I'm not 100% but I'm 70% better than I was ... working with Jeff again will bring a bit of extra magic for me at Christmas

CHRIS Kamara's cheeky smile and hilarious gaffes lit up Saturday afternoon viewing for millions of football fans.

- MIKE WALTERS

And his disappearance from our screens after being struck down by debilitating condition apraxia left a hole that has never properly been filled. So his return as a live TV football pundit is set to be a real festive treat.

When he hooks up with old sidekick Jeff Stelling on Amazon Prime Video with bulletins from Nottingham Forest's Boxing Day game with Tottenham, there will be a sprinkling of Christmas magic even if he admits he is "not 100% recovered". On Sky Sports before Kammy quit, the pair's Soccer Saturday double act was gold dust.

We all laughed when there was a red card at Portsmouth and Kammy, our man on the touchline, was the last to know. And his description of Reading's ghost goal at Watford 16 years ago where the ball did not cross the line-deserved a broadcast Oscar: "Jeff, unbelievable. There's a goal, but it's not a goal, but it's a goal because the referee's given it."

Stelling replied: "Thanks for clearing that up, Chris." Glorious satire. But in March 2022, the laughter turned to silence.

Kamara, struggling to conceal the symptoms of apraxia - a neurological disorder disrupting the transfer of thought from brain to speech - stood down.

It appeared his screen career was over, until Good Morning Britain host Kate Garraway recommended a revolutionary treatment in Mexico to help rekindle some of the fluency in his elocution. And now Kamara is preparing for his return to our screens after a message "out of the blue offering him a curtain call.