We had more midweek football excitement than we had any reason to expect this week, given we're still in August. Welcome to our "best of" show which features reaction to two unbelievably entertaining matches, the Isak derby on Monday night and Man United's loss to lowly Grimsby in the League Cup last night. 

We also had the league of Ireland academy development manager Will Clarke in studio about how we can fix Irish football and tomorrow Friday we’re delighted to have 8-time All-Ireland winning footballer Davy Byrne in studio with us to talk about why he signed a letter demanding the GAA end their sponsorship deals with Allianz.

And we have great news ahead of our live show in London on Wednesday September 24th – the special guest will be Arsenal legend Ian Wright! Go to https://www.secondcaptains.com/live-events/ for tickets.

Click the player at the top of the page to play the show. Monday’s shows are free to all. To listen to our programming throughout the rest of the week, join the Second Captains World Service. There’s no contracts, no hidden fees and shows can be listened to on all good podcast apps, on Spotify or through our website. It’s independent, commercial-free and member-led with feature interviews, breaking news, Ken’s Football Show, The Politics Podcast, and lots of added extras. You’ll also be supporting the development of our longer-form work, such as our international series’  ‘Where Is George Gibney?’ and Stakeknife.

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The women's Rugby World Cup has come a long way in a short space of time. The opening game of the 2025 World Cup between England and USA had a higher attendance than the whole of the 2010 World Cup put together. At the 2017 event in Ireland the pool games were played in the UCD Bowl. This year there will be 82,000 at the final in Twickenham, and the Ireland V NZ game in Brighton is expected to be a near 30,000 sell out. With the big crowds, the great stadiums, the sunshine, and the home team being hot favourites, there's a sense that this year's tournament is going to be huge.

We chat to Sara Orchard of the BBC and Tania Rosser, star of three World Cups for Ireland, including 2014 when Ireland made the semi finals, about where the growth has come from, the opening weekend of pool matches, Ireland's win over Japan and if the Red Roses will take the baton from two time Euros winners, the Lionesses.

Plus there's Felipe Contepomi guiding Argentina to another win over NZ and Becky Lynch having a pop at Bono.

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From Napoleon II to Evan I. A new star blazes in the sky of Rome. Did Evan Ferguson score? No - but that, initial reviews maintain, is a mere detail. Are we getting carried away after one game? There will be none of that talk aboard the Trenitalia hype train.

From there we look forward to tonight’s hate-fest at St James’ Park, and apportion blame for how this whole sorry situation has arisen. We hear echoes of the voice of Arsenal from long ago, and the many voices of Nottingham Forest in August 2025.

Lars Sivertsen and John Brewin join us to talk through the weekend’s football. How has Thomas Frank whipped Spurs into shape so quickly? Which current Spurs player is starting to remind some of their fans of Kylian Mbappe? Is Pep Guardiola having an identity crisis? What does Jack Grealish’s home debut for Everton mean for the outlook at both Everton and Manchester City?

And obviously, the exploding-sun gravity of the dying red giant that is Manchester United draws us inevitably in for the latest assessment of where Ruben Amorim’s meticulously laid-out plans are at.

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This week we went from zero to 100 on the wholesome-o-meter, from the local kid that taught his town to love again, to the bitter Newcastle - Isak war of words…. it’s been a roller coaster up in here. Question is, are you brave enough to jump on for the ride?

It’s a great time to join with The Premier League season up and running, Arsenal plucking Eze out of Spurs’ grasp, VAR energising the base, and Everton have Jack Grealish in their squad. We also had the great football historian and author David Goldblatt on the show today. David chatted to Ken about his new book Injury Time: Football in a State of Emergency, which tells the story of the UK’s decade of polycrisis through the recent history of football.

This week we also discussed the Bundesliga’s bold new strategy for attracting international eyeballs, and we had Conor Niland and Julie Morissy in talking about tennis’ attempts, largely successful attempts so far you’d have to say, to sex up the sport.

Tomorrow we have the debut of kencall and next week we will cover the Isak derby on Monday night football, the Ilona Maher women’s rugby world cup, and we will keep an eye on the US Open. To join go to secondcaptains.com/join. Did you know theres no ads, no sneaky contracts, no catches, no add ons? We’re an open book here at Second Captains.

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''The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function''. Did you know F Scott Fitzgerald was actually referring to Ken Early?

After breaking the minds of many of our members with Friday's Oasis podcast, Ken and Branno today react to the backlash. Is it ok to have fun? Did Branno consume 2.5 pints? Who was being condescending to who? Do us humans even know what we want? And is it all the algorithm's fault?

