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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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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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

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This is a particularly emotive topic.  Do we on this podcast give too much

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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

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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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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

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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

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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

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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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