Living in a football legend’s house has its upsides… but Christine Lampard has revealed it can be a challenge after a defeat.
Her husband Frank won three league titles, four FA Cups and a with Chelsea, also starring for England before making the move into management.
But there were plenty of setbacks on the way, and Christine – who married Frank in 2015 after meeting him at the ’s Pride of Britain awards in 2009 – admits they can affect home life.
She says: “Frank is a thinker, so he can’t just dust himself down and get back to it. It really matters a great deal. He needs to have a good chat about it and processes it and then he comes out the other end.
“But it absolutely affects the mood. And now, after all these years, I know how to work around the mood – that is a skill in itself to be honed."
Christine will discuss this and much more when Not Just , an all-female podcast about footballing families, launches later this month.
Alongside her will be Kelly Cates, daughter of Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish, and Hayley McQueen, daughter of -united-fc> great Gordon McQueen, who died last year.
Kelly, who fronts matches on Sky, says: “We are all women of a certain age. And we’re all to an extent defined by our relationship to some of the men in our lives.
“There wasn’t a role in football broadcasting unless you had that background, luckily that has changed and isn’t the case anymore, but I think it was felt we were relatively low risk.”
Mum-of-one Hayley, 44, who is an anchor on Sky Sports News, adds: “It was the kind of nepotism thing. But I do know things because of my dad, because I grew up loving, living, breathing every little thing that he did.”
host Christine, 45, recalls first being involved in the game when Frank was still a Chelsea player and she was on ’s The One Show.She says: “I remember when Frank and I started going out and he said, ‘look, I want you to come to Stamford Bridge’. And I said, ‘OK, of course But, I don’t want to go in a posh box or anything. I want to go where the proper fans are’.
“Anyone that knows Stamford Bridge will know that is the Shed End. I remember going into the Shed End with a couple of his friends, and I was doing The One Show at the time, and they all started to sing ‘ONEEEEE’. I just got it straight away and loved it. And I went every week. I don’t think I missed a home game.
“I have football on at home now, even when Frank’s not in the house. Like, I’ll have it on all the time, all weekend, and I’ll know everything. And that’s me wanting to do it just because I really enjoy it. There’s something about it.
“I just got it straight away. I understand why this consumes people’s lives.” Hayley was going to games from a much younger age as a child. And dad Gordon, who won the league and , played for a number of clubs, including Seiko in Hong Kong, which meant she also transferred around when it came to schooling.
She reveals: “I went to 11 different places of education. This was from nursery right up until uni.
“I lived in Manchester, Teesside, two different areas of , Hong Kong I lived in for 18 months with my dad. Then moved down to London.
“I mean we moved around an awful lot, but you just became adaptable.” Kelly adds: “Ever since I was a girl, football has been at the centre of everything I do, it’s what I grew up with and what I’ve always loved.
“Joining this show is incredibly exciting because it gives me the opportunity to share my stories and experiences that I’ve gathered from being so closely connected to the game all my life. I can’t wait to get started and find our groove.
“It’s finding that balance between football and real life. Football is the peg, but real life is what we are talking about and those family connections.”
Christine says her and Frank’s son, Freddie, three, has caught the football bug and loves wearing kits.
But rather than Chelsea or England, he prefers the green Northern Ireland strip – to the delight of Christine, who is originally from Newry in Ulster.
Christine says: “My little boy’s obsessed with kits and at the moment he wants to wear them every day. At the minute he loves the Northern Irish kit which is obviously all green.
“He’s got the new England kit actually, his aunt bought it for him recently, but he doesn’t want to wear it. He comes downstairs and Frank’s like ‘do you know what you did?’ And I get a little kick out of that!”
The pair also have a daughter, Patricia, six, while Frank has two daughters with his former fiancee, Spanish model Ellen Rivas.
Kelly, 48, who has two children with ex-husband Tom, says the trio will aim to get podcast guests who have actual expertise in sport.
In the first episode they will be joined by former Newcastle, Spurs and France winger David Ginola.
star Christine, who is used to all-female panels, adds: “Football is such a big part of my life, but that doesn’t necessarily fit well on a Loose Women panel. It’s nice to find a space where it is all natural and feels comfortable. And it is nice to push yourself with something different.”
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Not Just Football, brought to you by Sky Bet, is coming soon in October via The Overlap YouTube channel
