mocked for his looks on the show repeatedly had affected his mental health. He said how the show commented on "spots on my face, teeth sticking out, that sort of thing" and how the repetition of the comments "wore him down" and made him anxious. Nick Hancock was interviewed by
BBC Breakfast
''BBC Breakfast'' is a British television breakfast news programme, produced by BBC News and broadcast on BBC One every morning from 6:00am. It is also broadcast on the UK feed of BBC News channel on weekends. The simulcast is presented live, ...
and apologised saying: "I'm appalled for him and at myself. When I hear him speaking, I'm full of admiration for the present Luke Chadwick and full of sympathy for the young Luke Chadwick, and personally I just feel a great deal of responsibility and shame, which I do accept and have to hold my hands up to." Upon the story breaking, Gary Lineker apologised to Chadwick on Twitter.
Chadwick accepted both of their apologies.
Merchandise
VHS
DVDs
References
External links
*
*{{IMDb title, id=0112193, title=They Think It's All Over
1990s British comedy television series
2000s British comedy television series
1995 British television series debuts
2006 British television series endings
BBC panel games
BBC television comedy
British panel games
1990s British game shows
2000s British game shows
1990s British sports television series
2000s British sports television series
Television series by Fremantle (company)
British English-language television shows