[4] His father was a heavy gambler, leaving his mother Irene to occasionally plead for money from neighbours in order to provide food for Kamara and his brother George and sister Maria.
[11][12] He made his first team debut in August 1975 in a 2–0 defeat by Luton Town, winning his chance after Mick Mellows was struck down with a knee injury.
[16] He scored on his debut against Sheffield Wednesday at Hillsborough, but was frequently left out of the starting eleven by manager Danny Williams during the 1977–78 campaign.
John Trollope replaced Smith as manager following a dismal start to the 1980–81 campaign, and he sold Kamara back to Portsmouth for £50,000.
[20] He settled in well during the 1981–82 campaign and scored a career best of eleven goals in the 1982–83 season as Brentford posted two top ten finishes.
[22] Under the guidance of Lou Macari the "Robins" won promotion out of the Fourth Division as champions in 1985–86, though Kamara missed the first half of the campaign and only played 23 games.
[27] Midway through the 1989–90 season Mills was dismissed and replaced by Alan Ball, who promptly sold Kamara to Leeds United.
[28] At Elland Road were David Batty, Vinnie Jones, Gordon Strachan and Gary Speed; the presence of these highly skilled midfielders meant that Kamara was frequently left on the bench by manager Howard Wilkinson.
[31] Kamara remained in the top flight by joining David Pleat's Luton Town for a £150,000 fee after returning to full fitness.
[32] The "Hatters" were relegated on the last day of the 1991–92 season after letting slip a 1–0 lead over Notts County to lose the game 2–1.
[33] In October 1992, Kamara returned to the top flight, now called the Premier League, after joining Dave Bassett's Sheffield United on loan.
[42] They turned round a 2–0 defeat at Valley Parade in the first leg of the play-off semi-finals to beat Sam Allardyce's Blackpool at Bloomfield Road.
[45] He paid a club record £550,000 for Gordon Watson, who played just two games before being badly injured after a challenge from Huddersfield Town defender Kevin Gray.
[1] Kamara gave up on management after his time at Stoke City and instead worked as a pundit for a number of television and radio stations.
[55] He quickly became well known on the programme for his highly excitable nature, propensity for comical gaffes, and tendency to come out with unusual sayings that baffled host Jeff Stelling and the other studio pundits, such as his observation that the Tottenham players were "fighting like beavers" in their match against Arsenal.
[56] In one of his more famous on-air gaffes, he failed to realise that Anthony Vanden Borre had been sent off in the game he was watching between Portsmouth and Blackburn Rovers, instead thinking that he had been substituted.
[60][61][62] In 2012, he made a special appearance for Mid Wales Football League side Welshpool Town, after his Sky Sports colleague Jeff Stelling mocked the strugglers following the club's 10–1 loss to Waterloo Rovers the previous week.
[63] On 28 March 2013, he appeared for a second time; more than 500 fans turned out to watch the game which Welshpool lost 4–1 to Newbridge-on-Wye in the Spar Mid Wales League.
[64] Kamara co-presents the ITV series Ninja Warrior UK alongside Ben Shephard and Rochelle Humes.
[65] In February 2016, Kamara appeared in an episode of The Great Sport Relief Bake Off[66] and in June 2016, he provided the commentary for Soccer Aid 2016 alongside Clive Tyldesley.
In 2021, Kamara played himself on Ted Lasso, as a pundit on a fictional version of Soccer Saturday, along with presenter Jeff Stelling.
[67] In April 2022, it was announced that Kamara would be leaving Sky Sports at the end of the 2021–22 football season after working on Soccer Saturday for 24 years.
Kamara was formerly the chairman of the panel which chooses the Football League Championship Manager of the Month award,[74] but left the role for the beginning of the 2009–10 season.
[77] He and a team of Football League ambassadors, including Brendan Rodgers, Aidy Boothroyd, and Middlesbrough chairman Steve Gibson, managed to raise £385,000 for the charity and to climb to the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro.
[81] On 1 January 2023, he appeared as the character "Ghost" on the fourth series of The Masked Singer, singing "Save the Last Dance for Me".
[88] Source:[89] Brentford Swindon Town Leeds United Individual Bradford City Kamara was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to association football, anti-racism and charity.