Football Ruined My Life

140. 1970

Fri, 08 May 2026 00:00:00 -0000

This week the Andy Hamilton, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler discuss the year 1970, which, to their collective astonishment, is 56 years ago. It’s Colin’s favourite year and much treasured by the 20-year-old Jon. Meanwhile the teenage Andy Hamilton skipped school to watch Chelsea beat Leeds in an infamous FA Cup Final replay (and was found out) and ignored his O level revision to watch Brazil v Uruguay in the World Cup semi final (he failed his Latin and had to resit). Everton won the League, City the League Cup and the European Cup Winners Cup and England got knocked out of the World Cup at the quarter final stage when the whole world (never mind the whole of England) was eagerly anticipating an England v Brazil World Cup Final. It was the end of the decade and somehow the excitement that had been generated in the 1960s disappointingly began to diminish thereafter. If you ask us to nominate a year when football ruled our lives and hadn’t yet ruined them, it was 1970. Much to discuss, much nostalgia to wallow in. Please join us in our indulgence.

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139. Postbag

Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 -0000

Today Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes look once more at the emails you’ve sent us since we did our last postbag at the end of last year. We encourage you to write to us every week and you do so in comforting numbers. Once again the tone is almost entirely positive with people wanting to contribute their own memories to the topic they’ve just listened to… or correcting our very fallible memories. We’re happy to acknowledge our mistakes even if on some occasions we have been grossly libelled. We look forward to these occasional episodes because it enables us to connect with our audience and we’re very grateful that you take the time and trouble to write if only because it reassures us that we’re talking about the topics which you think and talk about and also it’s a comfort to know that at least we’re not just talking to ourselves. The subjects range widely, reflecting the breadth of the listeners’ interests but there is genuine anger at the travesty of the World Cup draw and the sycophancy of the FIFA Peace Prize.

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138. The One With Tony Woodcock

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0000

Tony Woodcock was one of Jon Holmes’ earliest clients, a superb player who scored 139 goals in 437 appearances for Nottingham Forest, FC Koln and Arsenal besides the 16 goals scored in 42 appearances for England. This record compares favourably with Jon and Colin Shindler’s combined contribution of no goals at all at professional level. It is therefore entirely appropriate that we leave the discussion on the art of goalscoring and how it has changed in the past forty years entirely to Tony. Along the way we get his insight into the weird and wonderful art of management as practised by Brian Clough and a detailed description of what happened when Tony was transferred to FC Koln much to the displeasure of Mr Clough. We also learn what happened when Tony took a DNA test to discover where his skill as a professional footballer might have come from. The results were surprising, even to Tony.

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137. The Gap Between the Premier League and the Championship.

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0000

This week Jim White, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes wonder if the gap will ever narrow between the Championship and the Premier League. In 1964 Leeds United were promoted from the Second Division and in their first season in Division 1 they lost the League Championship to Manchester United only on goal average (as it then was). In the 1976-77 season Nottingham Forest finished third in the Second Division – well behind Chelsea and champions Wolverhampton Wanderers. The next season they won the First Division, the year after that they won the European Cup and then retained it the following year. Clearly that is never going to happen these days. More relevant is that last season all three clubs who had been promoted the previous year went straight back down again. This year at least one will go down and possibly two of the relegated sides in 2025 will come back up again. Will any club in the future be able to replicate what Forest did?

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136. Turning Points

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0000

This week Andy Hamilton, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes discuss turning points in football history. The historian A.J.P. Taylor, a name that has never graced a football podcast previously famously described the 1848 revolutions, particularly in Germany, as a "turning point in history that failed to turn". Well the panel now discuss those moments in football history which were significant turning points in the evolution of the game we see today. Our first turning point deals with the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary but some time after its collapse. On a murky afternoon in November 1953 the Hungarian football team came to Wembley and shocked the world by defeating England in its fortress – and not just defeating them, they wiped the floor with us. But was this really a turning point in British football? After all, the old WM formation carried on for many years after Hidegkuti had demonstrated the value of a new fashioned number 9 and you could argue that it took a further 13 years until 1966 when England finally emerged from the 1953 induced nightmare. Are the panel’s turning points the same as yours?

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135. The One With Dominic Sambrook

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 23:00:00 -0000

This week’s special guest on the podcast is the distinguished historian Dominic Sandbrook, author of magisterial histories of Britain from 1956 to 1982 and of course a co-host of the podcast The Rest is History. More to the point, however, he is a passionate supporter of Wolverhampton Wanderers whom we have shamefully neglected in our previous 134 plus podcasts, mainly because we have been waiting to get hold of Dominic. In Who Dares Wins, his history of Britain from 1979 to 1982, he not only references the 1980 Wembley final in which Wolves beat Clough’s Nottingham Forest but he utilises the names of Wolves players on a far larger scale. If you listen to this edition of the podcast you will discover how and why he does it.

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134. Underrated Players

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 01:00:00 -0000

This week Omid Djalili, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler discuss the sort of player who should have played for their country but never did, players who lacked the ebullience to stand out from their more aggressive and extrovert team mates and players - wherever they operated in the football pyramid. Players who were the unshowy but reliable… who got the ball, made ground and passed accurately to a colleague in space. On a fictional level the list would start with Blackie Gray who did all the donkey work for Melchester Rovers and provided what we now call the assist for Roy Race, who scored all the goals and was credited with the fancy title of Roy of the Rovers. Today’s edition is all about the Blackie Grays of this world. To be fair to Gary Lineker he always credited Peter Beardsley as the creator of many of his goals for England. Listen to discover who else is regarded as underrated in this way.

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133. Did Young British Players Come Into The First Team Faster Than They Do Now?

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 01:00:00 -0000

This week Colin Shindler, Andy Hamilton and Jon Holmes gather to discuss whether there are more 17 and 18 year old players coming into the game than there used to be in the postwar years. Has the abandonment of the A and B sides and more significantly the reserve leagues – like the Central League and the Football Combination – changed things for the better? Can young players learn much by sitting on the bench watching the first eleven play or would they learn more by playing games in a reserve team? How effective are the academies in speeding talented youngsters into the first team?

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132. Have Newspaper Football Journalists Lost Their Influence?

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 01:00:00 -0000

It’s the view of Football Ruined My Life that many football supporters used to buy broadsheet newspapers specifically to read Geoffrey Green or Brian Glanville or David Lacey or Hugh McIlvanney – four hugely respected titans of the art of writing about football matches for the next day’s paper. In this edition, Jim White of the Daily Telegraph joins Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler to explain why his own career has coincided with the long slow decline of the influence of the football journalists. There was a time in the glory days when television knocked on the door politely and managers were much more afraid of Glanville and McIlvanney or even the local paper’s reporter than of the stilted television interview on those rare occasions when the match was actually covered by television. With the change in reading habits has it actually changed the nature of the job of a football reporter?

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The One With Michael Crick – Football And Nationalism

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 01:00:00 -0000

This week Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler are joined by the investigative journalist Michael Crick whose appearances down the years on Newsnight and Channel 4 News have made him a familiar face on our television screens. Despite being a friend of Colin, he is a longtime supporter of Manchester United, having had the decency to grow up in Manchester. In this episode he talks about the power of nationalism and how it has affected the game at both club and international levels.

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130. Do Football Crowds Reflect The Society We Live In?

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 01:00:00 -0000

There was a time before 1966 when crowds were a lot friendlier and less angry than they are today. Supporters of opposing clubs stood together on the terraces and policing was relegated to one copper on a horse outside the ground as you came in. Crowds in the immediate postwar years were large and though the grounds were already starting to crumble, club directors saw no need to spend money updating them. The food and drink were mostly disgusting and toilet provision was virtually non-existent. But there was no hooliganism and nobody got stabbed or was hustled to hospital with a dart sticking out of his eye. Omid Djalili, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes ask what does that tell you about society in the early postwar years? And why did it change?

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129. The Matchday Experience

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 01:00:00 -0000

Andy Hamilton, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler ask the question “Has the match day experience improved over the years they have been going to watch football?” You would think the answer would be that of course it has. We all have a seat, the food, whatever the price, couldn’t be worse than it was in the 1960s and ‘70s, we are never caught in those frightening swayings on the terraces and the clubs appear to want to turn football into some weird version of show business. But… why don’t we see those marching bands on the pitch any more and what happened to Arthur Cager, the man in a white coat on a stand conducting the crowd in Abide With Me and She’s A Lassie From Lancashire before the start of the Cup Final. Is this new awkward marriage between show biz and football something the crowds really welcome?

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128. What Happened To All The British Managers?

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 01:00:00 -0000

The television interview with a British manager after a match has become quite a rare bird, although recent events at Manchester United and Chelsea have slightly altered that perception. Prior to those appointments, Eddie Howe, Sean Dyche and David Moyes flew the Union Jack and we currently also have Rob Edwards and Scott Parker – though their stay in the Premier League looks destined to be over in May. For some time though, Match of the Day has felt like a procession of foreign managers brought in by foreign owners. It seems that the only way to become a British manager in the Premier League is to be promoted from the Championship. Colin Shindler, Jim White and Jon Holmes ponder how this situation has come about.

