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The Footy Show to return with Eddie McGuire, Sam Newman and Trevor Marmalade for AFL grand final

Eddie McGuide, Sam Newman and Trevor Marmalade will reunite in a farewell tribute for The Footy Show which was cancelled by Nine earlier this year.

The trio, who were the original hosts when the show started in 1994, will reunite for The Grand Final Footy Show, a one-night-only event that will air on Nine and 9Now on September 26 at 7:30pm.

Fans will also be able to buy tickets to the event which will be held at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne.

The Grand Final Footy Show will pay tribute to the past 25 years of The Footy Show, a show which became the longest-running sports entertainment program in the history of Australian television.

McGuire, Newman and Marmalade will be joined by a lineup of footy greats to look back at some of the greatest moments in Footy Show history as well as the 2019 football season.

Eddie McGuire said the show was a ‘staple’ of the AFL season.

“For the biggest game of the year, we need to have the biggest show of the year, and what has been a staple of Grand Final week for the past quarter of a century is back,” said McGuire.

“I’m so delighted that we’re putting all our resources into one spectacular Thursday night Grand Final week Footy Show. It is a chance for us to pay homage to not only the Grand Final but 25 fantastic years of The Footy Show.”

The AFL Footy Show was cancelled by Nine only eight rounds into a new line-up for 2019 which saw the panel manned by new hosts Neroli Meadows, Anthony Lehmann and wheelchair tennis star Dylan Alcott after the exit of Newman and McGuire. In the lead up to the revamp in 2018, The Footy Show went through a variety of hosts, including Garry Lyon, James Brayshaw, Rebecca Maddern and Craig Hutchison. In 2006, when he was made CEO of Nine, McGuire stepped away from the show, returning in 2017.

In the final week before it left screens, The AFL Footy Show pulled just 97,000 metro viewers, with only 53,000 in Melbourne, the lowest in its history. In 2017 the show was pulling 155,000 Melbourne viewers.

The show struggled to perform well against Seven’s revamped The Front Bar which was winning the ratings every time the pair went head-to-head.

Both the show and its hosts have been marred with controversy over the years. McGuire has been forced to apologise several times in the past for comments, including when he was a part of a discussion on Triple M about drowning journalist Caroline Wilson.

Newman is also no stranger to controversial commentary, reportedly almost causing Nissan to drop its sponsorship of The Footy Show after he referred to the media as “excrement”. In 2008 he was removed from the show over sexist remarks, but returned soon after.

Nine Melbourne managing director, Matt Scriven, said: “We want to pay tribute to the incredible success of the past 25 years of The Footy Show, and bringing back The Grand Final Footy Show will give fans exactly that – a chance to join in the celebrations and fun of a program that was a pioneer in football entertainment.”

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