Episodes
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Colin Shindler, Patrick Barclay and Jon Holmes examine the value of utility players – the player who could fill in anywhere on the pitch from right back to outside left. There is a marked tendency by current managers to favour specialisation over utility yet we all remember, usually with affection, those players who could “do a job” anywhere on the pitch – the perfect player to bring on in the days when there was only one substitute. The panel pays tribute to the Paul Madeleys of the game and explore the reasons for their gradual disappearance from the game.
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Colin Shindler, Paddy Barclay and Jon Holmes discuss the phenomenon of Brits Abroad, those British footballers who made the transition to the sun, sangria and shenanigans of playing for foreign teams. Jon of course became a one-man Lunn PolyTravel Agency for his clients in the 1980s but the phenomenon of British footballers travelling to foreign climes began early in the postwar years with the Bogata bandits. With the exception of John Charles and Gerry Hitchens, English exports to European clubs in the 1950s and 1960s were generally not a great success. But after Kevin Keegan went to SV Hamburg in 1977 it all began to change until the arrival of the Premier League’s wealth reversed the direction of the flow of traffic across the Channel.
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… is the word frequently given to goals scored, usually from outside the penalty box, like drawings in a Roy of the Rovers cartoon that bring the crowd to a fever pitch of excitement. Unless of course the goal has been scored by the opposition. In which case the spectacular goal will be suffered in a mute and somewhat resentful silence, one in which the unfairness of Life in general and the existence of God in particular is contemplated. Jon Holmes, Paddy Barclay and Colin Shindler discuss whether there are fewer screamers about these days than in the days of their youth and if so why that should be the case.
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It was the year of the Sky revolution in football but for Jon Holmes it was also the end of Gary Lineker’s career in England as he prepared to move to Japan and ultimately into the television studio. Leeds United won the last First Division and their manager Howard Wilkinson was the last English manager to win the championship. It was the year that saw an unfancied Denmark team win the Euros and John Major return to Downing Street by beating Neil Kinnock. It was a year that provided Paddy Barclay, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes with much to discuss.
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Paddy Barclay, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler talk about their favourite match and, to help them to do so, each of them invites as a guest on the podcast a player who
took part in that match. If we could all take 8 matches to a desert island populated only by Roy
Plomley and at some point you would be asked: “If seven of your matches were washed away which one match would you save from the waves?” Today the panel attempts to answer that
question. Although, inevitably each of the games are won respectively by Dundee, Leicester City and Manchester City, the choice of games might surprise. The welcome appearance of Gary Lineker on this episode probably doesn’t.
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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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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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