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127. Which footballers have been influential, either consciously or unconsciously, in affecting or impacting their nations positively (or negatively)?

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 01:00:00 -0000

Recently we had the Africa Cup of Nations with that absurd ending rescued by the grown up behaviour of Sadio Mane. During the course of the competition we were constantly reminded of how much Mo Salah means to the people of Egypt. However, Omid Djalili, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes also look at the downside. When Luis Suarez was sent off for biting for the third time in the 2014 World Cup after taking a mouthful from the shoulder of the Italy defender Georgio Chiellini – they wonder whether the people of Uruguay were sympathetic to the way Suarez’ assuaged his hunger pains or whether they were properly embarrassed. Football throws up heroes and villains on a regular basis. How much impact do their actions have on the perception of their country?

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126. The North-South Divide

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 01:00:00 -0000

When the Football League started in 1888 there were six clubs from the Midlands and six from Lancashire. Now look at the Premier League. Of the current 20 clubs, nine come from the effete South of England, in other words almost half. Jon Holmes, Colin Shindler and Jim White discuss whether this is a North-South divide or a London-versus-the-rest-of-the-country divide. We know to what extent football is ruled by money and we know that the North-South divide is a slightly euphemistic way of describing the disadvantaged North versus the over privileged South. So much is self-evident. But is this increasing concentration of wealth in the southern half of the country a good thing or a bad thing for football?” Listen to the podcast and let us know what you think (and where you live!)

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125. Our Most Depressing Defeats

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 01:00:00 -0000

Colin Shindler asks Jon Holmes and Andy Hamilton to relive their football related nightmares. They are forced under forensic questioning to remember what they had hoped they had buried forever in the deepest recesses of their memories. In other words, those defeats which evoke the very darkest of thoughts. They don’t have to be 9-0 thrashings to do that. They can be games when you’re 1-0 up and coasting and then two stupid, stupid, stupid goals in stoppage time turn victory into defeat. There can be narrow defeats in important games or games decided by the insanity and incipient blindness of the match officials. Either way you leave the ground wondering why you bothered getting out of bed and coming in the first place. The Football Ruined My Life audience knows exactly what that feels like.

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124. Those We Have Lost In 2025

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 01:00:00 -0000

This week Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Jim White pay tribute to some of the players who died in 2025 plus two journalists and one referee. As most of our listeners are probably in their 60s and 70s, the deaths of players like Billy Bonds, John Robertson and perhaps above all Denis Law bring to the surface fears about our own mortality. If you loved the football and the footballers of the 1960s and 1970s, when our love for the game was sealed, you probably find, as we do, these deaths to be particularly poignant. Those we are talking about in this edition are many and varied, famous and unknown. They include a player who kickstarted my second career, a goalkeeper who made 5 appearances and spent nearly all of his 10 years at my club in the reserves and a centre half who scored an own goal in three consecutive games. Isn’t that worth commemorating?

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123. Are Modern Refs Too Fussy?

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 01:00:00 -0000

Anyone who watches The Big Match Revisited every Saturday morning on ITV4 will notice that referees in the 1970s and 1980s used to wave play on so much more often - which meant that the game flowed and wasn’t constantly hauled back for yet another free kick. You also pretty much had to amputate an opponent’s leg below the knee before you could be sent off. A sending off in the 1960s and 1970s was a big deal and the player was usually embarrassed and upset. Squads were of course much smaller so losing a key player for 28 days (which was how punishments were given then) was a serious blow to the team’s prospects for the next month. Now of course getting a red card is regarded as part of the day job and if you can get yourself sent off a week before Christmas and receive an automatic three match suspension you get a nice family Christmas at home. To an extent of course this isn’t really down to the individual referee. Referees are under examination from an official observer sitting in the stand and they can be overruled by VAR. They used to be the sole arbiters of what happens on the pitch. Now they aren’t. Jimmy Mulville, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes discuss whether or not this trend is good for the game and particularly for the spectators.

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122. Club Legends

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 01:00:00 -0000

This week the Colin, Jon and Omid are talking about those players beloved by the fans but usually underrated by fans of other clubs. In other words, club legends - usually players who play for one club for the whole of their career who do not appear to be tempted by a transfer to a club more likely to win trophies… and who certainly wouldn’t leave the club just for the sake of increasing even by a significant amount their weekly wage packet. Have such players entirely disappeared from our game? That loyalty was quite prevalent at one time in the game. Every single listener to this podcast with a strong affiliation to one particular club could probably name a club legend who stuck around for years, never in contention for international honours, never sought by European clubs, rarely injured - a person who gave their all for the club even if they were less gifted than some team mates. They were what gave their club their unique image. They were players like Billy Bonds at West Ham, Harry Cripps at Millwall, Tony Dunne at Manchester United, Alan Oakes at City… the list goes on. Who is on your list?

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121. Postbag

Fri, 26 Dec 2025 01:00:00 -0000

Every year at this time we ensure that we have a postbag of your emails to spread joy and happiness among the growing Football Ruined My Life community. We encourage you to write to us every week and you do so in comforting numbers. Once again the tone is almost entirely positive with people wanting to contribute their own memories to the topic they’ve just listened to or correcting our very fallible memories. We look forward to these occasional episodes because it enables us to connect with our audience. And we’re very grateful that you take the time and trouble to write even if only because it reassures us that we’re talking about the topics which you think and talk about. But also it’s a comfort to know that at least we’re not just talking to ourselves. So a merry festive season and a happy new year to one and all and do keep those emails pouring in. There’ll be another postbag in a couple of months.

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120. Is the Game More Exciting Than it Was?

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0000

Following on from the last episode (the special on FIFA and their Peace Prize that was awarded to Donald Trump), this week Jon Holmes, Andy Hamilton and Colin Shindler ask themselves the question: “Is the game more or less exciting than it was when we first started watching football in the late 1950s/early 1960s?” It certainly seems to be more exciting to judge by the hysterical radio and television commentators and the ludicrous goal celebrations we have to suffer. Back in the day a goalscorer might have his hand shaken, his hair ruffled and on occasion his bottom fondled, albeit very briefly. Of course, what appears hysterical to fans of mature years might not appear so to someone fifty years younger. The game has grown, Premier League grounds are full, players are faster and more skilful. Surely that means that the game is more exciting. Listen and find out…

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119. Has FIFA Ruined My Football?

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 01:00:00 -0000

This is a shorter but very special edition of Football Ruined My Life. It was recorded three days after the sickening and humiliating farrago of nonsense which was the draw for the 2026 World Cup. It contained, of course, the sickening sight of a convicted felon being awarded a Peace Prize. The sheer inanity of the exercise made it entirely nonsensical. Within minutes of the draw starting, our producer Paul Kobrak, messaged Jon and Colin saying he was sickened by the spectacle that was unfolding on television. Jon was feeling exactly the same and we jointly wondered how the game we have all loved for almost the entire duration of our lives could possibly have sunk so low. The reason we all fell in love with with game of football was because it appealed to our better instincts of joy and romance. Football can give you those feelings. But that football has gone and if we needed confirmation then FIFA’s lunacy was the proof. As football fans we have the right to howl in protest. Let us know if you were also howling.

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118. The One with Steve Coppell

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 01:00:00 -0000

In this episode Colin Shindler and Jim White are delighted to welcome one of the few Economics graduates to play for England and manage successfully in the Premier League. Steve Coppell’s potential career as an economist was somewhat overshadowed by 360 games as a right winger for Tranmere Rovers and Manchester United, despite being forced to retire at the age of 28 because of a bad knee injury. Incidentally he also had a subsequent career of over a thousand games as a highly successful manager of a number of clubs but principally Crystal Palace and Reading. Now at the age of 70 he has the perspective to compare football when he played and managed with the game as it is played and managed today.

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117. The Players We Most Feared

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 01:00:00 -0000

The panel discuss the players they most feared because they were really good players and always played well against their own team... or players who were basically hatchet men who set out cold-bloodedly to injure their best player. When we talked about goalkeepers Pat Jennings came into the former category and you have to say nobody could dislike Pat who always seemed such a pleasant self-effacing bloke – unless you were trying to score past him. Don Revie’s Leeds United on the other hand were both feared and disliked. Various teams of course have made us wonder whether there is any point in turning up to watch the inevitable defeat – Liverpool in the 80s, Manchester United from 1994 for the next two decades, perhaps Guardiola’s Manchester City from a few years ago. Do memories of Ron Harris, Peter Storey, Norman Hunter etc. evoke the warm glow of nostalgia? Andy Hamilton, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler fight it out.

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116. Giant Killers

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 01:00:00 -0000

Ronnie Radford was a workaday midfielder playing for such legendary clubs as Worcester City, Bath City and Forest Green Rovers but in January 1972 he was playing for Hereford United in an FA Cup third round replay at Edgar Street on a quagmire of a pitch in front of a capacity crowd. With less than ten minutes to go and Newcastle comfortably 1-0 ahead Radford won a tackle in the Newcastle half and played a one-two. The return pass bobbled on the muddy surface but sat up nicely for Radford, and he unleashed a 30-yard strike into the top corner that left Willie McFaul the Newcastle goalkeeper helpless. It sparked a pitch invasion, and the images of that muddy pitch, Radford celebrating with arms aloft and the crowd invading the pitch, have since become immortalised in FA Cup history. If ever there was a single goal which defined the glory of the giantkiller this was it. Jim White, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler wallow nostalgically, as ever, in their memories of similar giant killing acts.

