Episode 21: The US Open Tennis - Arthur Ashe, Althea Gibson and the Power of Tennis

"From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life."

Arthur Ashe, 1968 US Open Champion and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient.

The US Open can be more than just a great sporting occasion. Arthur Ashe became its first men’s champion in the Open Era as an amateur amongst professionals, using his voice and his platform to challenge injustice long beyond his career ending prematurely due to ill health. Althea Gibson broke barriers as the first Black Grand Slam winner, later forging a path in professional golf - and even recording music along the way.

This episode explores their stories alongside the wider history of the tournament: Billie Jean King’s role in reshaping the game, era defining talents like Connors and McEnroe, of Venus and Serena Williams too, and the ongoing wait for another American man to lift the trophy, 22 years after Andy Roddick in 2003.

From its venue hopping origins to its move to Flushing Meadows, onto the opening of its centrepiece at the Arthur Ashe Stadium, the US Open has grown into the sport’s biggest and richest stage - but its power has always rested with the players who used it to change the game, and sometimes the world beyond it.

Episode 20: The Rugby Championship and Women's World Cup

How did Rugby Union make its way to the southern hemisphere? How does the game down south differ from the bruising northern style? And why, exactly, are New Zealand so damn good at it?

This week, we’re serving up a double helping of rugby. With the Rugby Championship kicking off this weekend and the Red Roses gearing up for their date with destiny next Friday, Ben dives headfirst into the pinnacle of southern hemisphere rugby, while Jack takes a quick look at the rise of the women’s game and the teams to watch at this year's World Cup.

There’s an unexpected shortage of English bias… swiftly undone by some unprovoked Jonny Wilkinson fawning. But Ben also waxes lyrical about the only man he rates higher than Wilko - one Daniel Carter - while both of us get misty eyed over the unstoppable force, icon and legend that was Jonah Lomu.

For newcomers, Jack crams everything you need to know about Rugby Union into a breathless three-minute bit for no reason whatsoever. For the seasoned fans, there’s plenty too - from Kiwis looking to snatch their crown back from South Africa, to Wallabies just praying to finish above Argentina, and England’s burning quest for revenge against the Black Ferns… with Canada waiting in the wings.

The Rugby autumn starts here - buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Episode 19: The Premier League - The Greatest Show on Earth

What made the Premier League the biggest and best football league in the world? Why did English football's top clubs break away in 1992 - and what happened to the teams they left behind? And how on earth did Leicester City go from relegation certainties to champions of England?

In this episode of The Sporting Almanac, we chart the story of the Premier League - from its murky beginnings in boardrooms and backrooms to the global spectacle we know today. We look at how the breakaway changed football forever, how BSkyB staked its future on a gamble that paid off beyond anyone’s imagination, and how this diversion in the flow of money transformed both the top and bottom ends of English football.

We relive the league’s most unbelievable fairytale - Leicester’s 5000-1 title win - before debating the best players, the most dominant teams, and the greatest managers to grace the Premier League. Henry, Keane, Salah, Shearer. Fergie, Wenger, Pep, Klopp. Invincibles, dynasties, icons, miracles - it’s all here.

Whether you remember that first Super Sunday at the City Ground in Nottingham, you fell in love with the game during the Premier League era or you're just getting started - this episode's for you.

Dilly ding, dilly dong.

Episode 18: The EFL and Football Pyramid - "You don't love the game as much as us".

Football in England runs deep. It lives in the streets where we were raised, in overused but much beloved grassroots pitches, in the terrace chants passed down like heirlooms. It’s stitched into the fabric of families, of towns, of working weeks and weekend rituals.

Before the season begins, there’s always hope - fragile, stubborn, beautiful hope. Some hope for glory. Others just of survival. Some just want to avoid shame. But everyone dares to dream.

There’s always a route to the top - if you build, if you dream, if you refuse to let go. But blink, and you can tumble. Because the pyramid gives, and the pyramid takes away.

This is the story of a game that belongs to everyone. Of Billy Meredith fighting for players’ rights before the game had even found its footing. Of Arthur Wharton sprinting past prejudice in the 19th century. Of Bradford, where lives were lost, and lives rebuilt after tragedy. Of Wrexham and Wimbledon, where community spirit helped build back what seemed lost forever - optimism, pride, hope.

