The Back Page: Australia's longest running sports show finishes after 29-year run on Fox Sports
I've only ever spoken to Kevin Sheedy twice but he lives inside my head.
He's been there for 12 years since the night on Fox Sports' The Back Page when we showed a comical clip of an angry Sheedy addressing his young Greater Western Sydney side mid-match.
What made it so funny was that Sheedy emphasised random WORDS at random POINTS and not NECESSARILY the RIGHT moments to provide golden fodder for panellist and master mimic Billy Birmingham who was in his ELEMENT.
All these years later when someone mentions Sheedy's name, I still hear Billy going off in one of the many endearing moments from the show which finishes its 29-year run with its final episode at 7.30pm Tuesday.
What better way to kick off our 'Back Page Memories' than reliving this rousing speech from Kevin Sheedy. The reaction from Gibbo, Billy, Crash and Marto is pure gold! 😆 #TheBackPage | #BackPageMemories @FOXSportsAUS @craddock_cmail @MattParslow1 pic.twitter.com/UrUxB4EpR2
â€' Best Bits of The Back Page (@backpagebestof) June 8, 2025
Twenty nine years. Among the few shows to last longer were Play School (58 years) and Here's Humphrey (45) and there is a theory among Back Page panellists that we accidentally put both out of business by stealing their audience.
In that 29-year period Australia has had eight Prime Ministers and nine Test cricket captains, yet the little ol' Back Page – incredibly – has had just two main hosts, the legendary Mike Gibson and the equally talented Tony Squires.
Born in early 1997, three months before the first appearance of Harry Potter, the Back Page now joins Harry in flying off into the sunset with Squires and co-host Candice Warner joined for the last show by Ryan Fitzgerald, vivacious former host Kelli Underwood who has been lured back for a cameo farewell, and myself.
The team have dug through the archives to find the #Top5 embarrassing cramp moments in sport! #TheBackPage | @FOXSportsAUS pic.twitter.com/PX9w7LKihB
â€' Best Bits of The Back Page (@backpagebestof) May 18, 2025
The 29-year run says everything about Gibbo and Squires' love of their show with Squires saying 'Gibbo felt the show was at its best when it felt like people talking in a pub and it became a big part of my social life talking to interesting people like Kelli, Candice, Brad Johnson, Kerry O'Keeffe and Ben Dixon''.
Both Gibbo and Squires loathed missing an episode.
Gibbo, ably supported by likes of Peter FitzSimons and the late Peter Frilingos, did 720 shows over 16 years and missed just one when he was lying flat out with a back injury. The only way they could have shot the show was with a camera on the ceiling, a stretch too far even for Gibbo.
For the panelists like myself, the Back Page was the best fun of our careers.
When soccer legend Robbie Slater was told that due to budget restrictions panelists may have to take a pay cut and he replied 'hey ... I'd go on for nothing ... I just enjoy it''.
A few years back a former Test cricket great flew over from Perth and did an episode he so enjoyed it he didn't even put in an invoice to get paid.
We were fortunate to see the late, great Andrew Symonds on the panel a few times over the years - Roy even treated us to a couple of his brilliant impersonations! #TheBackPage | #BackPageMemories @FOXSportsAUS @craddock_cmail @FitzySA @MattParslow1 pic.twitter.com/ih5aRXnhzF
â€' Best Bits of The Back Page (@backpagebestof) June 16, 2025
You never knew who was watching. Shane Warne used to tune in. Greg Chappell watched from Adelaide. Allan Langer when he was living up at Caloundra. Cricketer Ben Cutting once told me he would watch from the United Arab Emirates.
They were joined by a couple of sheep farmers in the deep south of New Zealand who would send random tweets to the show aired at 9.30pm Kiwi time.
One time Mark Bosnich, a long serving and popular panellist, came on and told a colourful story about a night of cross-dressing with fellow soccer star Dwight Yorke.
The next day I went to Brisbane Broncos training where Andrew McCullough, a poker faced country boy who rarely shows excitement, was lined up in front of a bank of cameras for the daily press conference and turned his head towards me and said 'hey, before we start, what about Bozza last night ... I mean ... wow''.
The team have dug through the archives to find the #Top5 embarrassing cramp moments in sport! #TheBackPage | @FOXSportsAUS pic.twitter.com/PX9w7LKihB
â€' Best Bits of The Back Page (@backpagebestof) May 18, 2025
Outstanding producer Matt Parslow is widely lauded within the industry as the show's secret hero for his ability to find rare footage of sport's hidden heroes, villains and comical stumbles.
In February 2017, when Kerry O'Keeffe was having a break from television, Squires sent O'Keeffe a text inviting him to come on as a guest.
O'Keeffe replied 'my used-by date said best before February, 2017'' and Squires sent back 'that's ok, I like my meat a little gamey'' and on he came with a standout performance that caught the eye of Fox cricket producers and played a role in O'Keeffe joining the summer coverage where he shines annually as the game's best researched and most unique voice.
Kerry O'Keeffe has been a huge part of the show over the last decade. Here's one of our favourite Skull yarns on the day he met the Queen! ðŸ'€ #TheBackPage | #BackPageMemories @FOXSportsAUS @kokeeffe49 @craddock_cmail @MattParslow1 pic.twitter.com/jBoI9PGN7j
â€' Best Bits of The Back Page (@backpagebestof) June 8, 2025
The show was at it's best when it was at its quirkiest, as proved by the fact that the highest rating Back Page ever did not come after a Test match or a State of Origin game but when Iceland – population 340,000 and at its first major tournament – beat England 1-0 at the 2016 European championships.
The sports world was stunned. People could not work it out. How could this happen? They turned to us for answers.
Did we provide them?
Ah, well ... sort of.
Some mysteries simply defy explanation, not that it stopped us slapping down some emphatic theories about the secret sauces of Iceland soccer.
Kevin Sheedy eat your heart out!
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