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115. International Breaks

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 01:00:00 -0000

Now that England have already qualified for next year’s World Cup finals, this makes all the remaining matches in the group completely pointless from an England perspective. The November international break seems to have arrived 25 minutes after the October one. These tedious autumn and spring international breaks also extend the football season which now starts in the middle of the Test match series and ends as the following season’s Test match series begins. Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Jim White discuss, sometimes with a sense of rage and frustration, their feelings that the traditional rhythm of a football season is being disrupted by these irritating international breaks.

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114. The Team of the 1960s

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 01:00:00 -0000

In this episode, Andy Hamilton, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes resume their role as selectors as they choose the best team of the 1960s from the English Football League as it then was. That’s not one individual club or national side but a team composed of the outstanding players of that decade in some sort of logical formation that would bring out the best of them both as individuals and as team players. Players like Tom Finney and Stanley Matthews are ineligible as their greatest days were in the 1940s and 1950s even if their careers continued into the 1960s. Some of the selections will undoubtedly coincide with yours but some of them might surprise you so press play and start luxuriating in a nostalgic wallow through the days of our youths.

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113. Football in the 1960s

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 01:00:00 -0000

Colin Shindler tries to convince Jon Holmes and Jimmy Mulville that the 1960s was English football’s most glorious decade. Not just the world cup triumph of 1966, though that obviously features significantly at the heart of the decade. Secondary school was dark, depressing and alienating. Football by contrast was light, colourful and inclusive. All it asked of you was to enjoy playing and supporting your team. As a teenager in that decade, Colin had no wife or children to demand attention as they would in later years and in the 1960s football seemed to offer a cheap and readily available entertainment. Of course, the decade also provided terrible pitches, small wages to most players even after the abolition of the £20 minimum wage, dilapidated grounds with no toilets and the danger of swaying on the terraces with those rolling crowds. It can’t just be nostalgia that elevates football in the 1960s, can it?

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112. Short Lived Managers

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0000

We all remember Brian Clough’s infamous 44 days as manager of Leeds United, a fractious period of time which compared favourably with Liz Truss’s time as Prime Minister of the UK - and of course the lettuce that lasted longer than either of them. Colin Shindler recalls with ghastly clarity Steve Coppell’s 33 days in charge of the disaster that was Manchester City in 1996. Both these short-lived phenomena have been beaten very recently: not just by what last week with Ange Postecoglou’s departure from Nottingham Forest but also by what happened at the start of this season – the sacking of Erik Ten Hag after just three competitive matches in charge of Bayer Leverkeusen. Jim White, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes speculate as to what on earth Bayer Leverkusen could possibly have found out about Ten Hag after three matches that they didn’t already know when they made the decision to hire him in the first place?

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111. No Hopers

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0000

On the first day of every season nearly all football supporters experience the same surge of pride and expectation. When they get to the ground it looks gleaming. The grass is green and the white lines stand out in marked contrast inviting the arrival of our heroes and stimulating thoughts of promotion and championships and European football. This emotion for most supporters doesn’t even last ninety minutes as the wretched disappointment of a 2-0 home defeat brings them back to the grim reality. They are not going to win the League or the FA Cup (or get promotion or even avoid relegation) this season after all. Colin Shindler, Jim White and Jon Holmes wonder what drives the supporters of clubs with no hope.

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110. Who Runs The Club?

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0000

It’s an increasingly pertinent question in football. In the days of Shankly, Clough and Ferguson it was blindingly obvious who ran their clubs. But as the manager’s role has been split between the Head Coach and the Director of Football, that vision of total authority has become increasingly blurred. The Head Coach might pick the team on Saturday afternoon (or possibly Friday night or Sunday lunchtime) but bizarrely, and to his utter frustration, he might not have bought any of the players he is selecting. That could well have been the responsibility of the Director of Football and a committee. Is this a better way to run these clubs which are now billion-pound businesses? More to the point, does it increase the distance still further between the club and its fans? Omid Djalili, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler ponder these questions.

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109. Team of the 70s

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0000

Following on from the previous edition, Colin Shindler, Jim White and Jon Holmes set themselves the task of choosing from the English Football League as it then was, a team of the 1970s. That’s not one individual club or national side, but a team composed of the outstanding players of that decade in some sort of logical formation that would bring out the best of them both as individuals and as team players. It is with evident relief that all our regular listeners will realise that we can start proceedings knowing that Jamie Vardy wasn’t born until 1987 and therefore he is ruled ineligible for selection – which is going to cause Jon to scrabble around at the bottom of his Leicester City suitcase where he will no doubt find Frank Worthington and Keith Weller. However, the decade provided so many great players that selection of a final eleven is going to be difficult. The panel has great fun seeing who makes the final cut and they are sure you will be equally enthused to decide on your own team of the 1970s.

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108. The One From The 70s… with Jon Spurling

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0000

Not unusually for this podcast, we look back – with quite some affection – to the 1970s. Many of our listeners will also no doubt remember the decade through a haze of nostalgic introspection… but of course it was also a tumultuous ten years that not only laid many of the foundation stones for the modern game, but also witnessed the English national team twice failing to qualify for the World Cup Finals after their heroics in the competition in 1970. Bringing a younger, but no less well-informed perspective, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler are joined by Jon Spurling – whose book Get It On: How The 70s Rocked Football focuses on the decade that has been described as the one when football went from black & white to colour.

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107. Falls From Grace

Fri, 19 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0000

Jim White was astonished to find that Andy Carroll is now turning out on Saturday afternoons to play in the sixth tier of English for Dagenham & Redbridge. So it’s Jim who leads the discussion (with Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes) of players who once strode purposefully at the summit of the game but ended their careers in far less salubrious circumstances. Bobby Moore finished his playing career in the Danish Third Division and George Best turned out for Dunstable Town when he was good enough to have still been playing First Division football. Further back in history Wilf Mannion and Tommy Lawton fell from grace with similarly sad results. For some it was the need to earn money at the only trade they knew; for others it was the simple love of the game which continued to attract them when their great days had finished. It proves for the panel and listeners alike a sobering discussion of how the highs of football can be swiftly replaced by the grim reality of the lows.

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106. The One With Daniel Gray

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0000

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.

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105. Football in 2050

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 -0000

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.

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104. You Don’t Win Anything With Kids

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0000

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?

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103. Creative Midfielders

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0000

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?

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

Fri, 15 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0000

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?

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101. Do We Give Too Much Credit to the Game of our Youth?

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0000

This is a particularly emotive topic. Do we on this podcast give too much credit to the football of our youth and not enough to the Modern Game? We probably do – some might even argue it’s not the football of our youth we want back but our youth itself. And they could be right. Who wouldn’t want to be 20 years old again with a body that actually worked properly? But one reason Colin Shindler, Jim White and Jon Holmes are always happy to talk endlessly about football in the 1960s and 1970s in particular is that there’s a distressing tendency of modern football journalists and pundits to ignore the history of those years in favour of what appears to be an obsession with this week’s football or last week’s football. Football talk in the media only confirms the misguided prejudice that the game began in 1992. We beg to differ.

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100. Postbag

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0000

We can imagine no better way of celebrating our century of podcasts than by dipping into the postbag containing your emails. Every week we encourage you to write to us and you do so in comforting numbers. Once again, the tone is largely positive with people wanting to contribute their own memories to the topic they’ve just listened to or correcting our very fallible memories. We look forward to these occasional episodes because it enables us to connect with our audience and we’re very grateful that you take the time and trouble to write - if only because it reassures us that we’re talking about the topics which you think and talk about. Also, it’s a comfort to know that at least we’re not just talking to ourselves. With a rare appearance of producer, Paul Kobrak, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler begin of course with your generous tributes to our late friend and colleague Patrick Barclay.

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99. Leaving Grounds

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0000

Prompted by reports of the last men’s game to be played by Everton at Goodison Park, the panel discuss the emotions that fans feel when they leave their traditional home for pastures new – the nostalgia for times past and the excitement mixed with some trepidation at what lies ahead. Jon and Colin have experienced this sensation as Filbert Street and Maine Road closed their doors for the last time and now the Old Evertonian Jimmy Mulville joins them to discuss this particular phenomenon. As football grounds modernise it is an emotion likely to be shared by the majority of football supporters across the land. Football is a game heavily influenced by tradition. How does a new ground manage the emotional response of supporters to a new stadium?

