AMAZINGLY, SOCCER AM is now going into its 20th season. While the show still turns up the occasional laughs, there is no question that its heyday was back in the early to mid 00′s when Tim Lovejoy and Helen Chamberlain were like a footballing Richard and Judy.
We don’t want to come out and say that it was much better with those two fronting the program…..but it WAS much better with those two fronting the program. And it wasn’t just those two. There were a whole host of classic contributors who have now all departed for pastures new. Helen Chamberlain is one of the few left of the old guard and here are ten reasons why we will always love her and the rest of the gang from the days of classic Soccer AM.
1. The chemistry between Tim Lovejoy and “Hells Bells”
If classic Soccer AM was a sitcom, then Tim Lovejoy and Helen Chamberlain would have been forced into an ill-fated romance midway through season 2. Thankfully we got to watch them together for 11 years. They fought like they had been together 50 years but they were also the perfect comedic foils for each other.
What made them fun to watch was that they actually came across as friends, a novel concept in television where presenters are forced together like bad jigsaw pieces.
2. WE LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT!
If you claim that you and your friends never did this on a night out then you are either not a fan of classic Soccer AM or you are lying. Or maybe you just aren’t a lout.
3. The “easy” chant
This was both a blessing and a curse. Much like the “Love it” chant, “easy” was a star that burnt brightly but crashed to earth quickly.
It was like a hit song that gets ruined because every single radio and nightclub DJ plays it but when you hear it after a few years it makes you smile.
4. Barry Proudfoot’s guide to driving
Fenners had some classic characters over the yearS but bar owner Barry Proudfoot was particularly good. Here he is giving some poor teen a few Proudfoot pearls of wisdom gained from his years of driving.
He might be right that you drive in the test a little differently to how you actually drive, but his horn protocol is excessive. I have only used mine once in five years of driving and even then, I leaned on it.
5. Sheephead’s topless weather
Somehow there were no clips of Sheephead saying “light drizzle” online but his weekly topless weather segment was always brilliant.
It was hard to properly look up for stuff for this one because googling “topless weather” on my work computer would have likely resulted in my sacking.
6. All aboard the showboat
They still shows clips of sublime skill today but Tim Lovejoy always teed up this segment with a degree of panache that Max Rushden can never match. Lovejoy particularly loved clips involving Jay Jay “so good they named him twice” Okocha.
Is it shameful that I have actually shouted “all aboard the showboat” on a few occasions? Wait, don’t answer that.
7. Big Stan Hibbert and his lame jokes
Stan Hibbert was the typical big boozy Brit who loves telling jokes, whether they are good or not. The jokes weren’t always top notch, but Tim and Helen’s apathetic reaction usually made up for the one’s that didn’t hit their mark.
8. Getting bouncebackability into the dictionary
Few people have the clout to get a word into the dictionary but Tim and Helen were able to pull it off with bouncebackability. The phrase was coined by Iain Dowie, who with that alone is far more successful as a wordsmith than he ever was as a manager.
9. Boston goals
Before there was a USA soccer guy on Twitter there was Boston goals. Hosts Mike Schweinberger and Randy Wakeman III followed the fortune of Boston United each week and it was brilliant.
10. Giving us three hours of football coverage each week
You have to give Tim and Helen credit for managing to fill three hours of television each week when they didn’t have the footage that Football Focus has access to. Whether you watched it all or tuned in every so often, it was comforting to know you could tune in to the two of them every Saturday between 9-12.
It was probably a good decision to scale it back to two hours in 2010 but it was actually FOUR hours between 1995 and 2001. That would have taken some serious stamina.
What were your favourite Soccer AM moments from the Lovejoy era? Do you still tune into the show?
