The Socially Distant Sports Bar

Welcome to Pint-Sized Distant Pod.

We've been back through our archive of episodes and we've selected our favourite stories, anecdotes and funny bits.

If you're new to the pod, then feel free to use these as a jump off point to find your way around our earlier episodes.

This clip is taken from "Episode 302: Piccalilli's Like Pegging"

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We’ve launched a brand new merch store — mugs, hoodies, prints and more!

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We're back at The Cheerful Earful Festival in Clapham for the second half of our live show, and this time we've brought in someone who actually knows what they're talking about.

Kate Mason is back!

The brilliant journalist, broadcaster, podcaster and previous Socially Distant Sports Bar guest joins Elis James, Mike Bubbins and Steff Garrero for more sporting clips, stories and the sort of conversations that are almost certainly better conducted in front of a paying audience.

Kate brings in the magnificent Shane Williams and a reminder of what happens when England football fans discover Oasis.

Meanwhile, Mike has uncovered some boxing involving Bailey and Judith.

If you haven't heard Part 1, go back and start there. You'll also discover why Mike might not be the most popular man in certain Edinburgh pubs.

Clips

Kate: Shane Williams

https://youtu.be/IRaTsrmzhPI?is=3lOFE_0uBltBptN1

Kate: England Wonderwall

https://youtube.com/shorts/VwM_jKnmqHU?is=5rkDEmo8BSBiiA1-

Mike: Bailey and Judith Boxing

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdmloGWxld1/?stkn=bzVpN2QwOGZvanQx

That's it for the regular feed this week.

But there's more!

We've kept back a bonus Q&A for our subscribers, including a quite remarkable number of questions about The Race.

You can hear it through Distant Pod Bonus Club on Apple Podcasts, or find more exclusive Distant Pod content at:

https://www.patreon.com/distantpod

Thanks to everyone who came to Clapham, to the Cheerful Earful team and, of course, to the brilliant Kate Mason.

🛍️ NEW MERCH ALERT

We’ve launched a brand new merch store — mugs, hoodies, prints and more!

If you fancy supporting the pod that way, head here 👇

🛒 sdsb2025.myshopify.com

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

Welcome to the first half of our live show from The Cheerful Earful Festival in Clapham, available early and advert-free for Apple subscribers.

Elis James, Mike Bubbins and Steff Garrero are back on stage, where Mike has a slightly awkward Edinburgh double-booking to explain.

Once that's dealt with, there's Mike Ditka, some questionable half-marathon preparation and the usual amount of nonsense.

Mike: Mike Ditka

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTrMqi7Di6m/?igsh=MWQ1dXJqaTA2MDlmag==

Elis: Half-Marathon, Half-Cut

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeL1cYwxBAb/?stkn=cnJ4ZDRyYXZlNm41

Part 2, featuring special guest Kate Mason, is also available on Friday, along with the exclusive Bonus Club Q&A on Apple

🛍️ NEW MERCH ALERT

We’ve launched a brand new merch store — mugs, hoodies, prints and more!

If you fancy supporting the pod that way, head here 👇

🛒 sdsb2025.myshopify.com

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

Welcome to Pint-Sized Distant Pod.

We've been back through our archive of episodes and we've selected our favourite stories, anecdotes and funny bits.

If you're new to the pod, then feel free to use these as a jump off point to find your way around our earlier episodes.

This clip is taken from "Episode 152: A Circle Thank"

🛍️ NEW MERCH ALERT

We’ve launched a brand new merch store — mugs, hoodies, prints and more!

If you fancy supporting the pod that way, head here 👇

🛒 sdsb2025.myshopify.com

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

Welcome to the second half of this week's Socially Distant Sports Bar, where Mike Bubbins, Elis James and Steff Garrero turn their attention to the documentary and book of the week.

This time we're travelling back to 1988, when England's future football stars were being moulded at a residential school in Shropshire, before heading across the Atlantic to meet a man who helped create the only perfect season in modern NFL history.

Two very different approaches to sporting excellence. Both involving a considerable amount of shouting, presumably.

Documentary of the Week

Elis: 1988 — Life at the FA School of Excellence

Elis has uncovered a wonderful piece of BBC archive footage from 1988, following a group of 14-year-old footballers arriving at the FA's School of Excellence at Lilleshall.