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98. 1985

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0000

Was 1985 English football’s darkest year? There could be a number of nominations for this much coveted title but 1985 contained the tragedies of Heysel Stadium and the Bradford City fire. Weeks before these events the sixth round FA Cup replay between Luton Town and Millwall degenerated into a shocking riot. The average attendance at a Division One match in 1972 had been over 30,000. By 1985 that had slumped to just 18,374. No British team had qualified for the Euros in France in 1984 so no British television channel bothered to cover it, so low was the interest in the game. Football in 1985 said the Sunday Times was a slum sport played in slum stadiums and increasingly watched by slum people. Jim White, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes discuss whether or not that withering verdict was justified.

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97. The One With David Pleat

Fri, 11 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0000

David Pleat has been in football so long that most supporters have forgotten that he started out as a player for Nottingham Forest, Luton and Shrewsbury Towns, Exeter City and Peterborough United. He has been a sensible pundit on radio and television for many years following a successful managerial career at Luton Town, Tottenham Hotspur, Leicester City, Sheffield Wednesday and Nuneaton Borough. David has now published his very interesting autobiography Just One More Goal which reveals just how dramatically the game has changed since he began his life in football when Harold Macmillan was still the Prime Minister.

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96. Pundits

Fri, 04 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0000

Andy Hamilton returns to join Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes as they discuss the contentious subject of football pundits. By pundits, they mean those know-it-alls who are either very wise after the event, are outstanding at stating the bleeding obvious or are as clueless as the rest of us when it comes to predicting the future. Yet somehow, they have become increasingly important in the broadcasting of football on radio and particularly television. Indeed the BBC Director General, guided by the new BBC Head of Sport, recently told us that audiences would prefer to listen to the pundits rather than watch the highlights of the match. Contentious? We should say so. In the days of Kenneth Wolstenholme and David Coleman, John Motson and Barry Davies there were very few pundits besides Jimmy Hill and we related largely to those commentators unless there was a World Cup panel. Why have the pundits become so important in recent years?

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95. Is English football still recognisably English?

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 00:00:00 -0000

This week Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler are joined by Omid Djalili to ask the question, “How English is the English football pyramid?” Of course, football reflects society and since we all began watching football, British society has changed out of all recognition. If you look at old football matches on The Big Match Revisited on ITV4 on Saturday mornings and other archive film programs you can see how different it was 40 years also ago and how widely British society has changed since then - not just off the field but also on the field. There is no question that many of the imports into the game from the rest of the world have been a blessing, not least skilful players who have added to the pleasure of the crowds who went to watch them. However, the sheer number of players playing in the English football game who are not English, Welsh, Scottish or Irish might be to some a cause of concern. The idea of the one club man who spent his entire career with his local club has passed into History. Is the globalisation of the game something to celebrate or regret?

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94. England Managers After Sir Alf Part 3

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 00:00:00 -0000

Jim White returns to contribute to the last in our series of podcasts about the England managers which takes the panel from Sven to Thomas Tuchel and the glories that lie ahead for the England football team - which is usually a reminder that they haven’t won anything since 1966. In the name of Allah go, they said to Bobby Robson. Yanks 2 Planks 0 the Sun helpfully pointed out to Graham Taylor. We know that the press, not just The Sun, can be very hostile and extremely rude to England managers. Are the national managers judged by a different yardstick from ordinary club managers? Are the press just waiting for England managers to fail so they can pile in on them? Jim White tries to defend his profession.

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93. Onfield Behaviour

Fri, 13 Jun 2025 00:00:00 -0000

In this edition of the podcast, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes are joined by Andy Hamilton to talk in a very headmasterly tone about Onfield Behaviour which quite frankly is bringing the good name of the Football Ruined My Life school into disgrace. In a Champions League quarter final this season two Real Madrid boys in the Lower Sixth, Rudiger and Mbappe, were shown on television after a fortunate win over their rival boys school Atletico Madrid making obscene gestures. Rudiger was appearing to make a throat-slitting motion, apparently towards the Atletico crowd, while Mbappe was shown seemingly making a crotch-grabbing gesture. Both boys then had to report to Mr Infantino’s study after Assembly where it would appear nothing at all happened to them. Government regulations unfortunately no longer permit Sir Stanley Rous to give both those boys a severe caning which would have happened in the more enlightened 1960s. Has onfield behaviour deteriorated so badly in recent years or does football simply reflect an increasing disregard for authority which can be seen in so many facets of society in the 21st century?

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92. Fan Sentiment

Fri, 06 Jun 2025 00:00:00 -0000

We’re all fans. That’s why we make this podcast and that’s why presumably you all like listening to it. Fan sentiment is something we suspect we all feel strongly about but probably in our different ways. It’s not just foreign owners, ludicrous transfer fees, and (present company excepted) cynical agents taking money off both their clients and the clubs. Today’s panel (of Jon Holmes, Colin Shindler and Jimmy Mulville) consider how fans like all of us are being slowly alienated from the clubs to which we’ve given a lifetime of devotion. Colin even has sympathy for Manchester United fans who are appalled at the antics of their club since it became apparent that Jim Ratcliffe was not a knight on a white horse but a panic-stricken tax exile in a limousine trapped in a car park, surrounded by angry fans. We can’t help but accept that our clubs have to change, it’s inevitable but is it still our club? It’s a question we all ask ourselves, some with increasing anxiety.

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91. England Managers After Sir Alf Part 2

Fri, 30 May 2025 00:00:00 -0000

In the first podcast Football Ruined My Life has done since the untimely demise of Patrick Barclay, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler are joined by the Daily Telegraph sports columnist Jim White. Forced to restart the episode because the Producer had failed to press the record button first time round, eventually the panel turn to the “the poisoned chalice”. They consider the story from the sad night of defeat on penalties in Turin to the singularly appropriate day in 2000 when Kevin Keegan resigned the job in the toilets at Wembley Stadium after a 1-0 home defeat by Germany. In between came the nadir of Graham Taylor and the oh-so-nearly efforts of Terry Venables before Glenn Hoddle was defeated by the players’ decision to embrace his original tactics but reject his rather strange insistence on utilising the assistance of a faith healer called Eileen Drewery.

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90. England Managers After Sir Alf Part 1

Fri, 23 May 2025 00:00:00 -0000

It’s commonly known as “the poisoned chalice”. The only England manager to win the World Cup was Alf Ramsey in 1966. Nobody has done it since though a few have come close. In this, his last ever podcast, Patrick Barclay, along with Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler, analyses why that has been the case. Paddy and co. take the story from 1974 when Sir Alf was dismissed by the FA to the end of Bobby Robson’s unlucky regime after the defeat by Germany at Italia 90. Gazza cried, we all cried but we comforted ourselves with the thought that the next manager to try was Robson’s immediate replacement, Graham Taylor. It's unlikely that Paddy's wit and erudition was ever better displayed than in this, his last but triumphant farewell.

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89. 1968

Wed, 21 May 2025 00:00:00 -0000

This is the penultimate podcast in which Patrick Barclay appeared. In it the original Football Ruined My Life panel of Paddy, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler analyse the year 1968, as the latest in their periodic examinations of one particularly memorable year. In football terms 1968 was the year that Manchester United followed Celtic to become the first English club to win the European Cup but even that landmark occasion was only one of many. It was also the year of the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the riots in Chicago, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the alliance between students and workers which brought France to a state of total paralysis. Two black American athletes held up a black gloved fist in support of Black Power during the medal ceremony at the Mexico Olympics and the anti-Vietnam war protest movement came to Grosvenor Square in London. West Bromwich Albion fans need not worry because we do not ignore their victory over Everton in the FA Cup Final or Manchester City’s triumph as they were crowned League Champions. A memorable year indeed.

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88. The One With Omid Djalili (reposted episode)

Mon, 19 May 2025 00:00:00 -0000

This is the first of the last three episodes recorded with Patrick Barclay. We are re-releasing the podcast he made with the original Football Ruined My Life team of Patrick Barclay, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler because it was previously published the day we heard of Paddy’s tragic death and we removed it out of respect as soon as we heard the news.

Stand-up comic Omid Djalili was born in Chelsea and has been a passionate and regular spectator at Stamford Bridge from an early age. Forced out of London by the impact of the pandemic, he re-appeared in Suffolk and became increasingly interested in the fortunes of what is now his nearest football club, Ipswich Town. In a predictably amusing podcast episode, Omid explains his new found interest in Ipswich Town but adds a variety of stories of growing up a Chelsea fan at the time of not only increasing violence amongst supporters and but also when to be of Middle Eastern origin was not a pathway to automatic acceptance, either by football crowds or by a British society growing increasingly intolerant of immigrants. As ever, Omid deals successfully with all problems through humour.

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The Return of Football Ruined My Life

Fri, 16 May 2025 00:00:00 -0000

Back in February, when we learnt about the tragic and shocking death of our friend and colleague, Patrick Barclay, we suspended the podcast and took time to consider if and how it can continue. Replacing Paddy is impossible; the breadth of his knowledge and his infectious (and mischievous) sense of humour made him unique. But here we announce our return with roster of stars who will make irregular appearances to join the regulars Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler. Also, we reveal a special week-long series of releases of the last episodes Paddy recorded with Colin and Jon.

