Football Ruined My Life

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 waiti...

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 diffe...

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 Dund...

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 ca...

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...

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  After that, another “forward” was withdrawn into midfield and 4-4-2 became the standard for most teams for many years but now we have a confusing muddle of numbers, including 3-5-2, 4-2-2-2 and 4-1-4-1.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...

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...

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 h...

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 Prem...

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 a...

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.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. Join...

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...

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...

There used to be such a thing as a Reserve team which we watched if we couldn’t afford to travel to watch our team away from home. Young players started in the A and B sides and made their way up from the B to the A team until they reached the Reserves. The Reserves contained a sprinkling of first team players coming back from injury and embittered old pros who deeply resented the humiliation of p...

Everton may well have saved themselves yet again from The Drop and at the same time finished Liverpool’s chances of a last Premier League title for Jurgen Klopp but the history of a once proud and famous club over the last thirty years or so has been painful for their fans.  One lifelong supporter is Jimmy Mulville, co-founder and manager of Hat Trick Productions and therefore responsible for show...

In this episode, the panel is talking about the maverick.  Not the old tv series of the same name starring James Garner but the flair players who didn’t necessarily fit into the team ethic.  Think Stan Bowles, Frank Worthington, Charlie George, Tony Currie and Rodney Marsh to name but five.  How weird that they were all playing at the end of the 1960s and throughout the 1970s.  Why were there so m...

In the second of our occasional podcasts about specific years, we are looking at 1974 when Jon Holmes, Paddy Barclay and Colin Shindler were all in their early, mid or medium late 20s. It’s the year that began with power shortages due to a miners’ strike and the imposition of the three day week. Inflation was running at nearly 18% and of course ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest. In football, Le...

For our 50th edition, we’ve cooked up a very special episode – not only have we taken to the road (to the very farthest corner of East Anglia) but we’ve sourced the author of the Complete Illustrated Cookery Course.  The panel is extremely well fed for their trouble by one of the owners of Norwich City, who is the only football director to publish over 1400 mouth-watering recipes.  For a thoroughl...

This is the episode about those big lads with heads squashed flat and brains curdled into early onset dementia by the constant heading of old fashioned leather footballs that weighed the same as a cannonball after it had been soaked by rain and coated in mud.  From the time that Herbert Chapman withdrew the middle of the half backs to play between the two full backs we always recognised the centre...

The Easter special podcast sees the Football Ruined My Life panel fielding another round of questions, observations and suggestions from their listeners. Listeners who are quick to seize their own chance to comment on yesterday’s football and how it evokes such strong memories of their younger days as supporters. The letters are by turn critical, laudatory, amusing and perceptive. The panellists i...

We are joined this week by Baron Grade of Yarmouth, previously Michael Grade, who has, at various times, been Controller of BBC1, Chairman of ITV and Chief Executive of Channel 4.  However for all the company directorships and his elevation to the House of Lords we meet on equal footing as football fans because his admirably steadfast passion down the years has been for Charlton Athletic FC.  Amon...

The North East of England has traditionally been referred to as "the hotbed of soccer".  Yet compared to teams from Lancashire for example, Newcastle United, Sunderland and Middlesbrough have won very little in the way of trophies for decades.  Middlesbrough won the League Cup in 2004, Sunderland won the FA Cup in 1973 and Newcastle won the Inter Cities Fairs Cup in 1969.  Since then... nothing. W...

He was the third in the distinguished line of BBC Chief Football Correspondents and the first not be called Brian (as in Moore and Bryon Butler). His attractive voice gave us fluent commentaries from football grounds all over the world. Within months of doing his first commentary he was looking at 39 dead bodies in the Heysel Stadium. Mike Ingham joins Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Paddy Barclay...