As the rest of the country was preparing to have the time of their lives at Oasis, Simon was geeking out on some Southern Hemisphere rugby as the apparently hopeless underdogs Australia came from 22-0 down against world champs South Africa to win in Ellis Park Johannesburg for the first time in 62 years. How did this happen? Can Australia now win the World Cup? Is Joe Schmidt a genius? And was this the result of the season for Andy Farrell? We talk to Tom Decent of the Sydney Morning Herald.

And we have great news ahead of our live show in London on Wednesday September 24th - the special guest will be Arsenal legend Ian Wright! Go HERE for tickets.

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Not for the first time this weekend, Ken wonders if he is going insane, as English football shows once again that it can never forgive a goalkeeper for getting fouled at a set-piece. 

We discuss Keith Andrews' harsh introduction to life as a head coach, the varied fortunes of a raft of new super-striker signings, and the Friday night match that led to Arne Slot having to negotiate a grilling live on TV with Jamie Carragher. 

Mark Critchley and Nick Ames join us to talk about Arsenal's 1-0 win at Old Trafford. Was this game oddly more encouraging for the losers than the winners? Viktor Gyökeres is currently undergoing the now-traditional internet hazing meted out to most new PL strikers - but are there signs he is going to struggle? And how might Arsenal reconfigure to get the best out of him? 

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Hold onto your britches folks, cos things went a little wild on the world service this week what with the Premier League hype machine in full flow, daily Isak transfer tittle tattle, Shels getting their hearts broken and most importantly, the official launch of Kencall.

And after a weird summer of club world cup dystopia and Ken getting high on X it is finally time for some good old fashioned actual Premier League football to watch and talk about, and we got two of the biggest brains in the biz, Rory Smith and Miguel Delaney, on the line our bumper preview show.

Second Captains presenters and "some" world service Arsenal fans had a roller coaster relationship last season, but we extend a giant olive branch with our London live show special guest – it’s Arsenal legend and one of our favourite people in football, Ian Wright!!!! The show is on Wednesday September 24th at the Earth Theatre in Hackney, London. If you wanna be there to see Ian get onto secondcaptans.com/live and get your tickets. They're moving fast.

Click the player at the top of the page to play the show. Monday’s shows are free to all. To listen to our programming throughout the rest of the week, join the Second Captains World Service. There’s no contracts, no hidden fees and shows can be listened to on all good podcast apps, on Spotify or through our website. It’s independent, commercial-free and member-led with feature interviews, breaking news, Ken’s Football Show, The Politics Podcast, and lots of added extras. You’ll also be supporting the development of our longer-form work, such as our international series’  ‘Where Is George Gibney?’ and Stakeknife.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After a month of All-Ireland finals, we finally got a close one - and in the end, we got a surprise winner, too.  Cork were going for three-in-a-row, had beaten Galway by 11 points in the League final earlier this year, but had no answer to Galway's fast start, relentless physicality and last-minute heroics.  

Dublin camogie captain Aisling Maher has had an eventful year, which started by leading the skorts strike, and she's on the line today with Sinead O'Carroll of The Journal to review yesterday's final, the new refereeing approach which has revolutionised camogie, and why we're still talking about integration.  

We also discuss the worst Hawkeye referral in Croke Park's history, red cards, and why GAA players continue to be world leaders in spite.  

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Jack Grealish has gone to Everton on loan. We hope he finds meaning there. We try to understand why it never worked for him, with reference to some of the things Guardiola said in a surprisingly candid recent interview with GQ. 

Dion Fanning joins us to talk about the Community Shield, which saw the team with no new signings look more organised and dangerous than the team with €300 million worth. 

We also discuss the recent news that the FAI’s dream of a fully-aligned football calendar has effectively been abandoned, after the FAI confirmed that leagues who want to play winter football can apply for exemptions.

What does the failure of the unified plan mean? And what are the likely implications for the FAI? 

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The momentum behind "No Prem Ken" is building as our football correspondent put in another stonking performance this week on the world service. Welcome to our best of show!

We had Shels' shock win against the champions of Croatia, Man United rolling the transfer dice, football twitter madness, Son’s public display of emotion, the latest instalment of Inside Sir Big Jim, Infantino’s friends in high places and Orlagh Nolan on Dublin's masterclass against Meath, 

Sign up for 5 euro a month to hear all our shows. It’s dead easy, just go to secondcaptains.com/join – there’s no sign up fee, no sneaky add-ons, no contracts, no minimum stay, no adverts and we’re independent and Irish owned. Yoiu can listen on any good podcast app, on Spotify or on our website secondcaptains.com. Next week we will be previewing the Premier League, chatting to US Murph about bananas, looking ahead to Oasis and having all kinds of good clean fun.

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