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Patrick Barclay

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 12:53:00 -0000

It is with deep sadness that Jon, Paul and I have to tell you all that our friend and fellow podcast host Patrick Barclay died suddenly on the morning of 12 February. All of us and no doubt many of our listeners who responded to Paddy's cheery Scottish burr over the course of 80 or so episodes will have cause to feel his loss. Out of respect we have removed this week's edition. We are obviously talking among ourselves as to if and how the podcast can continue. For the moment we feel that a brief pause is the right approach to this deeply depressing and tragic news.

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86. Home Internationals vs. Nations' League

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 01:00:00 -0000

This week the panel (and their producer) are bitterly divided on the contentious issue of the Nations League and its value compared to the old Home Internationals when England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland played with themselves. One side sees a desperation of the television companies and UEFA to ensure that no summer passes without an international tournament, leading to player burnout and spectator indifference. The other side sees a sensible arrangement that abolishes pointless friendlies, gives every match a purpose and ensures that the weaker sides play each other and are not just cannon fodder for the big boys. Fortunately, remote recording ensures that violence amongst members of the panel, though seemingly imminent, never requires police intervention.

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85. Penalties

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 01:00:00 -0000

Twelve yards away, the keeper can’t move off his line until the ball is struck. How does anyone ever miss a penalty? Well, as we all know they do miss and frequently it’s crucial in a match. So it can be too for the award in the first place of a penalty for handball with no intent to handle by the defender and for fouls when the forward has cleverly tripped himself up but made it look like it’s a deliberate foul. Plenty for Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Patrick Barclay to get their collective teeth into here.

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84. Those We Have Lost In 2024 (and also remembering Denis Law)

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 01:00:00 -0000

A change of pace for Football Ruined My Life this week. In this podcast we’re looking back at football players and managers who died during 2024. Clearly we can only deal with a handful of the many who left us last year but what follows is the choice of Jon Holmes, Paddy Barclay and Colin Shindler as they discuss the lives and careers of the football men who meant something to them and whom they wish to honour in this brief tribute. Not so much a eulogy but a celebration… so still pretty upbeat.

That said, the episode ends with additional memories - of Denis Law, who died after the original episode was recorded and for whom we could not wait for an Obituary programme looking back at 2025.

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83. The One With Ian Storey-Moore

Fri, 17 Jan 2025 01:00:00 -0000

The prolific goal-scoring winger Ian Storey-Moore turns 80 on the day this episode was published... and Football Ruined My Life has chosen to mark the occasion by giving him the greatest present a footballer of the 1960s and 1970s could possibly want - a guest appearance on the podcast with Paddy Barclay, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler. A star forward in the nearly great Nottingham Forest team of the late 1960s but forced into early retirement by a bad injury shortly after his controversial transfer to Manchester United, Ian stayed in the game as a scout, particularly with Martin O'Neill during his time as manager of Aston Villa. His views on football then and now are fascinating and will entertain you as if you were actually at his birthday party.

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82. Centre forwards vs False 9s

Fri, 10 Jan 2025 01:00:00 -0000

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.

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81. The One With Michael Rosen

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 01:00:00 -0000

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.

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80. Our Third Postbag

Fri, 27 Dec 2024 01:00:00 -0000

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.

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79. Yuletide Matches

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 01:00:00 -0000

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?

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78. Utility Players

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 01:00:00 -0000

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.

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77. Brits Abroad

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 01:00:00 -0000

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.

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76. Screamers…

Fri, 29 Nov 2024 01:00:00 -0000

… 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.

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75. 1992

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 01:00:00 -0000

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.

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74. Favourite Games

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 01:00:00 -0000

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.

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73. Wingers

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 01:00:00 -0000

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.

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72. Players into Managers

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 01:00:00 -0000

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.

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71. The One With David Peace

Fri, 25 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0000

David Peace, the author of The Damned United, joins Jon Holmes, Patrick Barclay and Colin Shindler to talk about his latest novel. Munichs, details the story of Manchester United from 6 February 1958, the day of the plane crash that killed 23 people (including eight players) to the team’s appearance in the Cup Final in May 1958. He talks about what a novel can do to intensify the drama of that tragedy and his description of the dark cloud of despair that descended on football and the country, as well as the city of Manchester.

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70. The Football Pyramid

Fri, 18 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0000

This week the Paddy Barclay, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler ask each other how the Football Pyramid has changed over our lifetimes of watching the game. Our first memories were of football in the mid to late 1950s when life was bounded by the First and Second Divisions and the Third Divisions North and South. Of course, there was no Premier League but more crucially to lose Football League status was to consign your town and your community, as well as your club, to Stygian gloom. Which is why we are delighted that at least Jon can explain the intricacies of the farce known as re-election.

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69. Substitute!

Thu, 10 Oct 2024 23:00:00 -0000

The use of substitutes began in the English Football League at the start of the 1965-66 season. After years of the Wembley “hoodoo” it was initially a simple system of ensuring that matches were not spoiled by 10 men playing against 11 because of a bad injury. From that sensible position in 1965 we seem to have arrived at a situation today when an entire second team is sitting on the bench waiting to come on. Does anyone think that has been a change for the better? Jon Holmes, Paddy Barclay and Colin Shindler discuss.

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68. The One With Frank Foer

Fri, 04 Oct 2024 00:00:00 -0000

This is football as seen through the eyes of an Arsenal supporter, living and working in Washington DC. Frank Foer, a staff writer at The Atlantic and a former editor of The New Republic, is the author of the much respected book “How Football Explains the World”. It’s fascinating to hear the views of a man who genuinely understands and enthuses over English football but sees it with a very different pair of eyes. With Frank Foer joining Colin Shindler, Paddy Barclay and Jon Holmes, we present two nations which in this case are united by

a common language… that of football - or soccer as they call it.

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67. Rituals

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 00:00:00 -0000

In the days of our fondly remembered youth which we can still see as it becomes ever smaller in the rear-view mirror of life, football matches kicked off at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. And part of the joy of the experience was what we did beforehand, how we met our friends, how we got to the ground, perhaps even what we wore in the false expectation that it would help our club to win. From Dundee through Manchester to Leicester, Paddy Barclay, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes recognise that they had many elements in common but there were variations due to family circumstances. We expect that everyone will have their own memories of their pre- and post-match rituals. Warning: References are made to alcohol.

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66. Number Twos

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 00:00:00 -0000

There are two distinct variations on the theme of Number 2s. The first is that he is the one who sits next to the manager when he is going berserk, berating the fourth official and kicking water bottles. That number 2 is there to calm him down and offer sage advice in moments of extreme

tension. However, the other number 2 is the man who himself goes berserk while his boss maintains a forced calm as the number 2 rages. Jon Holmes, Paddy Barclay and Colin Shindler consider the pairing of Murphy and Busby, Taylor and Clough, Allison and Mercer, Howe and Mee - who all offer fascinating insights into the art of football management.

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65. The One With Gary Lineker

Sat, 14 Sep 2024 10:00:00 -0000

It’s been coming, hasn’t it? We all know that the relationship between Jon Holmes and Gary Lineker started about 45 years ago and we’ve heard many stories related by Jon about his most famous client. However here is Gary talking about himself, his career as a player and his transition into broadcasting. Together with with Colin Shindler, Paddy Barclay (and of course, Jon Holmes), here his views on the game are presented uncensored by any broadcasting or publishing empire. Listen and see if any of them surprise you.

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64. Formations

Fri, 06 Sep 2024 00:00:00 -0000

We grew up with the old WM formation. Brazil won the World Cup with 4-2-4 and Alf Ramsey did the same thing with what was called the Wingless Wonders, in other words 4-3-3. After that, another “forward” was withdrawn into midfield and 4-4-2 became the standard for most teams for many years but now we have a confusing muddle of numbers, including 3-5-2, 4-2-2-2 and 4-1-4-1. The panel examine how these changes in formations evolved and how successful they have been for the coaches, managers and clubs that have employed them.

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63. Cheating

Fri, 30 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0000

We know that cheating isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s been in sport ever since the Greeks failed to provide any drug testing during the Olympic Games of 776 BC – so there’s no reason why football should be any different. In the 1950s and 1960s, promising youngsters’ parents were allegedly bribed with washing machines and other “luxury” goods by clubs desperate for their offspring’s signature. The amounts of money sloshing around the game these days has made the incentive to cheat a constant threat, despite the tightening of legislation designed to prevent it. On the field, the diving for penalties and the feigning of injuries to get an opponent sent off has also got worse despite the increased ability of television cameras to highlight such cheating. The panel discuss whether cheating in football can ever be eradicated.

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62. The One with Nick Hancock

Fri, 23 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0000

He’s best known still as the host of Jon Holmes’ supreme television creation the game show ‘They Think It’s All Over’ in which his most famous clients combined with comedians to play such legendary games as “Feel the Sportsman”. He’s a talented comedian and writer but at heart Nick Hancock would always describe himself first and foremost as a Stoke City supporter. In this episode Nick tells of his devotion to the club and in particular of his grandfather who took him to matches but could never find where he’d left the car after it was finished.

