Soccer AM

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Soccer AM is a British Saturday-morning football show presented by Tim Lovejoy and Helen Chamberlain. It has been broadcast on Sky Sports 1 every Saturday morning from 9am to 12 noon, throughout the English football season, since 1995. It is now not only one of the most popular and most watched football (and/or breakfast) shows in Britain, but also one of the most influential. In 2002, Soccer AM's All-Sports show was launched for Friday nights, an hour-long show catering for a broader range of sports.

Features

Now in its tenth season, the show has become famous for providing an eclectic mix of football, comedy and entertainment every week, and has seen its influence spread well beyond the world of football. Parts of the show have remained since the beginning, whilst others have been brought in each season. In that respect, it is virtually the same every week, the difference being new football footage and comedy skits. Every week sees a new group of celebrity guests, generally featuring at least one footballer (usually injured or suspended, and therefore free on a Saturday), and a mix of musicians, TV personalities and other sportsmen.

Fans of the Week

The "Fans of the Week" feature has been a mainstay - where eight fans of a British football club come in as studio guests every week, seated in the "Luther Blisset Stand". They are featured in various aspects of the show, culminating in a team footballing challenge at the end of the programme.

The challenge, which takes place outside in the Frank McAvennie Car Park, involves a fans kicked a football through a hole as many times a possible within the time limit. The challenge has been renamed almost every season, along with the background music that is played simultaneously. Its current format is "Road to Wembley", where the challenge is to kick a football through the hole in the "b" of an inflated version of the word "Wembley" as many times as possible in 1:20 from 12 yards. This is done with the background music of "Que Será, Será". Past versions of the game have included:-

  • "We Are the Champions League" (2004/05) - celebrating Sky Sports' purchase of broadcasting rights for the Champions' League, the central star of a 3D Champions' League logo was removed and made the target from 12 yards. The background music was, "We Are the Champions" by Queen.
  • "The Iron Curtain" (? 2003/04) - fans had to kick the ball through the Iron Curtain as many times as possible in one minute. Meanwhile, the Eastern European substitutes (wearing red CCCP tracksuits) would warm-up.
  • "Sven Goran Eriksson"(? 2002/03) - a giant face of Sven-Göran Eriksson with his mouth wide open was the target, with the background music of "Sven, Goran, Eriksson, tra, lala, lala!" (to the tune of Brown Girl in the Ring).
  • "Feed the Goat" (? 2001/02)- the target being the mouth of a giant goat, with the background music of "Feed The Goat And He Will Score" (to the tune of Cwm Rhondda) - a popular terrace chant for Shaun Goater at Manchester City.
  • "Lob Star" (?) - The target was a large net, held up by a lobster. The object being to chip the ball into the net from distance. Notably, Neil Lennon successfully found the target, only to be told he had done so before the whistle. Following the whistle, he repeated the feat.

Soccerette

The Soccer AM Soccerette has been a feature of the show from its outset, and is, effectively, a woman - generally young and attractive - modelling the "Easy" t-shirt that can be won by viewers who guess the number of goals scored by the Fans of the Week in The Road to Wembley. The Soccerette is introduced by Tim and a chant of "bada bada bada bada BING!", and is asked a series of (usually loaded) questions that almost inevitably lead into pre-prepared and cringe-worthy gags. The standard question of marital status will result in rampant cheers in "single", and boos if "married" (although the latter is fairly rare). The former will produce the question "Do you have a boyfriend", to which the same answers apply. If the answer to either question is "Yes", Tim asks for how long. Regardless of the answer, it is declared "It'll never last!".

Third Eye

Third Eye has been a feature of the show from its outset, and involves viewers sending in often-comical mishaps from the television (generally football matches) that may well have been missed by the majority of the viewing audience. These typically involve people falling over or being caught doing something stupid. A classic was a Mancunian woman trying to take pictures on her camera, realising half an hour later that the lens cap was on.

Nutmeg Files

A nutmeg is the term applied when a player plays the ball between his opponent's legs and regains control of the ball after going round him. Another ever-present feature of the show, the weekly edition of "The Nutmeg Files"' ("filmed in front of a live stadium audience") shows a clip from the previous week's football matches of a player being nutmegged, while the "nutmegger" is superimposed shouting "NUTS!". The theme to the Nutmeg Files, is The Rockford Files.

Showboat

The Showboat is another weekly feature that shows clips of all the best pieces of skill from the previous week's football, regularly featuring the likes of Ronaldinho, Robinho, Lee Trundle and Ronaldo.