The legends our grandfathers told us about weren’t always paid well in days gone past, they weren't protected or even free to move on should they have wished to. But they played on. Because they wanted to, because they needed to. Because football was, and is, everything to so many people.

This isn’t just sport. It’s who we are, who we were, and who we will always be. This is where football began and where its spirit still burns brightest, even if we can have a funny way of showing it sometimes. Here, it means more.

Episode 17: The All-Ireland Senior Football Championship - "Where We All Belong"

From the muddy fields of Meath to Croke Park's sacred sod, this episode dives into one of the most fiercely loved and proudly Irish sports: Gaelic football. We explore what makes the game so unique - its rules, its roots, and the deep ties it holds to community and identity.

We trace the story back through time: to the birth of the GAA and its fight to preserve native games; to a tragic Sunday in 1920 when a football match became an unforgivable massacre, and another Bloody Sunday played out in blood, grief and inevitable whitewash. Not Ireland’s first such Sunday, and sadly not it's last.

And finally, on lighter grounds, we look at the long-suffering tale of County Mayo. A famed curse that no Mayo team would lift the Sam Maguire again while even one member of their victorious 1951 side still lived - seventy-five years, eleven finals, and a whole lot of heartbreak and ill-luck later... you can be forgiven for thinking there's something to it.

We’ve come away from this one with nothing but admiration for the sport, its history and its heart. Gaelic football is a living thread of Irish identity, with the All-Ireland final it's crowning moment. A sport and a history well worth learning about, wherever you're from.

Episode 16: A Boxing Story - Leen Sanders + Oleksandr Usyk vs. Daniel Dubois.

With Oleksandr Usyk and Daniel Dubois set to put their world titles on the line, we take a look at one of the most compelling heavyweight clashes of the year - two talented fighters, shaped by very different paths, meeting in the ring with everything to prove, to win and to lose.

But this week, we’re doing things a little differently.

Boxing is often called the loneliest sport. There’s nowhere to hide, no one to blame, and every fight has its reasons - some clear, some deeply personal. Some fight for pride, for country, for a way out. And some fight simply to survive.

At the heart of the episode is the story of Leen Sanders, a talented Dutch boxer with a hermetic defence, fighting in the inter-war years and whose career and life took a turn no one could have imagined. His fights weren’t always on canvas, and what was at stake wasn’t just titles. What he endured - and what he refused to give up - speaks to something far deeper than sport.

It's an incredible story that goes from heady heights in the ring to the darkest depths of 20th Century history, with an extraordinary man as its protagonist alongside other boxers of the era.

Come listen, but be warned, this episode hits hard.

> Content note: This episode contains in depth references to historical atrocities and crimes against humanity.

Episode 15: The UEFA European Women’s Championship – “Women’s Football Confuses Men”

It’s a story almost as old as football itself: women start playing. People notice. They’re good - really good. Crowds grow, praise swells, more girls join in… and just as momentum builds, the men in suits step in.

With furrowed brows and dubious “health concerns”, they declare the game unfit for women - too rough, too unfeminine, too dangerous for their supposedly fragile reproductive systems. Too improper a spectacle for men to have to endure.

Rinse. Repeat.

It’s a maddening cycle that’s haunted women’s football for over a century: visibility, popularity… then paternalistic backlash. But through it all, the women kept going - not waiting for permission, not playing for praise, but for the pure, unstoppable joy of playing the game.

In Germany, they played hundreds of unofficial internationals and even hosted full blown European tournaments - all while the DFB officially banned the sport. In Italy, enthusiasm clashed with conservatism both at home and with UEFA. Meanwhile, in more egalitarian societies like those in Scandinavia, women’s football wasn’t sidelined - it was supported. And success followed. Funny that.

And then there’s England - slow to change, late to back the women’s game, left trailing rivals. But when talent finally met investment, a generation rose. With the right leadership, they took the game to stratospheric heights - and in 2022, the Lionesses did what no English senior team had done in over half a century: they won a major tournament. The result? An explosion of girls taking up the game, inspired by players who once had to fight just to be seen. Good times never seemed so good...

