WE HAVE all seen soccer players kissing the badge on their jerseys and shaken our heads at the insincerity of it all, giggled when they describe their latest big-money move as the realisation of a boyhood dream.

However, when Ed Chamberlin described his transfer to racing in such terms, it was authentic. His body language re-emphasises that assertion every week.

The fact is that while the Southampton supporter made his name fronting soccer coverage, his passion brought him into racing first, long before he ever appeared on television.

A consummate broadcaster, he was part of the team that altered the face of soccer analysis forever, exposing the lazy majority that unfortunately still frequent our screens in all sports but this was a gig he could never refuse.

It is why he talks so positively about his first proper foray into ownership with the Rapscallion Syndicate glee, something that was facilitated by Horse Racing Ireland’s owner development manager Amber Byrne.

Chamberlin was unable to be present when Lord Rapscallion – trained by the man he labels his Gary Neville of racing analysis Johnny Murtagh – won a nursery at the Curragh under Denis Linehan on August 25th.

There was the little matter of covering York’s Ebor Festival so he had to make do with watching events unfold on Kevin Blake’s phone.

“I described it in my column as one of the biggest thrills I’ve had in sport and I stand by that” said Chamberlin earlier this week.

“It was just an incredible buzz and I wasn’t even there! I was on screen at York at the time, desperately trying to keep in touch with what was happening. I think I messed up a link or two afterwards, I was so excited about what happened.

Ed Chamberlin pictured with Lord Rapscallion who is part owned by Ed as part of the Rapscallion Syndicate in training with Johnny Murtagh

“Hopefully I’m a good walking advert for the fun that syndicates that bring. The day before at York summed it up when you had the Alpha Delphini syndicate celebrating a Group 1 winner.

"I want people sitting at home to think ‘I could have a piece of that. I could be part of that fun and that glory.

“That gives me so much satisfaction because that’s the message ITV’s gotta spread, that dreams can come true. A few hundred quid can get you on a podium with a Group 1, which is great.”

PROACTIVE APPROACH

He has been very impressed by Byrne’s proactive approach to creating more syndicates.

The slide in ownership figures from what was a relatively inordinate high anyway at the time of the boom has been arrested and the share of syndicates in overall ownership is increasing by around 5% annually for the past few years.

Nevertheless, given Ireland’s innate relationship and history with the horse, the percentage of people involved in ownership is not what it could be.

Syndicates are the way forward, offering comparatively inexpensive opportunities and Chamberlin is delighted to offer a practical encapsulation of the brief he has at ITV to broaden the appeal of the sport.

“Full marks to HRI and in particular Amber Byrne, who’s taking action to try get that going… I love the craic of the syndicates. The info from Johnny’s yard, winding him up about other horses – it’s all part of it.

“Race day is brilliant but going to the yard to see them working out is special. That’s the message we need to spread to get people interested and involved and hopefully into what is such a great sport. One of the best things about being an owner is the WhatsApp stuff – all of that, the information, updates. Orla Murtagh is a major part of that for us.”

Byrne made contact with the 44-year-old because of the consistency of his messaging as front man of ITV Racing’s coverage.

“In life, aspiration is a huge part of everything we do. I’m always looking for hooks on ITV for people to watch and get involved in racing because we need to broaden, not just the viewership but also involvement. I’ve involved stable staff on the show and the jockeys. But ownership is a big thing. I want people sitting at home to think ‘I could have a piece of that. I could be part of that fun and that glory, at times.’

“It’s wonderful to see what Coolmore and Godolphin do and don’t get me wrong, I love when the big superpowers collide in the sport. Just like in my old job, Man United-Liverpool was the game. But then I loved stories like Leicester City.

“Some of the best stories we’ve had on ITV in my time have been small owners. Billesdon Brook winning the Guineas, I love John Dance and Laurens. Going back to the Nunthorpe, you had Alpha Delphini this year and last year we had Elite Racing where my line on ITV was ‘That is what £180 can get you’ and that is a very strong message I think.”

RESOUNDING SUCCESS

After an unfortunately rocky start, ITV’s coverage has been a resounding success, combining insight and fun, enthusiasm and expertise. The viewership figures continue to rise and, of course, they won a BAFTA for their coverage of the 2017 Grand National.

