Tim Lovejoy and Helen Chamberlain recreate Soccer AM picture in TV show reunion

18 September 2023 , 11:17

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Helen Chamberlain and Tim Lovejoy presented Soccer AM together for 11 years (Image: Sky Sports)

Tim Lovejoy and Helen Chamberlain have been reunited on TV, 16 years after working together on Soccer AM.

The duo spent 11 years working together on the classic Sky Sports programme between 1996 and 2007. Their on-screen chemistry was one of the main attractions of the show, which was a staple for football fans for almost 30 years.

Its mix of football chat, comedy skits, interviews and challenges for guests and fans earned it a huge audience during its peak. And many viewers were sad to see it axed by Sky in March, with the final episode going out in May.

Those fans will have raised a smile on Sunday when Lovejoy and Chamberlain reunited on Channel 4 show Sunday Brunch.

Chamberlain presented Soccer AM from 1994 to 2017 before disappearing from the spotlight. Lovejoy now presents Sunday Brunch with Simon Rimmer and welcomed his old partner in crime on the show this weekend. And they couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to recreate a classic photo of themselves from the golden era of Soccer AM.

Soccer AM axed by Sky Sports in bombshell move after almost 30 years on air

While Lovejoy has remained on TV, fronting Sunday Brunch since 2012, Chamberlain has retreated to the countryside where she works on a farm and enjoys metal detecting in her free time. She regularly shares photos of farm life, including snaps of her pigs and sheep, on her X account.

Soccer AM was a huge part of both presenters’ lives and Lovejoy has previously admitted struggling after quitting the show in 2007 over a pay dispute. The 55-year-old told The Athletic he stopped watching the show after moving on.

“It’s like watching your old girlfriend with another man. I couldn’t do it,” he said. “I couldn’t watch it. So I stopped watching it totally.”

Helen Chamberlain now runs a farm (Sean Dempsey/PA Wire)

Towards the end of its cycle Soccer AM was presented by John “Fenners” Fendley and ex-Hull City midfielder Jimmy Bullard. Fendley told The Athletic in 2020 that the show had “lost its way a little bit” after losing Chamberlain in 2017. But he felt that the addition of Bullard and a change of direction had breathed new life into it and helped turn “the ship round.”

“I get frustrated with people who say it’s not what it used to be, because we’re getting to a stage where I really feel we’ve hit upon something that would make it different,” he said. “It gave us a new dimension.

“I think we’ve won a lot of the public over, from the noises that I hear, and I think we’ve won a lot of people within football back as well. I always felt that if we could get the right formula for the show, people would feel like that. I do feel that we’re getting close to it being a very, very good TV show again.”

Felix Keith