Anything but Footy

This is Anything but Footy and a London Marathon 2023 special! We hear from the Event Director Hugh Brasher as the historic fundraising and world class race returns to its rightful home in April. We've anything you need to know if you're running it, supporting someone, or watching it on TV! 09:20 Elite Wheelchair start 09:30 Elite Women start 10:00 Elite Men start and Mass start It's an early star...

It was an Easter treat of a weekend for sporting fans and 12 months on from their silver success in Beijing Winter Olympics, a gold medal to treasure for the men's Scottish Curling team! Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan are now World Curling Champions after an outstanding win in Ottawa - rounding off quite the Winter Sport season for Team GB! Michael brings you a full rou...

Everyone wants the war to end says Thomas Bach the International Olympic Committee President, as the IOC decides to wait to see what happens with international sport before deciding whether Russia and Belarus athletes can compete at Paris 2024 and Milano Cortino 2026. They would have to be neutral athletes, no teams, and no affiliation or support for Putin or the army. So what are the Olympic wait...

The great debate on whether athletes from Russia and Belarus could compete at next year's Paris Olympics continues, with the International Olympic Committee committing to a 'pathway' to include them as neutral competitors. It's happening in tennis, and likely to at Wimbledon this year too. But does that really work? Katherine Grainger told us recently she's unsure. And where does that leave Ukrain...

Anything but Footy runs a series called Great British Bosses where we interview men and women involved in the running of sport in this country. It's the behind the scenes conversation of British Sport. We have had Chairs, CEOs, MDs, PDs, Head Coaches and this season guests have included Katherine Grainger (UK Sport), Greg Baker (Boccia UK), Helen Nicholls (British Equestrian) and Paul Buxton (GB T...

Bigger than the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014! For the first time ever the World Cycling Championships are all coming together in one place, at one time, and showing off the beauty of the bike! Trudy Lindblade is the chief executive of the 2023 World Cycling Championships, in Glasgow and across Scotland from 3-13 August this summer. She tells us the multi cycling event is in affect 13 Worl...

This is Great British Bosses - the behind the scenes conversation of British sport - and a real frank discussion in this episode about how this country's second most played sport among the young, gets hardly any professional attention and support. It's something Steve Bucknall, the Head of Talent & Performance at Basketball England, has always wanted to change, and after guiding Team England to go...

Season 4 of Great British Bosses - the behind the scenes conversation of British sport - continues from Anything but Footy! With more than 20 years of experience in elite sport, Helen Nicholls is the relatively new Performance Director at British Equestrian. The former British windsurfer, joined the organisation in charge of taking Team GB and Paralympic GB riders and horses to Paris in 2024 a yea...

A very special episode of Great British Bosses from Anything but Footy - the Olympic and Paralympic podcast. For our 50th edition we're delighted to be joined by Dame Katherine Grainger - Chair of UK Sport – the organisation that is responsible for the high performance sports system in Great Britain and Northern Ireland (you'll have heard a lot about them over the previous 49 episodes!) In this ep...

David Pond is one of those unique Great British Bosses in sport in this country. He started off his working life teaching PE after studying at Loughborough at the same time as Lord Coe and with Sir Clive Woodward (who he's still on an 'old boys' WhatsApp group with). There was then more than two decades in the Royal Navy, followed by Consulting before running Great British Wheelchair Rugby from be...

If you thought last summer was good in England's second city with the Commonwealth Games - the countdown's underway for another multi sporting event! It's now 200 days til the IBSA World Games in Birmingham this summer. More than a thousand partially sighted or blind athletes competing in a dozen sports, with qualification for the Paralympic Games in Paris 2024 next summer up for grabs in three of...

For a sport that only started at the Olympics 23 years ago, Taekwondo has quickly become a firm favourite for the British fans and for Team GB and now Paralympics GB, after its Para debut in Tokyo. 5 medals at the delayed 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, three in Rio 4 years before that, Jade Jones' famous gold in London 2012 and Beijing 2008 was the setting for the first ever British medal thanks t...

Boccia* is the only Paralympic sport without a real Olympic counterpart and Paralympics GB has a strong record in it dating back to Sydney 2000. Now there's a new Performance Director in charge - Greg Baker the former Head Coach of Para Table Tennis - and with the Paris Games now next year - once again it's time to start focusing on who could book their place on the plane or train to France next s...

