Footy Show frontmen struggle to shake off new threat
Mike Colman - 19may05
There was movement at the station for the word had passed around that Fatty and Sterlo were in a bit of strife.
And that, south of the Tweed is big, big news.
If ever one needs reminding that Brisbane and Sydney are two cities divided by a common language, a short trip over the border should do the trick.
The launch of a new book to celebrate 25 years of State of Origin was a big event in Sydney.
The NRL was putting on free drinks and a superb feed, and all the cracks were gathered at the fray.
All those who are in the Fatty and Sterlo camp anyway. Blocker Roach wasn't there. They're not mates anymore since Blocker got the rocket from The Footy Show.
Ray Hadley wasn't there either, even though Bolts was tipped to be the boys' co-panellist.
He said he was too busy on radio to take on the extra gig, although everyone knows that the Vautin-Hadley friendship ended when Vautin's best mate Johnny Gibbs left Hadley (then on 2UE) to go to 2GB (where Hadley now hangs his hat, Gibbsy having returned to 2UE) and Bolts gave him both barrels. Still with me?
Arko wasn't there either. He and Fatty are said to be estranged since Fatty and Bozo had a bust-up over the Manly elections.
But the main person who wasn't there was Rebecca Wilson.
For years, Australian newspaper editors have been looking for a sports columnist version of Elvis the white man who could sing like a black man. And in Rebecca they found it. A woman who writes like a man.
Unfortunately (depending on whose camp you're in) one of the main targets Rebecca has set her sights on in her News Limited Sydney column is The Footy Show (which may or may not have something to do with the fact that Gus Gould works for Channel 9 and nobody at News likes Gus).
Also Danny Weidler has just joined the station and Rebecca and Danny . . . don't get me started).
Anyway, to cut a long story short, when CEO David Gyngell left Channel 9 last week the echoes were heard all the way down to The Footy Show bunker.
As an insider said yesterday: "The geniuses who came in after David left took a look at last week's ratings and said 'this is a disaster'. Then someone who obviously has no idea of what's going on behind the scenes decided the show needed freshening up and came up with the brilliant idea of bringing in Hadley and Wilson."
In Sydney newspapers, Rebecca Wilson was on the front page and all over page three.
Schapelle Corby was on page seven. And down there they say Brisbane is a big country town.
Fatty and Sterlo have apparently told "the geniuses who came in after David" that they'll sit next to Rebecca on the panel but they won't talk to her which, if you know anything about television, means the geniuses are no dummies.
Tonight's edition of The Footy Show promises to be the biggest rater since that night in April 1995 when Fatty, Sterlo, Blocker, Arko, Bozo, Gus and Bolts (they were all mates back then) bashed up John Ribot over Super League.
But it won't have happened without a great deal of pain, angst and moral indignation.
In introducing them to launch State of Origin, 25 Years of Sport's Greatest Rivalry, their Channel 9 co-worker Ray Warren was compassion personified.
"Please welcome them," said Rabs. "They've shown up after a very difficult week." Looking a little shaken but un-stirred, Sterlo told the crowd: "We'll be there on Thursday night doing our best. We love what we do and we'll be giving 100 per cent like we always do, but just let me say this, Paul Vautin IS The Footy Show." To which Fatty added: "It's only a TV show." Only a TV show? That'll do me.
