Strictly's football stars shine in the ballroom!

With the first live show last night, the two footballers in the Strictly cast of 2025 are off to a flying start with their first solo dances with their partners. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink stunned with an impressive, Chelsea themed quickstep and Karen Carney closed the show with a spectacular jive and an exceptional week one score of 31 points. 

Jimmy went first out of the two of them, and it was brought up in his introduction that usually “footballers don’t have a long lifeline” in the show and this could be that to them “dancing is a whole different ball game”. But for Jimmy, he just wanted to “give everything” to his dance to make his family proud. He and his partner Lauren Oakley this week were dancing a quickstep to Chelsea Dagger by The Fratellis which paid a small homage to his time spent at the London based club of the same name.

After his dance, the judges were overall very positive, with Shirley saying that he had “the kind of quality and control that [the judges] want”, Anton said that he “moved wonderfully” and Motsi commented that he had worked “very hard” on his technique. Craig, ever one to give a more balanced critique, commented that Jimmy “lost control of [his] frame halfway through” but that overall it was “light”, “bright” and “confident”. 

Jimmy was “very happy” with all of the judges comments, and talked about how he “always talks about football” and now - thanks to Strictly - he is “talking about dancing” with his daughters. He was awarded a six from Craig and the rest of the judges awarded the couple sevens, meaning he achieved 27 overall, which left him in third place at the end of the night. 

Our other footballing celebrity Karen Carney also had a spectacular start to the show after saying that she wanted to “live and breathe every single moment of this”. Like Jimmy and many of the other footballers on the show, Karen struggled with the idea that jive kicks and football kicks could be “so different”, but she maintained that she “loves” her and Carlos’ football inspired jive, she “love[s] doing it with Carlos and [she]’s so excited” to perform it. 

Karen stunned on the dancefloor, wowing everyone (including the judges) with her energy and precision on the floor. Motsi said she had “never seen anything like that”, Shirley commented that it had “high energy” and “it was just sensational”, and Anton went as far as to call it “the best dance of the night”. Again, Craig gave a more balanced assessment of the dance, suggesting that he “would have liked to have seen some softer edges” but that some of the moves that Karen and Carlos pulled off were “just ridiculous”. 

Karen was humbled by the praise from her fellow contestants and the judges saying that “it’s been an honour” for her to be in the Strictly ballroom and that she was “really emotional”. For the judges’ scores, Craig gave the pair a seven, whereas the rest of the judges awarded them with eights, giving Karen and Carlos a total of 31 points, which meant that they gained the highest score of the night. Claudia Winkleman also revealed that Karen had made history as “the last time a footballer topped the leaderboard was 18 years ago”, meaning that we can expect to see more great things from Karen as the series progresses. 

After an incredible opening night, it will be a relief to all the pairs that there is no elimination this week, as they will no doubt want to soak up the moment before dreading the possibility of leaving the dancing, the glitz and the glamour behind when it comes to the public vote and subsequent Dance Off next weekend. But until then, Karen, Jimmy and all of the other celebrities can be proud of their first dances in the Strictly ballroom and as an audience we will have to wait until next Saturday night to see what else they have up their sleeves!