More than 400 promising youngsters are offered trials, but just 16 are selected for two years of intensive football training, schooling and life away from home.

Under the watchful eye of FA Technical Director Dave Sexton, the boys are being prepared for careers in professional football at a time when the modern academy system was still a distant dream.

It's a fascinating glimpse into football development in the late 1980s, complete with the hairstyles, training gear, coaching methods and extraordinary confidence that only British television of that period could capture.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=viEnIRCR0hU&pp=ugUHEgVlbi1HQg%3D%3D&ra=m

Book of the Week

Mike: Head On by Larry Csonka

Mike heads to America with Head On, the autobiography of legendary Miami Dolphins fullback Larry Csonka.

A Hall of Famer, two-time Super Bowl champion and one of the toughest players of his generation, Csonka was at the heart of the Dolphins' extraordinary undefeated 1972 season.

But this is about considerably more than American football.

Csonka recounts his complicated relationship with legendary coach Don Shula, the personalities and excesses of the NFL in the 1970s, and a life away from sport that was frequently every bit as eventful as anything that happened on the field.

It's a story of toughness, ambition, larger-than-life characters and an era when professional athletes appeared to live by an entirely different set of rules.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Head-Memoir-Larry-Csonka/dp/1637743254

Sixteen teenage footballers in Shropshire. One enormous American footballer in Miami. And three middle-aged Welshmen discussing how it all went.

Thanks for listening.

For even more from The Socially Distant Sports Bar, including extra episodes and exclusive content, join us on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/distantpod

🛍️ NEW MERCH ALERT

We’ve launched a brand new merch store — mugs, hoodies, prints and more!

If you fancy supporting the pod that way, head here 👇

🛒 sdsb2025.myshopify.com

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

Another week at The Socially Distant Sports Bar, where Mike Bubbins, Elis James and Steff Garrero once again tackle the big sporting issues of the day. Or at least watch some clips and see where the conversation takes them.

This week we're heading across the Atlantic for a bit of ice hockey, digging out some tennis rackets that should probably have stayed in the garage, and bringing together two of football's greats.

Mike takes us to NHL opening night, where the Americans once again demonstrate that nobody does sporting spectacle quite like them.

Steff has found Andy and Jamie Murray attempting to play tennis with some decidedly old-fashioned rackets, proving just how much technology has changed the game — and how difficult it is to look like a world-class tennis player when your equipment belongs in a museum.

And Elis brings us Roy Keane and Zinedine Zidane. Two footballing legends.

Clips

Mike: NHL Opening Night

https://x.com/Buccigross/status/2105017215724798320

Steff: Andy and Jamie Murray Hitting With Old Rackets

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hVnyflisJN8

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oJdm7PL-GcI

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bd-bTgqOPHs

Elis: Keane and Zidane

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeJ9KWQsF7T/?hl=en-gb

Ice hockey. Wooden rackets. Roy Keane. Zinedine Zidane.

Blood and guts. And probably quite a lot of nonsense.

Thanks for listening.

For even more from The Socially Distant Sports Bar, including extra episodes, bonus content and everything else from the Distant Pod universe, join us on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/distantpod

🛍️ NEW MERCH ALERT

We’ve launched a brand new merch store — mugs, hoodies, prints and more!

If you fancy supporting the pod that way, head here 👇

🛒 sdsb2025.myshopify.com

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

Welcome to Pint-Sized Distant Pod.

We've been back through our archive of episodes and we've selected our favourite stories, anecdotes and funny bits.

If you're new to the pod, then feel free to use these as a jump off point to find your way around our earlier episodes.

This clip is taken from "Episode 293: George Lewis"

🛍️ NEW MERCH ALERT

We’ve launched a brand new merch store — mugs, hoodies, prints and more!

If you fancy supporting the pod that way, head here 👇

🛒 sdsb2025.myshopify.com

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

Welcome to this week's Socially Distant Sports Bar with Mike Bubbins, Elis James and Steff Garrero.

This week we're taking a trip back to the golden age of television game shows, before heading into the tactical revolution that has changed football from the Champions League to the lowest reaches of the non-league pyramid.