“When I worked with Gary Neville at Sky, I think he changed punditry all of a sudden because he was telling you stuff you didn’t know about. I’m always telling the guys, ‘Tell the people at home something they don’t know.’ That’s why Luke Harvey is a genius down at the start – that’s one of the best things we do. Telling people about a horse being reshod or what they’re doing with Harry Angel’s stall.

“So you’ve got that expertise but you’ve also got to make it entertaining. It’s ITV on a main channel of a Saturday afternoon, so it’s got to be entertainment. We do some daft things but within that balance, I think the biggest skill in television is knowing when to be serious and when to lighten it up and have some fun.”

It all seems a long way now from when the heavens opened as racing returned to ITV after a 32-year absence at Cheltenham on New Year’s Day 2017.

“Listen, I’m not gonna lie, at the start it was very difficult… We came in and that first day in Cheltenham was a bit of a disaster in that monsoon and everything went wrong.

“Coming from football, I was used to getting a bit of stick but it was tough on some of the crew. As is the wont of the modern day, we were written off right from the start. So the message was ‘We’re gonna be different and we’ve got to stand by our guns.’

“From there we had Many Clouds a few weeks later (when the much loved chaser died moments after coming out on top of a thrilling duel with Thistlecrack in the Cotswold Chase), which was my first big test because I’d been in football for 17 years. And that was a very difficult day.

“Then we went to the Grand National, which was only our 19th show. At the time, I was a little bit disappointed. We hadn’t quite nailed it like I wanted to.

“I wanted to take people back to their childhood and make the hair on the back of their neck stand up but we didn’t quite get it right. I came away a bit disappointed and then lo and behold we win a BAFTA for it and that was cool.

“I think that first Royal Ascot in 2017 was the big turning point for us. I think it was the first time we got that balance right between the serious racing and the fun of singing on the bandstand, showing people behind the scenes and doing it differently.

“We took a lot of stick after Cheltenham. I got a lot of abuse. Before Royal Ascot there was a lot of talk that my head was on the line, why had I left Premier League football to do racing? There’s a lot of people out there that don’t want you to succeed. So Royal Ascot 2017 felt like the turning point.”

Tell the people at home something they don’t know.’

“I think it’s fair to say we’re reversing modern trends at the moment. The trend of viewing figures, particularly in sport, is to be on the decrease. We’re on the increase, which is great. (Last) weekend, helped by Enable obviously, but for an average to be up almost 200,000 is ridiculous.”

DANGERS

He fervently believes that racing must remain on terrestrial television and has a readymade sample of the dangers of this not being the case.

“I would hate racing to do what show jumping has done. When I was young, show jumping was one of the big things in sport. In those days, the whole family used to gather around to watch the Hickstead Derby. I couldn’t even tell you when the Hickstead Derby is now. I’d hate that to happen in racing. So I’m passionate about growing racing and keeping racing on terrestrial television.”

If there seems to be one common less positive observation about the coverage, it is that there is too much emphasis on the betting for the new viewer or those more interested in the majesty of the horse.

“On a daily basis I get told ‘There’s too much betting, there’s not enough horses’, ‘There’s too much horses, there’s not enough betting’ and we’ve got to get that balance right. When the betting is a story then we’ve got to cover it properly.

“Before a big race, I wanna see the horses with Francesca (Cumani). It’s a constant challenge to get that balance right. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we might get it wrong but all the time we’re trying to do the best we can.”

There is much Chamberlin and his colleagues want to do still though.

“We never sit still. Another thing I learned off Gary Neville, you can always improve. When things are going well, that’s when you need to kick on and improve again.

“We were flying on Monday Night Football, we’d just won a Royal Television Society Award, highlight of my career and Gary Neville wanted to change it and in comes Jamie Carragher. At the time I thought ‘This is a disaster. Why are we doing this?’ but it improved it.

INTIMIDATING

“The thing I’m most passionate about at the moment, along with ownership and stablestaff, is jockeys. I had the honour of doing the Gimcrack Speech last year, which was probably the most intimidating thing I’ve ever done!

“One of the things I saw in football was the detachment between the fan and player, which is only getting bigger with the money that’s coming into football. In racing, we have a massive opportunity to engage fans with the players i.e. the jockeys, and the jockeys have just been fantastic to us.

“You look at some of the things we’ve done, from Bryony Frost speaking seconds before she set off in the Ladbrokes Trophy, to Jim Crowley speaking to Luke seconds before he set off in the Nunthorpe when Battaash was playing up.

