John Helm: Working for Lincoln City is an absolute joy

His name is John Helm, the Yorkshire broadcaster, who has been working for the club since the start of the season.

It was on July 29 that Lincoln announced perhaps their finest – and certainly their most recognisable – signing of the summer transfer window.

Helm arrived with previous – some 6,000 matches under his commentary belt, including 10 World Cups and six European Championships.

During a 67-year career that began at the Shipley Times & Express in 1959 before a move into broadcasting, Helm has also covered six Olympics, five Commonwealth Games, four Asian Games and numerous sporting events in exactly 90 countries.

His CV would probably stretch from his home in Baildon, West Yorkshire – where he was born in July 1942 – all the way to the Welsh capital where he finds himself today. It has been – continues to be – a remarkable journey.

It is one that took him to Lincoln by happy chance and the initiative of one of his many contacts.

“At the start of last season, not this season, Luke Thornhill, the Lincoln media manager, who I’d also known from his days at Doncaster Rovers, asked me to commentate on three pre-season games for them – one at Oldham, one at Harrogate, and one at home to Arsenal's Under-21s,” says Helm. “I did those and enjoyed it and thought nothing more about it.

“Then, at the end of that season, he asked whether there was any chance of me doing some more games for them. I said, ‘Yeah, have you any number in mind?’ And he said, ‘Every match.’ And I went (Helm raises his voice in mock horror), ‘What?!’

“He said, ‘Yeah, and you’ll be regarded as a member of staff. We’ll get you dressed up in the Lincoln garb – so I’ve got this top and big jacket which has ‘The Imps’ on it, and it’s just totally exceeded my expectations. They've made me feel very much a part of the club, and it’s just grown and grown.

“The thought of being involved with a club also appealed. I thought, ‘Why not?’ They’re a club I’d always liked, they’d always been an hospitable, well-run club without ever getting carried away, as though they knew their place in the pecking order, so to speak.

“But now they have an opportunity to be at a higher level than they’ve been for over 60 years, which is absolutely extraordinary.”

It was in April 1961 that Lincoln last played in English football’s second tier, when Helm was covering Salts FC in the Yorkshire League for the Shipley Times.

Since then, the Imps have twice dropped out of the Football League, most recently in 2011, after which they spent five seasons treading water in the National League, home gates dropping to around 2,000 (some 3,000 fans are making the 400-mile round trip to Cardiff).

In 2016, everything changed when Lincoln appointed a pair of brothers and former PE teachers who inspired one of the most remarkable revivals in modern English football.

Danny and Nicky Cowley not only led Lincoln back into the Football League at the first attempt, but also – in their three-and-a-bit seasons in charge – to an FA Cup quarter-final; to the EFL Trophy (the club’s first Wembley appearance); to a League Two play-off semi-final and then to the League Two title before leaving for Huddersfield.

Backed by the highly respected Clive Nates, now succeeded as chair by the American businessman Ron Fowler, the former executive chair and control person of San Diego Padres in Major League Baseball, a club reborn is on a 17-match unbeaten league run (13 wins, four draws) which has sent them 10 points clear of third-placed Bolton.

It is a tribute to head coach Michael Skubala, a 43-year-old who worked with Leeds United’s Under-21s and served briefly as the Whites’ interim boss between the reigns of Jesse Marsch and Javi Garcia in 2023, as well as to the Imps’ sporting director Jez George, the club’s staff and board.

“Michael is just so calm,” says Helm when asked about Skubala. “Never gets too high, never gets too low. He and the coaches – assistants Tom Shaw and Chris Cohen, plus goalkeeping coach David Preece and all the backroom staff, they’re a real unit who all contribute and appreciate each other, and I think that’s really rubbed off on the players: the way they play for each other, the way they press, win the ball back, keep it, give each other a rollocking if needed, and so on.

“The dressing room is clearly fantastic. I’ve not heard a single moan from one player about any other player.

“I know Michael was very well regarded at Leeds United, and he’s had experience with futsal, university football, non-league football, etc. He knows how to handle people and how to get the best out of people, and I’ve always said that’s the biggest thing you can have. Michael’s got that.

“Another impressive thing is his attention to detail. He thinks an awful lot about each game and is extremely meticulous in everything he does. And, I must say, he’s been as good as anybody I've ever known in terms of communication with the media.”

