Former Soccer AM host recalls the exact moment he knew the show was finished after 'awful' episode

Former Soccer AM host Andy Goldstein has said that he knew the popular show was 'finished' weeks after he replaced Tim Lovejoy.

Soccer AM was launched by Sky Sports in 1995 and went through a range of presenters in its early days before Helen Chamberlain and Lovejoy were installed in 1995 and 1996 respectively.

The pair would co-host the programme throughout what many believe to be its boom period until 2007, when Lovejoy decided to leave the programme.

Goldstein, who was one of the most well-known faces on Sky through his work on Soccer Saturday, Sky Sports News and Premier League Snooker, would be named as Lovejoy's replacement.

He had previously worked with Chamberlain on the 'All-Sports Show', a Soccer AM spin-off that launched in 2002.

But he left the show after just one season in 2008, with Max Rushden taking his place for the next seven years.

Following his own departure, Lovejoy took many of the senior writers, including popular future host John Fendley, with him to work on other projects.

In an interview with The Athletic following the news of Soccer AM's cancellation last year, Goldstein admitted that, in a production meeting shortly prior to his first show, 'so many items were still undecided' and the atmosphere was 'quite chaotic, quite worrying'.

He added: "The right thing to do would have been to rip it up and start again. Get rid of the couches, get rid of the title music, keep the name 'Soccer AM', and start again. But we're all wise after the event."

Goldstein opened up further in an interview with talkSPORT - who he now works for as a regular radio presenter - in March 2023, and compared his task of succeeding Lovejoy to that of David Moyes at Manchester United in 2013.

He explained: "The problem was that when I took over from Tim, it was a little bit like David Moyes taking over from Sir Alex Ferguson. You're on a hiding to nothing.

"But when Tim left he also took all the writers with him. So I turned up and there was just no blueprint whatsoever left of that show, and I didn't really enjoy it.

"I remember about four or five weeks in, I was sitting on the couch just thinking, 'This is awful'. Which is really sad, because it was such a phenomenon.

"Tim and Helen were just unbelievable doing that show, and then there was me sitting on that famous orange sofa with the dream job thinking, 'Oh, it's not as good as when I used to watch it'.

YouTube/Soccer AM)

"I was really honoured to be part of it. I made lots of friends and I still speak to the gang."

Goldstein would tell The Athletic: "Helen was still there, I was there, but we would arrive on a Friday afternoon and the whole script had been written. So we would have no input into the show.

"You'd get there and read bits, 'That doesn't work, that's not right'. It was quite difficult to do."

Soccer AM was cancelled at the end of the 2023/24 season, with its timeslot on Sky's Saturday morning schedule going to Saturday Social.

However, Lovejoy and Chamberlain set up the 'Soccer A-Z' podcast at the beginning of the season which primarily focuses on current football news, but also has some memories from their time on the show.

Former producer James 'Rocket' Long has done likewise with a YouTube show titled 'Soccer PM', which he hosts alongside Tom Skinner.