Episodes
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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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Episodes manquant?
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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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There are two distinct variations on the theme of Number 2s. The first is that he is the one who sits next to the manager when he is going berserk, berating the fourth official and kicking water bottles. That number 2 is there to calm him down and offer sage advice in moments of extreme
tension. However, the other number 2 is the man who himself goes berserk while his boss maintains a forced calm as the number 2 rages. Jon Holmes, Paddy Barclay and Colin Shindler consider the pairing of Murphy and Busby, Taylor and Clough, Allison and Mercer, Howe and Mee - who all offer fascinating insights into the art of football management.
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It’s been coming, hasn’t it? We all know that the relationship between Jon Holmes and Gary Lineker started about 45 years ago and we’ve heard many stories related by Jon about his most famous client. However here is Gary talking about himself, his career as a player and his transition into broadcasting. Together with with Colin Shindler, Paddy Barclay (and of course, Jon Holmes), here his views on the game are presented uncensored by any broadcasting or publishing empire. Listen and see if any of them surprise you.
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We grew up with the old WM formation. Brazil won the World Cup with 4-2-4 and Alf Ramsey did the same thing with what was called the Wingless Wonders, in other words 4-3-3. After that, another “forward” was withdrawn into midfield and 4-4-2 became the standard for most teams for many years but now we have a confusing muddle of numbers, including 3-5-2, 4-2-2-2 and 4-1-4-1. The panel examine how these changes in formations evolved and how successful they have been for the coaches, managers and clubs that have employed them.
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We know that cheating isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s been in sport ever since the Greeks failed to provide any drug testing during the Olympic Games of 776 BC – so there’s no reason why football should be any different. In the 1950s and 1960s, promising youngsters’ parents were allegedly bribed with washing machines and other “luxury” goods by clubs desperate for their offspring’s signature. The amounts of money sloshing around the game these days has made the incentive to cheat a constant threat, despite the tightening of legislation designed to prevent it. On the field, the diving for penalties and the feigning of injuries to get an opponent sent off has also got worse despite the increased ability of television cameras to highlight such cheating. The panel discuss whether cheating in football can ever be eradicated.
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He’s best known still as the host of Jon Holmes’ supreme television creation the game show ‘They Think It’s All Over’ in which his most famous clients combined with comedians to play such legendary games as “Feel the Sportsman”. He’s a talented comedian and writer but at heart Nick Hancock would always describe himself first and foremost as a Stoke City supporter. In this episode Nick tells of his devotion to the club and in particular of his grandfather who took him to matches but could never find where he’d left the car after it was finished.
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This week, the panel looks at old fashioned Bob Lord style Chairmen of football clubs as against the current fashion for billionaire owners from oil rich nation states or American hedge fund managers. Bob Lord at Burnley and Joe Mears at Chelsea, Louis Edwards at Manchester United and the Hill Woods of Arsenal were all rich men but their wealth did not compare to that of the current owners of Premier League clubs. When we talked about the game in the 1960s and 1970s we talked about players and managers, rarely about Chairmen and never about boards of shadowy directors. Colin Shindler, Patrick Barclay and former Leicester Chairman Jon Holmes discuss the impact on the game of this shift from chairmen to owners.
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Now, as most of our listeners will know, there was a time when there was no such thing as the Transfer Window and, as all of our listeners know, before 1961 players couldn’t earn more than the maximum wage which at the moment of its abolition that year stood at £20 a week. Therefore there was no need for a player to agitate for a move to a bigger club for financial gain because there wouldn’t be any - at least within British football and who wanted to go and live in what we all called “abroad” or “on the Continent”. And so there was no need for agents. However, in the 1990s there was a much bigger shock to the cosy world of transfers when the Bosman ruling stood the world of football on its head and led to today’s Alice in Wonderland world of transfers. The panel as ever ask each other "Was it it better then or is it better now?"
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After our computer-enforced summer break Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Patrick Barclay return next week on Friday 9th August - just as the new football season kicks off. If you've not already done so, subscribe now.
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Good morning listeners - here's a message from Colin Shindler.
We'll be returning with the podcast in time for the new season at the beginning of August. Enjoy your summer holidays - see you in a few months.
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In the days when the cricket season finished at the end of August and did not begin again until the first week in May it was perfectly possible to be a professional sportsman who played both games. Now it would be impossible to find a footballer who also played county cricket let alone Test cricket. Digging back, as ever, into the days of our youth, however, we can easily find plenty of them. Joining the regular panel, Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Patrick Barclay is Michael Henderson, formerly Cricket Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph and a man who has written perceptively and entertainingly on both football and cricket for many publications.
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The Football Association Challenge Cup is the oldest and most prestigious cup competition in the world, having been in existence since 1871. Winning the Cup for many of us was actually more highly valued than winning the First Division championship which had none of the excitement and charisma of walking up the steps to the Royal Box and holding up that most prized trophy. The panel examines the reasons for the decline in importance of the FA Cup and compares Cup Final day now to the Cup Finals of their youth – with predictable results.
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The panel turn their forensic eyes on the question of football tactics and, with a respectful nod to one of the great Monty Python sketches, their wider reference to the world of philosophy. In particular this edition sets the supporters of the philosophy of Route One against the supporters of playing out from the back or Tiki Taki as it is sometimes known. The main point at issue is the alleged superiority of either the long ball tactics favoured by Stan Cullis’s Wolves, Graham Taylor’s Watford and Harry Bassett’s Wimbledon as opposed to the subtler arts of passing out from the back as perfected by Pep Guardiola. But if your team is winning, does it really matter what tactics they employ to do so?
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