High praise indeed considering the head coaches and managers that Helm has worked with in his time – not least Don Revie, with whom he struck up a good rapport in his days following the Whites for Radio Leeds.

Now 83, Helm himself is as sprightly as ever, the wonder of his current role (now his main one in commentary) that he can do it at all at his age – and to such a high standard.

“I think a lot of it is the fact I still love every minute of the job as much as I did from my first working day – August 17, 1959. I'm still tremendously enthusiastic, and watching a winning team on a phenomenal run helps.

“Beyond that, I try to look after myself. I go on a treadmill in the morning, probably four days a week. Half-an-hour to 40 minutes of fast walking on a treadmill. I watch my diet – well, a little bit. My wife and I still go out to eat regularly once a week, and I'll have a nice glass of wine when I get home after a match. But enthusiasm is a big factor. Even when I’ve covered water polo, say, I’m fantastically enthusiastic because I’m seeing the best of the best.”

A word on Helm’s stamina… For a Saturday home game, he’ll set off on the circa 90-mile drive to Lincoln at around 10am and get to the ground for about midday. He’ll catch up with Skubala for 10-15 minutes, grateful for any background info that might inform his commentaries, themselves underpinned by exhaustive preparation – “at least six hours, because I prepare as much for Cardiff against Lincoln as I did for the greatest game I ever covered – Brazil versus Italy at the 1982 World Cup, because you owe that to the teams you’re commentating on”.

Helm will then call the match, conduct post-match interviews and get back to Baildon around 8.30pm. For midweek games, it will be well past midnight when he walks through his front door.

Away matches, of course, can be even more gruelling, whether undertaken by car or train. He recalls a recent trip to Plymouth.

“It was a hell of a journey. It took me nine-and-a-half hours. I left Shipley at 9.30am the day before the match and got into Plymouth at six something or other. There were two incidents on the train. One member of the crew went missing, and then armed police got on for an incident.

“On the train back on the Sunday – it wasn’t possible to get back on the Saturday after the match – it was the Plymouth to Glasgow train and people were standing and sitting in the corridors all the way.

“It was that busy because King’s Cross was closed and trains were being diverted. You couldn’t get to the toilet. You couldn’t get to the buffet car. So that’s the sort of thing I’m putting up with – but still with a smile on my face.”

Helm, in fact, is rarely without one – always the most courteous and affable of men. During his career he has also worked for what is now Five Live, FIFA’s broadcasting arm, Test Match Special (briefly as a producer), the list goes on … He gave wonderful service for many years, of course, to Yorkshire Television.

It was there, very sadly, that he covered one of Britain’s worst sporting disasters: the Bradford fire of 1985. Lincoln were the opponents that day at Valley Parade. Fifty-six people died; many more were injured.

Helm has never been able to listen back to his commentary – “the thought sends a shiver up me every time”. Yet, as unbearable as that footage is, Helm’s narration is a model of how to cover an unfolding tragedy with the utmost sensitivity and humanity.

Poignantly, Lincoln asked Helm to represent them when they played Bradford at Sincil Bank in January. He laid a wreath on the penalty spot before kick-off along with Ryan Sparks, the Bradford chief executive, in front of the visiting supporters in the Stacey West Stand – named after the two Lincoln fans who died in the tragedy: Bill Stacey and Jim West.

“The reception from the Bradford City supporters was wonderful, and I think there is a genuine affiliation between the clubs,” he says. “They both have colossal respect for each other because of what happened in 1985.”

Helm grew up supporting another Bradford club – Park Avenue, where he has long been a vice-president, but he has tremendous affection for all Yorkshire’s clubs and tries to visit them as much as he can.

For him, the perfect outcome this season would be for both Lincoln and Bradford to get promoted. The Bantams are fourth and look good for the play-offs. “To see them both go into the Championship would be absolutely fantastic.”

Whatever happens, Helm is hoping to continue working for Lincoln, saying he has enjoyed this season as much as any in his career.

“I’m hoping they want to keep me because I’ve enjoyed it so much. It keeps me young, too. Somebody the other day said to me, ‘God, you must be in your 70s now.’ I thought that was a great compliment.

“It’s not just the players and management, it’s the people on the media side of things, the people in the club, the various offices… they’re all so friendly and welcoming.

“The lady steward always gives me a quick hug before every match. It’s a superstition. ‘Oh, we’ll win if I give you a quick hug,’” she says.