Bell & Spurling are an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 comedy

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

 music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

 duo, consisting of Martin Bell and Johnny Spurling. They formed in the 1990s, and are best known for the single, Sven, Sven, Sven, which reached number seven in the UK Singles Chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

 in October 2001. The song was inspired by the England football team's

England national football team

The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...

 5-1 victory against Germany

Germany national football team

The Germany national football team is the football team that has represented Germany in international competition since 1908. It is governed by the German Football Association , which was founded in 1900....

, and contained recordings of Jonathan Pearce

Jonathan Pearce

Jonathan Pearce , is a British football commentator for the BBC.Known for his loud, exuberant commentaries, he has worked for both Radio Five Live and Match of the Day, as well as participating in other lower key sports programmes.- Early life and career :Pearce wanted to become a footballer, but...

's commentary from that match. It mentions a number of contemporary England and German footballing figures and events, most notably Sven-Göran Eriksson

Sven-Göran Eriksson

Sven-Göran Eriksson , in Sweden commonly referred to just by his nickname Svennis, is a Swedish ex-football manager. From October 2010 to October 2011 he managed Football League Championship side Leicester City....

, to whom the song title and refrain refer.

Martin Bell from Chigwell

Chigwell

Chigwell is a civil parish and town in the Epping Forest district of Essex. It is located 11.6 miles north east of Charing Cross. It is served by two London Underground stations and has a London area code.-Etymology:According to P. H...

, and Johnny Spurling from Stapleford Abbotts

Stapleford Abbotts

Stapleford Abbotts is a village and civil parish in the Epping Forest district of Essex. It is located approximately SW of Ongar and N of Romford and is situated entirely within the M25 motorway...

, were both session singers

Session musician

Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...

 who became a duo. After carving out a career singing at celebrity parties for such as Rod Stewart

Rod Stewart

Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....

 and Simon Cowell

Simon Cowell

Simon Phillip Cowell is an English A&R executive, television producer, entrepreneur, and television personality. He is known in the United Kingdom and United States for his role as a talent judge on TV shows such as Pop Idol, The X Factor, Britain's Got Talent and American Idol...

, they went on to be regular guests on radio shows such as Talksport

TalkSPORT

Talksport , owned by UTV radio, is one of the United Kingdom's three terrestrial analogue Independent National Radio broadcasters, offering a sports and talk radio service broadcast from London to the United Kingdom....

 and Capital FM with their hilarious stories and songs. With the two hit anthems Sven Sven Sven and Goldenballs (Mr Beckham To You), it enabled the pair to appear on various television programmes, including a couple of appearances on Top of the Pops

Top of the Pops

Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...

. In later years, Bell is still playing the pub circuit in a covers

Cover version

In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...

 band, whilst Spurling has appeared in the comedy film

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

, The Flirting Club, and in Terry Alderton

Terry Alderton

Terry Alderton is an English comedian who had some high profile acting and presenting roles in the early 2000's before returning to stand-up comedy a decade later....

's Being Danny's Dire. Spurling is currently working on several TV projects, including one that will see him in his own sitcom

Situation comedy

A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...

, SOS for the BBC

BBC Television

BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...

.

Discography

Year	Title	UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
2001	"Sven, Sven, Sven"	#7
2002	"Goldenballs (Mr Beckham To You)"	#25