“Now, they’re chatting to Luke at the start. Who’d have thought that could happen, Frankie having a chuckle – that’s all credit to Luke but, we talk about the insight you can get from Sir Anthony and Jason Weaver and co, the insight we can get from jockeys that have just ridden in a race is my favourite thing on ITV.

“After the Juddmonte, we had Oisín Murphy and James Doyle, when he was beaten in those circumstances on Poet’s Word, I thought fair play to him coming on and fronting up.

“The analysis they did on the race, the tactical battle and the move to the stand side; that to me is proper television. I’m very grateful to the jockeys for what they do for us as I think that’s where we can really grow it and I want to do more with them.”

The best presenters never make it about themselves. They are conduits, facilitators. They don’t butt in. In Ireland, we were treated to the genius of the late Bill O’Herlihy in this regard. That is Chamberlin’s gift too.

Like so many of us with a grá for racing, he didn’t grow up in a yard or even with access to horses. It was the passion of a family member that transferred.

“It evolved as a kid because my grandfather was racing mad. He loved two things. He loved cider and he loved the ITV7. I’d help him make his selections. He wasn’t the most mobile then so he’d sit in his big armchair with me at his feet and we’d watch the racing on a Saturday afternoon. And I loved it.

“He left me have my first bet in the 1981 Grand National. That’s why the Grand National means so much to me. The old BBC music still resonates with me now. He let me have 50p each-way on Spartan Missile.

“When Aldaniti won I was furious. I think I was blaming John Thorne, had no idea he was 54 years old and Bob Champion had beaten cancer to win the Grand National.

“I was inconsolable but it got me completely hooked and from that day onwards I ran the family sweepstake. My heart was completely captured by racing and that’s what I wanna try do with youngsters now, find that hook.”

He enrolled on the BHB graduate scheme in 1996 with an ambition to be a racecourse manager. He was distraught when instead of getting work experience at Ascot or Goodwood, he was assigned to Ladbrokes for two weeks. He stayed three and a half years before establishing and editing a betting magazine called Sports Advisor.

A regular slot on Bloomberg to promote the publication brought him to the attention of Sky Sports and having served his time, he got the nod to present the marquee soccer coverage when Richard Keys and Andy Gray were sacked in 2011.

SLAUGHTERED

When Gary Neville came on board after his retirement, Monday Night Football became required viewing, the tandem working magnificently well.

“Just like ITV Racing, the first show we ever did we were written off,” Chamberlin recalls now with a chuckle. “We trended globally on Twitter that night for all the wrong reasons. We got slaughtered. Slaughtered! It was Man City-Swansea, it will haunt me forever, it was terrible. Just like ITV on that first day, we stood by our guns. We thought we were onto something and the rest is history.”

Still, he did not have to think too long about moving on when ITV came calling. And there is no doubt in his mind that the cancer diagnosis he got just before Christmas 2008, when he was just 34 years old, was a significant contributory factor in making the decision.

“If I hadn’t been on that journey, I don’t think I’d have done it to be honest. To come out the other side, which I was very, very lucky – you think of how many people were worse off than me.

“When I came out after a long time of hospital – the nurses in Southampton Hospital who saved me, I mean gosh… but what broke my heart in hospital were the kids there and hence I’m an ambassador for WellChild. I made it my project to get kids out of hospital and treated at home because all I wanted to do when I was in hospital – I was 34, 35 years old – I just wanted to be home and be normal and to see young kids going through that just broke my heart.

“Once your blood markers start coming down, which for me was about six weeks into my chemotherapy, you know you’re going to survive. Once I found out my cancer hadn’t spread from my stomach, where my tumour was, I realised I was gonna live.

“Mentally, I’m quite strong like that. I said to myself, ‘When I get out of here, my goodness I’m going to enjoy life from now on.’ So when I was offered that racing job, you can imagine what my attitude was. Go for it. But without that cancer journey, I think I might have been a bit more conservative.

“No word of a lie. Every big race meeting, I stand there and have a little moment to myself and it’ll be the same at the St Leger (today) where I’ll say ‘Jeez, I’m a lucky, lucky boy.’”

He hopes to make it over to the Curragh tomorrow, his Doncaster duties precluding him from making it to Leopardstown today. He will revel in the fare on offer and anyway, needs to catch up with Murtagh to celebrate Lord Rapscallion’s win and get the lowdown on his charge’s progress.

On and off the screen, Ed Chamberlin is living the dream.