Episodes

  • 82. Centre forwards vs False 9s

    82. Centre forwards vs False 9s
    Jan 10 2025
    Real centre forwards were old fashioned battering rams like Nat Lofthouse, Ted Drake of the great Arsenal side of the 1930s and Bobby Smith the rampaging leader of the Spurs double winning attack. As football has become more skilful, they have largely been replaced by False 9s as they are now called or deep-lying centre forwards as they were in the days of Don Revie and the Hungarian Hidegkuti. Jon Holmes, Patrick Barclay and Jon Holmes panel discuss the impact on the game of the change and surprisingly all three of them retain a nostalgic love of the centre forwards of their youth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    53 mins
  • 81. The One With Michael Rosen

    81. The One With Michael Rosen
    Jan 3 2025
    He’s a well-known and much liked voice on Radio 4’s Word of Mouth programme as well as Professor of Children’s Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London. But Michael Rosen is this week’s guest on Football Ruined My Life because he is a genuine Gooner - as visitors to the Emirates Stadium can see when they observe him depicted on the famous mural next to his late son Eddie and Gunnersaurus. First introduced to the game by his father, a fan from the Herbert Chapman glory days, Michael has been a fixture at Highbury and the Emirates since the 1950s and his reminiscences are conveyed in the podcast with his trademark humour and insight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    55 mins
  • 80. Our Third Postbag

    80. Our Third Postbag
    Dec 27 2024
    As a New Year’s gift, the panel come bearing the bulging postbag containing our listeners’ emails. Once again we can report a high standard of literacy and a comfortingly accurate recall of matches and teams from the dim recesses of all our childhoods. One correspondent, the self-styled King Arthur, a Liverpudlian now living in Malibu California, has written enough emails to fill three editions but he is joined as ever by the reminiscences of our widely diverse (though principally over the age of fifty) regular listeners and correspondents to whet the appetite for what is to come in 2025. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    38 mins
  • 79. Yuletide Matches

    79. Yuletide Matches
    Dec 20 2024
    Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Paddy Barclay wish all our listeners a very merry Christmas and we do so by recalling Christmas time matches from long ago. With far less choice on offer, both on television and on the dining room table, football at Christmas provided a fabulous feast of entertainment, the climax to which came on Boxing Day in 1963 when to everyone’s astonishment a record number of 66 goals were scored in the 10 First Division fixtures alone. Has the mass globalisation of the modern game in recent years had any impact on the distinctive Englishness of Yuletide matches? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    46 mins
  • 78. Utility Players

    78. Utility Players
    Dec 13 2024
    Colin Shindler, Patrick Barclay and Jon Holmes examine the value of utility players – the player who could fill in anywhere on the pitch from right back to outside left. There is a marked tendency by current managers to favour specialisation over utility yet we all remember, usually with affection, those players who could “do a job” anywhere on the pitch – the perfect player to bring on in the days when there was only one substitute. The panel pays tribute to the Paul Madeleys of the game and explore the reasons for their gradual disappearance from the game. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    43 mins
  • 77. Brits Abroad

    77. Brits Abroad
    Dec 6 2024
    Colin Shindler, Paddy Barclay and Jon Holmes discuss the phenomenon of Brits Abroad, those British footballers who made the transition to the sun, sangria and shenanigans of playing for foreign teams. Jon of course became a one-man Lunn PolyTravel Agency for his clients in the 1980s but the phenomenon of British footballers travelling to foreign climes began early in the postwar years with the Bogata bandits. With the exception of John Charles and Gerry Hitchens, English exports to European clubs in the 1950s and 1960s were generally not a great success. But after Kevin Keegan went to SV Hamburg in 1977 it all began to change until the arrival of the Premier League’s wealth reversed the direction of the flow of traffic across the Channel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    41 mins
  • 76. Screamers…

    76. Screamers…
    Nov 29 2024
    … is the word frequently given to goals scored, usually from outside the penalty box, like drawings in a Roy of the Rovers cartoon that bring the crowd to a fever pitch of excitement. Unless of course the goal has been scored by the opposition. In which case the spectacular goal will be suffered in a mute and somewhat resentful silence, one in which the unfairness of Life in general and the existence of God in particular is contemplated. Jon Holmes, Paddy Barclay and Colin Shindler discuss whether there are fewer screamers about these days than in the days of their youth and if so why that should be the case. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    44 mins
  • 75. 1992

    75. 1992
    Nov 22 2024
    It was the year of the Sky revolution in football but for Jon Holmes it was also the end of Gary Lineker’s career in England as he prepared to move to Japan and ultimately into the television studio. Leeds United won the last First Division and their manager Howard Wilkinson was the last English manager to win the championship. It was the year that saw an unfancied Denmark team win the Euros and John Major return to Downing Street by beating Neil Kinnock. It was a year that provided Paddy Barclay, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes with much to discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    43 mins