Jeff Stelling: I slept on the floor of a rat-infested hotel in Borneo - The Times

Jeff Stelling is best known for presenting Sky Sport’s Gillette Soccer Saturday from 1994-2023 and Sky’s live Champions League coverage from 2011-2015. Earlier in his career the 71-year-old was a sports presenter on LBC’s Sportswatch, and then BBC Radio 2’s weekend show Sport on 2. He also hosted the Channel 4 quiz show Countdown from 2009-11, and has been a presenter on talkSPORT’s breakfast show every Monday and Tuesday since 2023. The father of three grown-up children lives with his second wife, Lizzie, in Bishop’s Waltham, Hampshire.

It might sound like a sob story but we didn’t take holidays when I was growing up in Hartlepool because money was tight. Our “holidays” were coach trips to horse-racing meetings at places like Ripon. Like most punters, Dad only mentioned his wins and kept quiet when he lost. But we’re talking about tiny stakes — it was all about the days out rather than the gambling. 

My first trip abroad, aged 22, was to Ibiza with my then wife — I pushed her in the swimming pool for a joke and she was not amused. That’s probably why she’s now my ex-wife. 

I’ve travelled a lot as a sports reporter over the years, particularly during my time on LBC and later BBC Radio 2: everywhere from Brisbane for the Commonwealth Games in 1982 to Helsinki for the World Athletics Championships in 1983; and Los Angeles and Seoul for the 1984 and 1988 Summer Olympics. 

Seoul was a real eye-opener. I went out with a sports statistician one night and he said: “We’re going on the subway and we’ll stop at the seventh stop, wherever that may be, for something to eat.” We got to one place with 20 pairs of shoes lined up outside and, lo and behold, it was a restaurant. They treated us like kings, but I wasn’t a big fan of kimchi.

Closer to home I enjoyed covering football matches in Barcelona, because the weather was usually good and the food, such as salt-baked fish, was sensational.

I also liked Berlin because there was so much to do and see, like the remains of the Berlin Wall and old East Berlin. I always tried to spend an extra day wherever I was visiting, so I could explore a bit.

Away from work, my wife Lizzie and I love taking wildlife holidays. One memorable trip was a grizzly bear-spotting tour we went on in the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, Canada, about ten years ago. A highlight was seeing a couple of giant bears frolicking in shallow waters. I was surprised to learn that our tour guide’s gun only fired foam, because of the strict national park regulations. “Does that work?” I asked [in the event of a bear attack]. “I don’t know,” he replied, “I’ve never had to use it.” 

My most recent trip was to southeast Asia to take part in the new series of Celebrity Race Across the World with my son, Matt, who’s 26 and a teacher. 

Our journey started in Malaysian Borneo and we had to pass five checkpoints on two continents in a race to be the first of four two-person teams to reach our final destination, Melbourne, 4,660 miles away — though I can’t say too much about where we visited or it will spoil things for viewers.

We couldn’t use mobile phones or credit cards and had to survive on about £25 a day each. The physicality of the journey was tough and at 71 I was by far the oldest contestant and I struggled to run with my phenomenally heavy backpack — though admittedly I packed things like my best jeans, which I only ended up wearing once, on the flight home. 

Our race got off to a less than ideal start in Kuching, the capital of Sarawak, so we had to fork out on a costly taxi just to stay in the game. 

There were plenty of ups and downs in the days ahead and I got pretty emotional at times. Things like having to shower with a pan of cold water and use a hole in the floor as a loo started to get me down. It got to the point where I was thinking, enough is enough, I’m going home. But that was really just my way of expressing frustration; in my heart I had no intention of quitting. 

My lowest point? I had to sleep on a mattress on the floor of a rat-infested hotel room in Borneo that the owner admitted “wasn’t up to western standards”. That was horrendous and I didn’t get a wink all night.

I also lost about a stone and a half during the race. Mind you, if you saw the size of me at the start, losing a few pounds wasn’t really a problem. 

But I got to visit places that I would otherwise never have gone to, and I’ll never forget the hospitality and kindness of people we met on our journey. The trip also brought Matt and me closer together, although we had our moments en route. 

As to where next? I’m hoping to cram in a short trip with my wife to the little place we have on the Algarve next month. But when I go on my next big holiday I just want to make sure I stay in a rat-free hotel with a shower and a bath. Jeff Stelling appears in the latest series of Celebrity Race Across the World, which starts on Wednesday, October 28, at 8pm, on BBC1 and iPlayer

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