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61. Chairmen Vs. Owners

Fri, 16 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0000

This week, the panel looks at old fashioned Bob Lord style Chairmen of football clubs as against the current fashion for billionaire owners from oil rich nation states or American hedge fund managers. Bob Lord at Burnley and Joe Mears at Chelsea, Louis Edwards at Manchester United and the Hill Woods of Arsenal were all rich men but their wealth did not compare to that of the current owners of Premier League clubs. When we talked about the game in the 1960s and 1970s we talked about players and managers, rarely about Chairmen and never about boards of shadowy directors. Colin Shindler, Patrick Barclay and former Leicester Chairman Jon Holmes discuss the impact on the game of this shift from chairmen to owners.

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60. Transfers

Fri, 09 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0000

Now, as most of our listeners will know, there was a time when there was no such thing as the Transfer Window and, as all of our listeners know, before 1961 players couldn’t earn more than the maximum wage which at the moment of its abolition that year stood at £20 a week. Therefore there was no need for a player to agitate for a move to a bigger club for financial gain because there wouldn’t be any - at least within British football and who wanted to go and live in what we all called “abroad” or “on the Continent”. And so there was no need for agents. However, in the 1990s there was a much bigger shock to the cosy world of transfers when the Bosman ruling stood the world of football on its head and led to today’s Alice in Wonderland world of transfers. The panel as ever ask each other "Was it it better then or is it better now?"

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59. We're Back Once Again (Series 3 Trailer)

Fri, 02 Aug 2024 00:00:00 -0000

After our computer-enforced summer break Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Patrick Barclay return next week on Friday 9th August - just as the new football season kicks off. If you've not already done so, subscribe now.

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58. A Message From The Cabinet Room...

Fri, 07 Jun 2024 00:00:00 -0000

Good morning listeners - here's a message from Colin Shindler.

We'll be returning with the podcast in time for the new season at the beginning of August. Enjoy your summer holidays - see you in a few months.

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57. Footballing Cricketers

Fri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 -0000

In the days when the cricket season finished at the end of August and did not begin again until the first week in May it was perfectly possible to be a professional sportsman who played both games. Now it would be impossible to find a footballer who also played county cricket let alone Test cricket. Digging back, as ever, into the days of our youth, however, we can easily find plenty of them. Joining the regular panel, Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Patrick Barclay is Michael Henderson, formerly Cricket Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph and a man who has written perceptively and entertainingly on both football and cricket for many publications.

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56. The F. A. Cup

Fri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 -0000

The Football Association Challenge Cup is the oldest and most prestigious cup competition in the world, having been in existence since 1871. Winning the Cup for many of us was actually more highly valued than winning the First Division championship which had none of the excitement and charisma of walking up the steps to the Royal Box and holding up that most prized trophy. The panel examines the reasons for the decline in importance of the FA Cup and compares Cup Final day now to the Cup Finals of their youth – with predictable results.

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55. Route One vs. Tiki Taka

Fri, 17 May 2024 00:00:00 -0000

The panel turn their forensic eyes on the question of football tactics and, with a respectful nod to one of the great Monty Python sketches, their wider reference to the world of philosophy. In particular this edition sets the supporters of the philosophy of Route One against the supporters of playing out from the back or Tiki Taki as it is sometimes known. The main point at issue is the alleged superiority of either the long ball tactics favoured by Stan Cullis’s Wolves, Graham Taylor’s Watford and Harry Bassett’s Wimbledon as opposed to the subtler arts of passing out from the back as perfected by Pep Guardiola. But if your team is winning, does it really matter what tactics they employ to do so?

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54. Reserves

Fri, 10 May 2024 00:00:00 -0000

There used to be such a thing as a Reserve team which we watched if we couldn’t afford to travel to watch our team away from home. Young players started in the A and B sides and made their way up from the B to the A team until they reached the Reserves. The Reserves contained a sprinkling of first team players coming back from injury and embittered old pros who deeply resented the humiliation of playing in the Central League or the Football Combination. As such spectators got to see old favourites and possible new stars. But the Reserves are gone now, like our youth, too soon. Does the panel regret the passing of this old tradition or does its replacement by squads of 25 and endless substitutions during a match mean a better deal for football?

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53. The One With Jimmy Mulville

Fri, 03 May 2024 00:00:00 -0000

Everton may well have saved themselves yet again from The Drop and at the same time finished Liverpool’s chances of a last Premier League title for Jurgen Klopp but the history of a once proud and famous club over the last thirty years or so has been painful for their fans. One lifelong supporter is Jimmy Mulville, co-founder and manager of Hat Trick Productions and therefore responsible for shows such as Have I Got News For You and Father Ted. In this podcast he shares with the panel the agony and ecstasy of supporting Everton stretching back to the 1950s and including his visit with his father and grandfather to see the famous FA Cup Final win of 1966, a time when the City of Liverpool seemed to rule the cultural world.

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52. Mavericks

Fri, 26 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0000

In this episode, the panel is talking about the maverick. Not the old tv series of the same name starring James Garner but the flair players who didn’t necessarily fit into the team ethic. Think Stan Bowles, Frank Worthington, Charlie George, Tony Currie and Rodney Marsh to name but five. How weird that they were all playing at the end of the 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Why were there so many mavericks then? Were there none before and none since then? The Brains Trust scratches its collective head and suggests some possible answers.

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51. 1974

Fri, 19 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0000

In the second of our occasional podcasts about specific years, we are looking at 1974 when Jon Holmes, Paddy Barclay and Colin Shindler were all in their early, mid or medium late 20s. It’s the year that began with power shortages due to a miners’ strike and the imposition of the three day week. Inflation was running at nearly 18% and of course ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest. In football, Leeds won the League and Liverpool won the Cup after which both their managers left. Brian Clough lasted just 44 days as manager of Leeds United and Harold Wilson won two general elections in the same year but for Colin, the greatest moment of that momentous year was being at Old Trafford to watch Denis Law backheel Manchester United into the Second Division. What were your memories of 1974?

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50. The One With Delia

Fri, 12 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0000

For our 50th edition, we’ve cooked up a very special episode – not only have we taken to the road (to the very farthest corner of East Anglia) but we’ve sourced the author of the Complete Illustrated Cookery Course. The panel is extremely well fed for their trouble by one of the owners of Norwich City, who is the only football director to publish over 1400 mouth-watering recipes. For a thoroughly satisfying gluten free edition of Football Ruined My Life try the new improved Delia Smith episode. Here’s one we made earlier with lots of delicious chocolate covered football chat.

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49. Centre Halves

Fri, 05 Apr 2024 00:00:00 -0000

This is the episode about those big lads with heads squashed flat and brains curdled into early onset dementia by the constant heading of old fashioned leather footballs that weighed the same as a cannonball after it had been soaked by rain and coated in mud. From the time that Herbert Chapman withdrew the middle of the half backs to play between the two full backs we always recognised the centre half as the bulwark of the defence. Paddy Barclay, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler discuss the way in which these immobile centre halves became more sophisticated until we got the emergence of the skilful and mobile central defender who can now attack and defend with equal facility.

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48. Our Second Postbag

Fri, 29 Mar 2024 01:00:00 -0000

The Easter special podcast sees the Football Ruined My Life panel fielding another round of questions, observations and suggestions from their listeners. Listeners who are quick to seize their own chance to comment on yesterday’s football and how it evokes such strong memories of their younger days as supporters. The letters are by turn critical, laudatory, amusing and perceptive. The panellists in turn are quick to proffer thanks to the writers, even those who take pleasure in correcting their fallible memories, and gratitude for their suggestions for future podcasts.

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47. The One With The Baron

Fri, 22 Mar 2024 01:00:00 -0000

We are joined this week by Baron Grade of Yarmouth, previously Michael Grade, who has, at various times, been Controller of BBC1, Chairman of ITV and Chief Executive of Channel 4. However for all the company directorships and his elevation to the House of Lords we meet on equal footing as football fans because his admirably steadfast passion down the years has been for Charlton Athletic FC. Amongst a host of amusing and revealing anecdotes, he tells us about how he orchestrated the infamous Snatch of the Day when clever little ITV under his skilful guidance nipped the ball off the giant lumbering centre half that was the BBC. It’s hard to imagine anyone better qualified than Michael to talk about football and television.

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46. The North East

Fri, 15 Mar 2024 01:00:00 -0000

The North East of England has traditionally been referred to as "the hotbed of soccer". Yet compared to teams from Lancashire for example, Newcastle United, Sunderland and Middlesbrough have won very little in the way of trophies for decades. Middlesbrough won the League Cup in 2004, Sunderland won the FA Cup in 1973 and Newcastle won the Inter Cities Fairs Cup in 1969. Since then... nothing. Why then do football writers and supporters have such a respect for those teams? Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Paddy Barclay explore what’s so special about football in the North East.

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45. The One With Mike Ingham

Fri, 08 Mar 2024 01:10:00 -0000

He was the third in the distinguished line of BBC Chief Football Correspondents and the first not be called Brian (as in Moore and Bryon Butler). His attractive voice gave us fluent commentaries from football grounds all over the world. Within months of doing his first commentary he was looking at 39 dead bodies in the Heysel Stadium. Mike Ingham joins Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Paddy Barclay for a look at the football he watched on our behalf and told us about in such clear and concise phrases.