What do you call a group of Olympic & Paralympic podcasters? A gaggle? A school? Mascots? What about 'Keep the Anything but Footy Flame Alive'? We're delighted to team up with fellow fans of the Olympics and Paralympics Jill Jaracz and Alison Brown, who do what we do and discuss all things Olympic movement type things, but from across the Atlantic. In this episode, as well as finding out about our...

So much other sport going on at the moment, but you won't have seen or heard much about it due to the total domination of the Football World Cup. It's not even the biggest sporting event in the world for goodness sake - that's the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics according to latest polling. But could Qatar be a future destination of the Olympic rings? In our 'News from the Games' we also round...

The World Gymnastics Championships, the European Breaking champs, the Rugby League World Cup... Liverpool, Manchester, Middlesborough, Leeds, London... Some of the world class sporting events being put on in UK cities in recent weeks... Forget that Qatar thing for a second, and get into Anything but Footy as we talk gymnastics, rugby league, judo, swimming, Para-cycling, wheelchair tennis. Boxing...

A special edition of Great British bosses to end the latest season of episodes - with the man delivering something in the UK that's never been done before in the world - the first ever men's, women's and wheelchair Rugby League World Cup! The trio of tournaments starting this Saturday October 15th in Newcastle, is being hosted across England - from Bolton to York, Leeds to London. It's been 7 year...

Bye bye Boxing? Hello again Russia? Max is back as are the Brits in Rowing and Cycling! And who's the real King or Queen of Scottish athletics? A summary of the 30 minute podcast in a couple of sentences, and John and Michael reunite to discuss the latest comings and goings in Olympic land! We've more on how the no change to Boxing's governing body probably means the end of the historic sport in t...

If we were writing a headline we'd say Mike Sharrock swaps BP for the BPA! The chief executive of the British Paralympic Association spent 30 years in international business with the oil giant, but since January 2019 he's been in charge of the BPA. Working on partnerships with London 2012 and Glasgow 2014 seemed to ignite his sporting flame and with all the challenges he, the Para athletes and the...

Channel 4 Sport is a force to be reckoned with after a series of high profile rights acquisitions. They recently started broadcasting England Men's football internationals to add to a portfolio which includes Rugby League, Formula 1 and the Paralympics. Kate Clayton is the Sports Partnership Lead at the channel and is also on the Board at GB Wheelchair Rugby. . She also spent four years as publici...

Tokyo 2020 wasn't the Olympics British Rowing was used to. The Paralympic team once again did the business on the water. So the person who was in charge of that successful Para squad is now in overall charge of performance. Louise Kingsley is a former coach and PE teacher and was appointed at the end of 2021. So how's it going? We find out in this latest episode of season 3 of Great British Bosses...

Season 3 of Great British Bosses - the podcast from Anything but Footy - returns with some big names behind the scenes of sport in the UK. Listen & follow so you don't miss out! In this episode, we speak to the man who openly admits he got it wrong at times at British Swimming when in charge of the Para team. But after an earlier stint at British Cycling, Chris Furber's now in charge of both the O...

After the Winter Olympics, Paralympics, World Championships & Commonwealth Games has the European Championships in Munich been too much? It sounds like a daft question from an Anything but Footy podcast, but as we recover from the pandemic have we been too tough on our athletes, expecting too much with 3 major championships for some in 5 weeks? We round up the mixed bag of results in the Olympic S...

That's it - what a games! Birmingham 2022 we salute you! Australia may have come out on top, but Team England the the country's second city has done the us proud and massive moments to celebrate to for Team Scotland and the island of Guernsey too! In this round up episode we have gold, silver and bronze medalists - England women's hockey, Keely Hodgkinson, Jake Wightman, Jack Laugher, Matty Lee an...

Back by popular demand! This is Brum's the word from Anything but Footy - the podcast reviewing the latest action and news from the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. 4 more female stars that are showing the Commonwealth what they're made of - golden delight for Eilish McColgan and Katerina Johnson-Thompson in the athletics at the Alexander Stadium. And we also hear from Grace Harvey and Amy Plat...