Football Ruined My Life

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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