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44. Referees

Fri, 01 Mar 2024 01:00:00 -0000

He has frequently been referred to as “the bastard in the black”. One person with a whistle can arouse more enmity than the worst tackle on a football field. We feel that their only purpose is to give decisions in our favour. If they give a decision or worse a goal against us they are obviously stupid, blind and arguably corrupt. Now of course we have VAR, so we don’t have to worry about the referee’s decisions on the field any more. Or do we?

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43. Family Values

Fri, 23 Feb 2024 01:00:00 -0000

Jon Holmes, Paddy Barclay and Colin Shindler explore the impact of nature and nurture on footballers from the same family. Is it genetic inheritance or environmental factors that accounts for the remarkable number of fraternal and father-son relationships in football over the decades? From the famous Charltons to the Schmeichels, from the forgotten Rowley brothers to the Redknapps, the Cloughs and the Summerbees the numerous examples of this fascinating phenomenon sends the conversation far and wide.

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42. The One With Gordon Milne

Fri, 16 Feb 2024 01:00:00 -0000

Jon Holmes, Paddy Barclay and Colin Shindler meet Gordon Milne who had a fascinating and long career in football. He was a player with Tom Finney at Preston, a key part of Bill Shankly’s first great Liverpool side and later manager of Jimmy Hill's Coventry City and Jon’s beloved Leicester before moving abroad and winning three successive league titles for Besiktas in Turkey. Now approaching his 87th birthday Gordon Milne has total recall of that career and tells stories of players and clubs that have never been heard before.

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41. West Ham

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 01:00:00 -0000

West Ham won the Cup in 1964, the European Cup Winners Cup in 1965 and, according to Alf Garnett, the World Cup in 1966. They were a stylish, attractive and at the time a victorious team in those mid 1960s but they never kicked on and those three World Cup heroes eventually left Upton Park in a disappointing anti-climax, not having won anything else at club level. For years though they were everyone’s second favourite team. Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Patrick Barclay try to explain that anomaly and whether in the Premier League era the old West Ham traditions are still visible.

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40. The Midlands

Fri, 02 Feb 2024 01:00:00 -0000

Colin and Paddy attempt to make Jon feel better about the Midlands trophy desert. Looking at the Football League’s checkered history over the 135 years of its existence you can’t but be aware that the Midlands hasn’t pulled its weight. Half of the founder members of the Football League were Midlands clubs so there seems to be no logical reason why the whole of the Midlands has won so much less than those clubs from the one county of Lancashire. Jon attempts a spirited defence of his homeland.

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39. Sportsmanship

Fri, 26 Jan 2024 01:00:00 -0000

Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Patrick Barclay wonder whether the concept of sportsmanship has vanished from the game. We all remember that famous photograph of Bobby Moore and Pele exchanging sweat soaked shirts after their titanic struggle in Guadalajara in the 1970 World Cup group match. It was iconic because it symbolised and personified the concept. But is that sort of behaviour still around in today’s world of football? Or are the three septuagenarians simply on an epic journey of nostalgia for the land of lost content where sportsmen behaved with a certain nobility?

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38. Print journalism v TV journalism

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 01:00:00 -0000

Back in the dim and distant past of our youth, the coverage of football on television was minimal and we instinctively turned to local and national newspapers for the latest information and analysis on the game and our favourite club. In subsequent years, and particularly since the emergence of Sky Sports in 1992, we have all seen the decline of the print journalist and the seemingly unstoppable rise of the tv pundit. Patrick Barclay bemoans the decline, Jon Holmes revels in the power of TV and Colin Shindler tries to keep control of the game without recourse to VAR.

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37. Has Football Become Too Big For Its Boots? (And Remembering Franz Beckenbauer)

Fri, 12 Jan 2024 01:00:00 -0000

It’s everywhere. There’s at least one match on television every day, up to half a dozen over the weekend. The newspapers that used to devote a page to football now devote three. Radio5 Live exists, like Sky Sports, to broadcast football to the people who clearly want it. But, the panel ask themselves, is this media domination a good thing for the game and its supporters? If less is more would they really swap life in today's saturated market for the rationed football coverage in the media of their youth?

And at the end of this episode, Jon, Paddy and Colin remember Franz Beckenbauer who died on 7th January 2024.

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36. The One With Andy Hamilton (Chelsea)

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 01:00:00 -0000

Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Patrick Barclay are

joined by a long-standing Chelsea fan – the writer and broadcaster Andy

Hamilton – to discuss his lifetime of support since the late 1950s. He shares

his frustration that some of the less attractive developments in modern

football have significantly diminished his passion for the club although, like

the panellists, he remains dedicated to the game itself.

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35 The Postbag

Fri, 29 Dec 2023 01:00:00 -0000

As the first year of Football Ruined My Life

draws to a close, the panel read out a selection of their favourite emails

which have been received from listeners all over the world. They include

trenchant observations on the panellists’ manifold failings as well as the

writers’ childhood reminiscences and their reaction to the podcasts they’ve

heard as well as suggestions for future subjects.

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34. 1963

Fri, 22 Dec 2023 01:00:00 -0000

It was a most remarkable year. It started with the Big Freeze, ended with the assassination of President Kennedy and included the emergence of the Beatles and the Profumo Affair. On the football field (as soon as the ice melted in April) it was equally notable with Alf Ramsey’s first game in charge of England, Leicester City missing out on the Double (sorry, Jon), Manchester United winning the Cup but just avoiding relegation (sorry, Colin). And off the field, it the famous Eastham case which liberated players from the shackles of their clubs.

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33. Administering The Game

Fri, 15 Dec 2023 01:00:00 -0000

The former Chairman of the FA, David Bernstein, joins Colin, Paddy and Jon for an honest discussion on the failings of governance in football. He tells of how his attempts at reform of the FA were constantly thwarted and how the FA lost any battle they tried to fight against the overwhelming power of the big clubs once they had divested themselves of the old Football League. The discussion ranges from the days of Alan Hardaker and the great figurehead for thirty years, Sir Stanley Rous, to today, when the FA’s influence over its own Premier League is so drastically reduced.

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32. Retirement

Fri, 08 Dec 2023 01:00:00 -0000

It is the moment every footballer dreads – the day when he finally accepts that his career on the field is over. Jon tells Patrick and Colin that even those who have made a spectacular success of life after football like Gary Lineker can never recreate the joy of scoring a goal. Retirement is supposed to be much better for players these days because of the money they have earned during their careers and the plans put in place by their clubs. But is it? And what happened during retirement to those footballers from fifty or sixty years ago who had earned so little in their playing days?

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31. The Second Tier

Fri, 01 Dec 2023 01:00:00 -0000

All three panellists are fans of clubs that have suffered the indignity of relegation from the Premier League in the 21st century. There is a fear that the ever widening gap with the Championship will see clubs doomed to wait indefinitely in the purgatory of the footballing equivalent of Siberia. Yet Manchester City and Fulham bounced back to the top tier the following season and Leicester look as if they might be promoted spectacularly early this season. Jon, Patrick and Colin discuss their feelings about life in the Championship and whether it is different from life in the old Second Division.

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30. The One With Ian McShane (on Manchester United)

Fri, 24 Nov 2023 01:00:00 -0000

Any devoted watcher of the BBC Television series Lovejoy would have noticed the East Anglian antiques dealer’s ubiquitous Manchester United coffee mug and Manchester United travel bag. The actor who played Lovejoy, Ian McShane was the son of the Manchester United outside left Harry McShane who won a League Championship medal at Old Trafford in the 1951-2 season. In this podcast Ian McShane explains his long commitment to Manchester United and his friendship with Alex Ferguson and many of the United players since the days of the Busby Babes.

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29. It's A Rich Man's World

Fri, 17 Nov 2023 01:00:00 -0000

We all know what it’s like to have too little of it and though it’s probably not anything that most of us have experienced we can understand that having too much money doesn’t always lead straight to Happiness. At the top of the pyramid, football is drowning in the stuff, at the bottom too many clubs are struggling to keep their heads above the financial waters that are closing in. Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Patrick Barclay discuss how the game got into this mess and what, if anything, can be done about it.

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28. Goalscorers

Fri, 10 Nov 2023 01:00:00 -0000

When we watch football as youngsters it is the goals that catch our eye, not the vital defensive midfielders or the manager’s clever/stupid substitutions. A Gary Lineker tap in is less spectacular than a Bobby Charlton thunderbolt but in a vital 1-0 victory it counts for as much. Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Patrick Barclay discuss the scorers of great goals and great goalscorers from Ted Drake and Dixie Dean to Harry Kane and Lionel Messi.

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26. Scotland (& a brief tribute to Sir Bobby Charlton)

Fri, 27 Oct 2023 00:00:00 -0000

Time was when there was scarcely an English top flight team without a few influential Scotsmen in it. Can you imagine Liverpool in the 1980s without Hansen, Souness and Dalglish, Manchester United’s 1960s team without Denis Law and Paddy Crerand or Revie’s Leeds United without Bremner, Jordan, McQueen, Lorimer and Eddie Gray? There are almost no Scottish players in the English Premier League, barely a handful in the Scottish Premier League and the crowds are embarrassingly small outside of Celtic and Rangers. What on earth has gone wrong with football in Scotland? Patrick Barclay helps Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes to come up with some answers.

