Sam Newman reveals Footy Show regret: ‘I stayed too long’ in the age of being careful

Sam Newman says his only regret about his time on The Footy Show is that he stayed a year too long and he puts the demise of the once popular show down to the “age of being careful”.

Sam Newman says his only regret about his time on The Footy Show is that he stayed a year too long.

Newman, 73, put the demise of the once popular show down to the “age of being careful”.

“Probably, my only real regret was that under the present format I stayed a year too long on the show,” he said.

“I would have been more relaxed and I would have felt better if I had left a year before because the change of the format of the show in the last year (2018) was not conducive to any of my limited talents and it was a wasted year for me really considering the way the show was going.”

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Newman said he was saddened by the axing of The Footy Show, saying it changed his life.

But he said he had not watched the show this year.

He said a desire to avoid controversy took the focus away from the personalities and crushed the once powerhouse program.

Newman said the genius of the show had been its unpredictability.

Eddie McGuire and Sam Newman on the Grand Final Footy Show 2018. Picture: Channel 9

“The people on the show did not plan anything, the people behind the scenes did, but we did not rehearse, we just turned up and did it,” he said.

“My theory is you almost have to be prepared to be sacked on a nightly basis in order to be entertaining.

“We never ever taped any of it so it was like working without a safety net for those 25 years and that is a bit of an adrenaline rush in itself and of course there were plenty of times when we came undone because of that fact.

“But let’s not make it anything that it is not. It is only a footy show where we got together, had a chat and had some fun. We were not trying to split the atom or anything.”

Newman, who is part of The Sunday Footy Show, left the Thursday night show at the end of 2018 after 25 years.

Sam Newman said a desire to avoid controversy took the focus away from the personalities and crushed the once powerhouse Footy Show.

“I was pretty disappointed with the different format we tried last year and it did not seem to suit the people who were on it,” he said.

“It became more of a content show than a personality-driven show. The show built itself off personalities and the content was basically irrelevant, but the personalities made it relevant, their actions and responses created the content.

“Certainly the people putting the show together (in recent years), they took no chances and took no risks which, of course, is the biggest risk of all.

“They did not take into consideration the advice of people who had been on it for, in my case the whole show and in the case of other people, a number of years.

“The format was changed because they thought it was easier to have a whole lot of content rather than a whole lot of personality, I think.”

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