Soccer AM Webcam

A new addition to the show, which was introduced in the start of the 10th Season is the Soccer AM Webcam. It had given the ability of the viewer to see the Office of the Soccer AM Crew, refreshing in every 5 seconds. Due to a letter, weeks later, it had upgraded to every 3 seconds. The Live Webcam, had soon turned to a Soap, which was reviewed and summarised on Soccer AM. Many of the scenes and drama had included Tim, Sheephead, Rocket and Tubes working at the office, with a cliffhanger of a will he-won't he, at the end. You can also watch the crew reviewing the gags and scenes which would be in the show on Saturday, on Every Friday Evenings.

Taxi!

The feature Taxi!, accompanied by the theme tune of the US sitcom, consists of yet more clips from the previous week's live football. The clips chosen are typically embarrassing displays of showboating gone wrong. The embarrassed player's name is then suffixed to the voice-over phrase "TAXI FOR...".

Recent seasons have seen Tim and Helen highlight several embarrassing moments from the previous week's football, the worst is coming last and introduced, as always:

Tim: "It's time for a trip to (stadium)".
Helen: "Taxi for (name)!"

The Crossbar Challenge

"The Crossbar Challenge" is a relatively new feature to the show, and involves a weekly trip to the training ground of a British league football team. The entire squad, including willing coaching staff and managers, are filmed, one-by-one, introducing themselves and attempting to hit the crossbar of the goal from the halfway line. The feat is rarely accomplished - the majority of squads fail to hit the bar once. However, a successful strike generally provokes manic celebrations by the kicker and his teammates.

Soccer AM aim to, at some point, visit every team in the league, although this is likely to prove very difficult as clubs such as Man Utd are unwilling to allow players onto shows such as these. Players who appear as guests on "The Orange Sofa" are always shown their attempt at the challenge if it is one of the many on the database.

The Ten-Yard Bucket Challenge

Borne out of the link between professional footballers and golf, "The Ten-Yard Bucket Challenge" sees a profesional footballer attempting to chip a golf ball into a bucket from a distance of ten yards. The football-golf link exists due mainly to the amount of free time footballers are allowed in the daytime after training sessions, and Soccer AM's homage to golf involves a single personality from the world of football who attempts the challenge. While it has been known to be accomplished in a single attempt, but many over-confident amateurs have been known to run tallies of well over a hundred attempts.

Big Stan Hibbert

Another new, popular feature of the show - Big Stan Hibbert is "Here All Week". He makes an appearance early in the show with his standard mug one quarter full of beer, and cracks a joke to rampant cheers (and jeers). After his joke, he spins around one the spot and high speed with his beer mug held out wide, and when nothing spills (not a given) he declared "Centrafugal force!".

Team Mates

Team Mates is the section at the end of the show where a player from a football team, is given questions, which they respond by telling which team mate, is more related to the question. The questions are as followed:

  • Best Trainer
  • Worst Trainer
  • Most Skillful
  • Least Skillful
  • Most Intelligent
  • Least Intelligent
  • Best Dress Sense
  • Worst Dress Sense
  • Best Taste in Music
  • Worst Taste in Music
  • And...Who's the longest in the shower (a double entendre), where at most of the time, the player says that it is themselves.

Topless Weather

Soccer AM's response to European television's more lewd feature of the same name. Celebrated Bolton Wanderers fan and crew member Sheephead gives his "weather forecast" for Britain without wearing a shirt. A popular member of the crew, he has recently taken to including gags in his forecast. Since the advent of Topless Weather, Southern England has yet to be forecast anything but "Light drizzle".

This part of the show is always introduced with a "sponsorship" message -

"Topless Weather, in association with "Gravy". Oooh, northern boys love "Gravy".

The background video of gravy being poured onto a plate of chips is a mimic of the television advertising employed by Bisto, where gravy is poured onto a traditional Sunday lunch with the voice-over "Ahh, Bisto".

Sheephead finished Topless Weather every week with "back inside to Mr. and Mrs. Lovejoy", upon which the sponsorship message is repeated, albeit with gravy now over-flowing from the plate.

Tubes

Crew member "Tubes" - recently voted more popular than crew member "Rocket" - has had a regular feature on the show in recent seasons, where he has "one question and one question only" to one of the studio guests. Tim asks "Who is your question for this week", and the answer results in a dimming of the studio lights and a spotlight on the questionee. Tubes' popularity has grown significantly, in part due to his woeful (but comic) rapping ability which he demonstrates every week before actually posing a question.

Club Specific

External links

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