At the end of the episode Colin, Jon and Patrick also briefly remember Sir Bobby Charlton

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25. Fiction and Football

Fri, 20 Oct 2023 00:00:00 -0000

If you’re an actor or a writer and you love football, you may think that being involved in a movie or television series about football would be, in the unmistakable words of the great German forward Harry Kane, “a dream come true”. However, from ‘United!’, the 1965 BBC tv soap opera, to ‘Ted Lasso’, the current American comedy drama hit show about AFC Richmond, the many attempts to persuade the football audience to watch a drama series about the game have proved only occasionally successful. The usual panellists are joined by actors Ian McShane and George Layton to discuss the promotion and relegation of football in novels and on the film or television screen.

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24. British Clubs in Europe

Fri, 13 Oct 2023 00:00:00 -0000

Is the Champions League better or worse than the old European Cup? Do we all support British teams in Europe the way we did before the Bosman ruling altered the complexion of British football?

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23. Bill Shankly

Fri, 06 Oct 2023 00:00:00 -0000

The Spirit of Shankly seems to stand for everything that is good about football. He is still revered at Liverpool and respected throughout the world of football. What made him unique?

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22. Grounds - Old & New

Fri, 29 Sep 2023 00:00:00 -0000

Simon Inglis, author of books on the football grounds of Great Britain and the football grounds of Europe, joins the team to give his expert knowledge of the building of some of football's most iconic grounds - Highbury, Maine Road, Old Trafford, Craven Cottage, Filbert Street etc. Do the fans revel in the creature comforts of the new stadiums or do they still hanker for the ramshackle tumbledown grounds of their youth with their cosy sense of community?

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21. League Domination

Fri, 22 Sep 2023 00:00:00 -0000

Between 1959 and 1972 ten different clubs won the English First Division. What has happened to that competitiveness? Is the much-lauded Premier League a better competition than the old First Division? Why has this pattern been repeated in so many other European leagues?

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20. Second Favourite Teams

Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 -0000

The panel are forbidden from praising their own teams and have to confess their admiration for other domestic and international teams. There are a few surprises…

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19. Sir Alf

Fri, 08 Sep 2023 00:00:00 -0000

He remains the only England manager to have won the men's World Cup. The FA sacked him when he was 54 and apart from a brief caretaker stint at Birmingham City his career was over. Is he loved or just admired? Was he a great manager?

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18. Carlisle

Fri, 01 Sep 2023 00:00:00 -0000

Feedback presenter Roger Bolton joins Colin and Paddy to talk about his home town team, their one season in the First Division and how to deal with what otherwise has been a football life of constant disappointment – plus his support for Liverpool.

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17. Derby Games

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 00:00:00 -0000

The one fixture in a season that everyone is desperate to win. Is the religious origins of the Glasgow rivalry apparent elsewhere? Does the Merseyside derby deserve the title “The Friendly Derby”? Is loathing of the other team as bitter in Bristol and Norwich as it is in Manchester?

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16. Passion on the Sidelines

Fri, 18 Aug 2023 00:00:00 -0000

Who can forget Jurgen Klopp stretched out full length on his stomach as he protested a refereeing decision in the manner of an enraged toddler? Followed of course by a goal, producing a triumphant fist pump, a race along the touchline and almost immediately, a pulled hamstring - sent directly one would imagine by his Mummy and Daddy telling him not to be such a silly boy. But of course, he was demonstrating passion which is obviously a Good Thing. We love passionate managers and players. Don’t we? But when is passion good and when is it bad? The team investigates.

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15. Brian Clough

Fri, 11 Aug 2023 00:00:00 -0000

He was the one manager to whom nobody was indifferent. Love him or loathe him Brian Clough was a titan amongst English managers. Martin O’Neill joins the team to recall his time playing under him and to tell us how his own managerial career was influenced by time at Clough’s Nottingham Forest

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14. We're back! (Series 2 trailer)

Fri, 04 Aug 2023 00:00:00 -0000

The new podcast about old football returns next week on Friday 11th August - just as the new football season kicks off. If you've not already done so, subscribe now.

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13. Postbag and Holding Episode

Fri, 28 Apr 2023 01:00:00 -0000

Football Ruined My Life is taking a break for a few weeks so we can build up a new reserve of programmes for series 2.

In the meantime, many listeners have made use of our email address - footballruinedmylife@gmail.com - and Colin Shindler dips into our postbag to share what you think of it all so far.

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12. England's Postwar Football Captains

Fri, 21 Apr 2023 01:00:00 -0000

From Billy Wright to Harry Kane, the team discusses each captain and asks the overall question, "Has there ever been a captain to rival Bobby Moore? (Spoiler Alert: No!)

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11. Dirty Leeds?

Fri, 14 Apr 2023 01:00:00 -0000

Don Revie's Leeds United were one of the greatest club sides of the postwar era. The skills possessed by Giles, Bremner, Gray etc. were considerable - so is their "dirty" reputation unfair?

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10. Have Football Crowds Changed Since the 1960s?

Fri, 07 Apr 2023 01:00:00 -0000

We all lived through the gradual exacerbation of crowd violence. Why was it so bad in the 1970s and 1980s? Why did it become mixed up in Thatcherite politics? If we thought it had disappeared, the 2021 Euro final demonstrated that it hadn't.

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9. Great Goalies

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 01:00:00 -0000

From Lev Yashin to Bert Trautmann, from Pat Jennings to Peter Shilton the game has been adorned by great goalies. What makes them special? Are they all crazy? Patrick Barclay defends Scottish goalkeepers from calumny.

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8. Tottenham Hotspur's Double Winning Team 1960-1

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 02:00:00 -0000

Julie Welch, journalist and screenwriter of the Channel 4 film Those Glory Glory Days joins us to talk about Danny Blanchflower and the golden team that won the first double since 1897. Why have Spurs failed to achieve similar success for the past sixty years?

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7. Manchester United's Decline

Fri, 17 Mar 2023 02:00:00 -0000

The team compares the club's decline in the early 1970s after the retirement of Matt Busby with its decline after 2013 with the retirement of Alex Ferguson.

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6. The Influence of 'Sports Report'

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 02:00:00 -0000

It's been going longer than we have. That familiar Out of the Blue signature tune unites every football supporter in the land. But does it still have the same impact on supporters as it did when we first listened to it in the 1950s?

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5. The Influence of Foreign Owners

Fri, 03 Mar 2023 02:00:00 -0000

They money's better for the players, the grounds are more comfortable for the spectators but has the English game lost something of its uniqueness with so many foreign owners, managers, coaches and players in the top flight?

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4. Great Players of the 1960s in the Premier League of the 2020s

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 02:00:00 -0000

The team examine the careers of Stanley Matthews, Tom Finney, John Charles, George Best, Bobby Moore and Bobby Charlton and wonder how they would fare in the modern game...

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3. Politics & Football: Burnley FC with Alastair Campbell

Fri, 17 Feb 2023 02:00:00 -0000

Tony Blair's spin doctor confesses to his love for unfashionable Burnley, defends the notorious Burnley Chairman Bob Lord and surprises us with stories of David Blunkett's shrewd analysis of Sheffield Wednesday

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2. England's World Cup Teams: 1966 v 1970

Fri, 10 Feb 2023 02:00:00 -0000

Was the England team that defended the 1970 World Cup in Mexico better than the team that won it in 1966? (Spoiler Alert: yes!)

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1. Our Childhood Heroes

Fri, 03 Feb 2023 02:00:00 -0000

Bert Trautmann, Alan Gilzean, Davie Gibson, and Colin Bell.

Welcome to the first ever episode of Football Ruined My Life with Jon Holmes, Patrick Barclay, and Colin Shindler.

In today's episode, Jon, Patrick and Colin discuss the first ever football matches they attended and the heroes who emerged out of them.

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Trailer

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 15:27:00 -0000

Football Ruined My Life is the new podcast about old football.

Colin Shindler, author of the best selling Manchester United Ruined My Life, joins with the distinguished football journalist Patrick Barclay and the Super Agent Jon Holmes (think Gary Lineker, Peter Shilton, Tony Woodcock etc.) to talk about football as it used to be in the days before the invention of the Premier League.

The podcast views those days fondly - though not uncritically - in comparison to today's game, which it views critically though not unfondly. We welcome everyone who wants to remember Jimmy Greaves and Bobby Charlton, Brian Clough and Bill Shankly and the days when you went to a Football League ground to watch your football and didn't wait for it to arrive on television.

Nostalgic? Yes. Well informed? Certainly. But above all, it glories in the football of our youth when the game seemed charmingly innocent, full of skilful, good hearted, kindly men like Norman Hunter, Ron Harris and Peter Storey.

Join us every week for a romp through the 1960s, 70s and 80s that will warm you like a cup of scalding hot Bovril.

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