Two very different approaches to sport. One involving meticulous tactical planning. The other involving Jimmy Tarbuck and a set of rules nobody appears to understand.

Documentary of the Week (Sort Of)

Steff: Full Swing

In place of the usual documentary, Steff has unearthed an absolute gem from the golden age of British television: Jimmy Tarbuck's Full Swing.

It's a glorious car crash of a golf-based, general knowledge-adjacent game show, featuring celebrity contestants, questionable production decisions and a format whose rules the audience are apparently expected to work out for themselves as the programme unfolds.

If the idea of Jimmy Tarbuck presiding over a golf quiz that appears to have been designed during a particularly long lunch doesn't make you want to watch it immediately, we're not sure this is the podcast for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6svRbCgDm8w&t=45s

Book of the Week

Elis: The Spectre of Pep — How Guardiola Haunts Modern Football by Jon Mackenzie

Elis brings in Jon Mackenzie's fascinating examination of Pep Guardiola's influence on modern football.

From his tactical philosophy and obsession with controlling space to the way teams across Europe's biggest leagues have adopted versions of his approach, the book explores how one manager's ideas have fundamentally changed the way the game is played.

And it's not just the elite. From Manchester City to the lower reaches of non-league football, everybody now seems determined to play out from the back, regardless of whether the centre-half is entirely comfortable with the idea.

Has Guardiola made football better? Or has he simply made everyone believe there's only one correct way to play it?

Plenty for Elis, Mike and Steff to get stuck into.

https://link.amazon/B0aGXHEoU

Jimmy Tarbuck and Pep Guardiola. Two men who have approached the organisation of sport in very different ways.

Thanks for listening.

And if you want more from The Socially Distant Sports Bar, including exclusive episodes and extra content, join us on Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/distantpod

🛍️ NEW MERCH ALERT

We’ve launched a brand new merch store — mugs, hoodies, prints and more!

If you fancy supporting the pod that way, head here 👇

🛒 sdsb2025.myshopify.com

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

Another week at The Socially Distant Sports Bar, where Mike Bubbins, Elis James and Steff Garrero once again prove that talking about sport is entirely optional on a sports podcast.

This week, Mike reveals how his habit of leaving his audio recorder running might eventually prove to be his downfall, the boys uncover some deeply unpleasant Roman bathroom techniques that will put you off your dinner, and Mike explains just how far he'd be prepared to go if someone offered him a bit of land.

And it's quite a length.

There's also the small matter of ham radio enthusiasts. Those bloody hams.

Eventually, sport manages to force its way into the conversation.

Mike brings us the extraordinary photographic memory of LA Rams head coach Sean McVay, Steff provides further evidence that Tony Pulis knows absolutely everyone in football, and Elis revisits Tony Sibson's wonderfully honest assessment of his defeat to Marvin Hagler in 1983.

Clips

Mike: Sean McVay

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdINQ3SSp9w/?stkn=MW1mNXplaTQyNHNzdQ==

Steff: Tony Pulis Knows Everyone

https://x.com/nozza_/status/2102743956207370391?s=61

Elis: Tony Sibson After Losing to Marvin Hagler

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18PhbK458m/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Roman toilets. Ham radio. A suspiciously ambitious land deal. And Tony Pulis knowing everyone.

Sport. Eventually.

Thanks for listening.

And remember, if you want even more from Elis, Mike and Steff, including extra episodes and Bonus content, you can join us at:

https://www.patreon.com/distantpod

🛍️ NEW MERCH ALERT

We’ve launched a brand new merch store — mugs, hoodies, prints and more!

If you fancy supporting the pod that way, head here 👇

🛒 sdsb2025.myshopify.com

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

Welcome to Pint-Sized Distant Pod.

We've been back through our archive of episodes and we've selected our favourite stories, anecdotes and funny bits.

If you're new to the pod, then feel free to use these as a jump off point to find your way around our earlier episodes.

This clip is taken from "Episode 160: Parking The Bus"

🛍️ NEW MERCH ALERT

We’ve launched a brand new merch store — mugs, hoodies, prints and more!

If you fancy supporting the pod that way, head here 👇

🛒 sdsb2025.myshopify.com

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