Dion Dublin explains Homes Under the Hammer cult appeal and approach to punditry

03 December 2023 , 07:45

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Dion Dublin explaining where the stairs lead on Homes Under the Hammer (Image: BBC)

Dion Dublin is a popular pundit, co-commentator and decorated ex-player with over 100 Premier League goals to his name – but to some, he's best summed up by one modest phrase.

“Stairs going up to the bedrooms”. Six functional words which mean little to those not in the know. But to those who inhabit a niche corner of social media, they are Dublin’s finest work – his catchphrase from Homes Under the Hammer, a BBC property renovation programme which has run for 26 seasons and recently celebrated its 20-year anniversary.

Dublin used to be known for his work scoring goals for Coventry and Aston Villa during the late 1990s and early 2000s. But since joining Homes Under the Hammer in 2015, he has broadened his audience by putting his natural enthusiasm and engaging personality to use on knackered old two-bed houses in Stoke-on-Trent.

To those on the outside looking in it appeared to be a handbrake turn of a career move, yet his move from football to property wasn’t as left-field as it appeared at first glance. As well as being a reliable Premier League goalscorer, he has also retained a long-term interest in property, having developed a portfolio by moving from club to club over the years.

By his mid-twenties, Dublin owned a handful of houses and was beginning to think about life beyond football. He founded a building company with a friend and then, out of the blue, the BBC got in touch with a proposal.

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“They found out and said, ‘Do you fancy walking around an empty house in Salford and tell us what you think of it?’ And that's basically what happened,” he tells Mirror Football on behalf of Smart Energy GB. “I walked around an empty house in Salford with a cameraman, had a look around and I said what I would do if it was mine. They liked it and there you go, that's how I've got onto Homes Under the Hammer.”

Fast-forward eight years and Dublin has a cult following which has spawned its own brand of videos and memes. Remarkably, the 54-year-old was not aware that he even said his catchphrase about stairs until a viral video was created on Twitter in May 2019.

“I had no idea at all until I'd seen the very first one,” he says. “Because there's so many that have literally a three-minute video of me saying ‘the stairs leading up to the bedrooms’. I don't know who did it, but somebody did it. And it was just me saying it in, I don't know, 200 or 300 properties. It was crazy. And I was like, ‘How have you taken the time to do it?’ But I didn't realise until that time! It's a smart idea.”

Bryan’s Gunn, an award-winning Twitter creator who painstakingly puts together hilarious football-themed videos, has a particular fondness for Dublin’s work. He appears in all sorts, knitting together hilarious clips which show the absurdity of the language around football. So what does Dublin make of this bizarre world where his words hold a genuine reverence?

“Flattering is the wrong word,” Dublin laughs. “It's nice to think, you know, that people want to use my little sayings as kind of memes and they put them in two-minute little video clips and stuff. Honestly, I think it's great. I'm kind of chuffed that somebody wanted to use me as one part of their videos to be honest.”

While the Bryan’s Gunn videos cross genres, Dublin now has a foot in both camps, having fully embraced the world away from the football pitch. He co-owns building company Scott Dublin Projects, runs the LOT9 Auction House and is involved in estate agents Monopoly Buy Sell Rent. He does all that while maintaining a regular presence in the football media, working for the BBC as a co-commentator on Radio 5 Live and as a pundit on Final Score and Match of the Day, as well as for Channel 4 on their England coverage.

Dion Dublin remains a regular on how screens to discuss football (Matt McNulty/Getty Images)

“I don't think anybody's got a better job to be honest with you,” he says. “I played football for 22 years. And now I've been doing this for about 17 or 18 years now. It's not a hard job – it is just talking on TV about something you absolutely love.”

In an era where getting your voice heard and spouting big opinions has become the norm in football punditry, Dublin stands out. He goes at things in a different way, shunning the divisive approach in favour of simply giving his take in a measured way, usually with a smile on his face.

“That's an approach that's down to just me being me, just being Dion,” he explains. “I know that football fans know that they know the game of football. They know what they're watching. They understand. So if you try to gloss over stuff, then it's not the right thing to do. You’ve got to speak to football fans with a little bit of respect.

“You'll have that very small minority that don't know what they're talking about, but the majority of football fans know what they are seeing. And they want the reflection of that from the ex-professional. My job is the how and why, because I would imagine a lot of the football fans and public don't know how, and don't know why because they've been in that position.”

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Dion Dublin has teamed up with Smart Energy GB to show how smart meters can help small businesses be more in control of cashflow and budgets with near real time energy use information and accurate bills.

Felix Keith