Football Ruined My Life

• 106. The One With Daniel Gray

  This week Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler are joined by the author Daniel Gray to discuss his 2013 book “Hatters, Railwaymen and Knitters” – a fascinating travel book about England as seen through the less glamorous clubs of English football and the communities that support them.  It’s time that clubs like Crewe and Chester and Bradford City were given their due air time and Football Ruined My Life is glad to accord it to them. Daniel proves a witty and poetic chronicler of the distant outreaches of English football. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 105. Football in 2050

  Jon Holmes, Jim White and Colin Shindler speculate (if present trends continue) about what football will look like in the year 2050 when it is very likely that none of them will be around to feel embarrassed by how badly they got things wrong.  Colin mischievously teases Jon to consider what will have happened to Leicester City in 25 years time.  Will there still be a Premier League such as we currently know it or indeed will there still be a Leicester City or might it be swallowed up in the East Midlands side competing against Alsace Lorraine and Outer Mongolia on a weekly basis?  Jim, rather mournfully, assumes that in 2050 Manchester United will still be looking for their first Premiership title since 2013 which causes much gaiety in the other half of Manchester and a slight sigh of schadenfreude emanating from Leicester. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 104. You Don’t Win Anything With Kids

  In this episode Colin Shindler, Andy Hamilton and Jon Holmes examine Alan Hansen’s notorious observation that you don’t win anything with kids. It’s rather a shame that his reputation as one of the leading pundits has been slightly tarnished by the fact that he said those words on Match of the Day on the day Manchester United had been well beaten by Aston Villa at the start of the 1995-96 season. United went on to win the double that year and we all know what that group of young Manchester United players went on to achieve.  Karen Brady when in charge of Birmingham City aroused the ire of all football supporters but claiming there was no point in growing vegetables if you could buy them so readily in the supermarket.  We older supporters yearn nostalgically for the days when we could follow the progress of local players through the youth and Reserve teams and into the first eleven. Those were the days when the emergence of 17 and 18 year-olds who cost the traditional £10 signing on fee gave more pleasure to supporters than does the current purchase of endless overseas players for huge sums of money. Or does it? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 103. Creative Midfielders

  This week the panel discuss that most prized of assets on a football field – what we all used to call the creative or scheming inside forward, now called I suppose the creative midfielder which isn’t as euphonious in my opinion but it’s only my opinion. However it would include players like Danny Blanchflower and Paddy Crerand who both wore the number 4 shirt and played at right half. The point is we all know the kind of player we’re talking about – the one who can break open defences with an inch perfect through ball between two defenders, the player who is more aware than most of the position of everyone on the field, the unselfish creator who brings others into the game, the man with two brains. I think we’re all too young to have seen Wilf Mannion, Raich Carter and Alex James as they played before we started watching the game so we who are still in our 70s have fond memories of Johnny Haynes who is exactly the inside forward who best fits the tag “creative midfielder”. Many names are mentioned. Who would you choose? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 102. Why Don’t the Top Six Just Bugger Off?

  We all know that that’s what the foreign owners want.  Omid Djalili, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler discuss the reasons why we shouldn’t just wave bye bye to the top six elite clubs in the Premier League and let them all just bugger off and join what nearly every football supporter fears will be the inevitable European Super League.  For them there would then be no fear of relegation but instead there would be trips to Milan, Madrid, Rome, Munich, Paris and Barcelona every other week instead of down the M3 and the M27 to Southampton or up the M1 to Sheffield and Leeds… or even worse up the M65 to Burnley.  We don’t suppose in the boardrooms of New York and Paris they look forward to being asked “Hello Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, how did you find the meat pies at Turf Moor last week?”  But if they did leave, as they clearly want to, where would that leave the rest of English football? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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