Because this isn’t just a story of struggle - it’s one of momentum. Those girls falling in love with football today? They’re tomorrow’s players, coaches, leaders, and decision-makers.

Once again, women are playing. Once again, the crowds are growing. But this time, the cycle might finally be broken. The opposition isn’t as loud, and is much easier to ignore. The support is stronger. And the game is rising.

The growth of women’s football isn’t done.

It’s only just getting started.

Episode 14: The Tour de France – More than a race. Less than the truth.

“You can't ride the Tour de France on mineral water. You would have to be an imbecile or a crook to imagine that a pro-cyclist who races for 235 days a year can hold the pace without stimulants.”

Jacques Anquetil, five-time Tour de France winner

It is without doubt the greatest cycling race in the world – just don’t ask what’s in the water bottles. Legends are everywhere, but clean ones are harder to find. Where endurance meets amphetamines, pain meets painkillers, and a yellow jersey rarely means a clear conscience, the Tour de France is a race fuelled as much by scandal as it is by glory – and yet, somehow, it never disappoints.

Because here’s the thing – what these riders do is superhuman. They exceed the limits of what a body should withstand. They suffer more in three weeks than most of us would choose in a lifetime. Just to ride in the Tour takes obsession, discipline, and pain tolerance most can’t fathom. To win it takes something else entirely – whatever that something may be.

For much of its history, drug use in cycling wasn’t a dirty secret – it was an open one. Riders took whatever gave them the edge: from ether and strychnine to amphetamines, morphine, and later EPO. Cheating didn’t always stop at the syringe, either. But in 1967, near the summit of the brutal Mont Ventoux, Britain’s Tom Simpson collapsed and died – the price of pushing too far. It should have been a reckoning. It wasn’t.

Twenty years later, cyclists started dying in their sleep. Nothing changed. In 1998, the Festina Affair blew the sport wide open. And yet, the very next year, the Tour was reborn – branded Le Tour de Renouveau – The Tour of Renewal. What it delivered was Lance Armstrong.

So why do we love it?

That’s the question Jack and Ben ask this week. Because whether it fills you with joy, disgust, awe or disbelief – the Tour de France is a spectacle you can’t look away from. It’s beautiful. It’s brutal. It’s broken. And maybe, just maybe, that’s what makes it so human.

Episode 13: The Wimbledon Championships - The Noble Pursuit of Immortality

Tennis is a game like no other. With origins in palaces and prisons alike, brought together by good marketing and better timing and allowing women earlier participation than Victorian Britain was famed for, it took only three years from the game being invented for a South-West London croquet club to stake their future on it - and 148 years later, that future is stronger than they could ever have imagined.

Wimbledon creates superstars, gives them a stage worthy of legends and a crowd that embraces greatness - no matter the flag. From Borg to Federer, Navratilova to Williams, McEnroe, Graf and more, Centre Court loves flair, brilliance and theatre as much as they love their own: Perry, Wade, Henman, Murray and the rest.

Ben and Jack talk origins, rituals, history, and more than a little about Roger (if such a thing as "too much Federer" can exist). From the great players to the most incredible matches, including the epic Isner vs. Mahut marathon in 2010, there is nothing like Wimbledon. But no need to queue here - just press play, and let us tell you why Wimbledon is truly the crown jewel of British sport.

Episode 12: The British & Irish Lions - The Power of Four

"Let's be the best at everything that requires no talent."

Paul O'Connell, 2009 Lions Captain.

Enemies in March. Teammates in June.

Once every four years, the British & Irish Lions unite four fierce rivals from two nations under a single red jersey. They set aside history, pride and borders to become something greater - and take that fight across the globe in pursuit of glory.

They ride on the shoulders of giants - legends of rugby and, sometimes, of war. None looms so large as Robert Blair "Paddy" Mayne: 20 matches in one epic summer on the 1938 tour - then a leap into legend as one of the most decorated soldiers in British military history. A founding member of the SAS, his story is so wild that fact and myth blur into one, and neither detracts from the other.

Ahead of the 2025 Tour to Australia, we explore the Lions’ proudest moments, the origins of the red jersey, the future of the tour, and the icons who’ve defined it, on the pitch and beyond.

If you're even a fraction as excited as we are, this is your episode.