Episodes

  • 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
  • 74. Favourite Games

    74. Favourite Games
    Nov 15 2024
    Paddy Barclay, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler talk about their favourite match and, to help them to do so, each of them invites as a guest on the podcast a player who took part in that match. If we could all take 8 matches to a desert island populated only by Roy Plomley and at some point you would be asked: “If seven of your matches were washed away which one match would you save from the waves?” Today the panel attempts to answer that question. Although, inevitably each of the games are won respectively by Dundee, Leicester City and Manchester City, the choice of games might surprise. The welcome appearance of Gary Lineker on this episode probably doesn’t. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    43 mins
  • 73. Wingers

    73. Wingers
    Nov 8 2024
    Whatever happened to outside rights and outside lefts? You remember those speedy tricky wingers who beat their full backs on the outside, got to the dead ball line and centred so that their centre forward could charge at the ball and force it into the net. The men ploughing those lonely furrows seem to have disappeared. Why has this happened and what has replaced them? Paddy Barclay, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler puzzle it out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    47 mins
  • 72. Players into Managers

    72. Players into Managers
    Nov 1 2024
    Why don’t great players automatically make great managers? Why did Bobby Charlton fail so disastrously at Preston when Kenny Dalglish succeeded so triumphantly at Liverpool as Johan Cruyff did at Barcelona? Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger had no careers at all as players but turned out to be great managers, Steven Gerard and Frank Lampard were great players but not great managers. Is there a pattern to this? The panel try to find the link between success on the pitch and in the dugout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    43 mins