These Football Times

Is there too much pressure in football for anything to be done about health and welfare? From the demands placed on managers to the strain put on kids from the age of eight in football academies, while we might talk a good game about mental health, is there really anything we can do to protect it in perhaps the most high profile industry in the world?

There’s a double for Manchester United after Aston Villa deny them the treble, Jeremy Goss writes himself into Norfolk folklore, Newcastle  entertain the nation and Graham Taylor doesn’t. It’s time to revisit 1993/94 with Rob Fletcher, Aidan Williams and Alex Ireland. 

Trying to keep the fans, the board and the sporting director is a minefield for modern managers, so have we seen the last of the managerial titans such as Ferguson and Wenger who ran their clubs from top to bottom? Can any manager expect a shelf life of more than three seasons in the pressure cooker environment of today?

Crank up the Simple Minds soundtrack, dust off the fireworks, make way for the cheerleaders and dodgy versions of Baker Street. The Premier League has arrived and it’s a whole new ball game, especially at Old Trafford. As Leeds boss Howard Wilkinson presides over the transfer from hell and sees his side fall from their position as champions, it’s left to Aston Villa to push United to a first title...

Gary Thacker quizzes another member of the team about the club they support. Why, best and worst moments, favourite players and those they’d like to forget plus the nuclear question: could you ever support anyone else? Alex Ireland talks about Manchester United. Don’t worry, he’s a local.

Is social media changing the way fans view the game and their club? With the never-ending torrent of material passing into and out of our clubs, how are we handling an era of changed access to our favourite clubs and players? Rob Fletcher and Chris Lepkowski are glued to their phones.

It’s the end of history as the Football League as we knew it entered its final season before some of its biggest cubs would gallop off over the horizon and into the warm embrace of the Premier League. What a season it turned out to be too, a War of the Roses raging between Leeds and Manchester United at the top of the First Division. Liverpool have one last hurrah in the FA Cup but the seeds of gl...

Has Pep Guardiola’s incredible success imposed a tactical orthodoxy on the English game that sees too many teams trying to play the same way? Do we need a bit more originality, a little more of Jurgen Klopp’s chaos theory? Rob Fletcher and Dave Bowler look into the state of the game.

1990/91: where we went from Gazzamania after the World Cup to manic Gazza in the FA Cup final; where Arsenal’s near invincibles sent Liverpool to unravel; where a Mark Hughes strike set Manchester United on the way to Cup Winners’ Cup glory. For all this and more, join Rob Fletcher as he guides Steven Scragg and Alex Ireland through the season.

Gary Thacker continues to talk to the team about who they support. Why, best and worst moments, favourite players and those they’d like to forget plus the nuclear question: could you ever support anyone else? Rob Fletcher talks about life as a Middlesbrough fan in exile.

Is the expansion and commercialisation of club football harming the spirit of the international game? Rob Fletcher, Aidan Williams and Gary Thacker look at the future for international football, ask where it lies within our affections, and ask the eternal question: why does the national stadium have to be in London?

A final hurrah for Liverpool, a surprising challenge from Villa Park that earns Graham Taylor the England job, Rangers march on under Graeme Souness while stealing the signature of Mo Johnston from under Celtic’s nose, the outcome of the Taylor Report: the 1990s splutters into life, trying to create its own atmosphere.

It's been 50 years since Admiral took the football world by storm with the first of their range of kits that have become icons, from Leeds  to West Ham,  Coventry to Queen’s Park,  Spurs to Saudi and  the NASL to Hearts. There’s a magnificent new book out to celebrate half a century of reinventing football fashion. Theo Hamburger and John Devlin join Steven Scragg and Dave Bowler to revel in some...

A number of the game’s top players have said they are being worked into the ground and have threatened strike action if something isn’t done about it. Are they right, or are they really carrying as heavy a workload as they suggest? Is it a top four issue only? Is it actually their demands for bigger and bigger salaries that is the main driver of the expanding fixture list?

It’s the Doctor Who episode of our ongoing trawl through the footballing decades as, following his masterful hosting of the 70s and 80s series, Steven Scragg morphs seamlessly into Rob Fletcher, your master of ceremonies for the upcoming 90s pods. Get on board here.

In a new series, Gary Thacker quizzes the  team on the team they support. Why, best and worst moments, favourite players, those they’d like to forget, plus the nuclear question: could you ever support anyone else? Aidan Williams is first up with tales of a life in thrall to Newcastle United. Well, most of the time.

Does it matter who owns our football clubs? That’s a question that goes to the heart of what English football is for in the 21st century and for whose benefit it operates. Delving into the detail are Rob Fletcher (Middlesbrough), Gary Thacker (Chelsea) and Matthew Gibbs (Birmingham).

Has league position - and the large cheque that comes with it - become more important than winning a trophy? Should a club get the open top bus out for finishing 13th rather than for winning the League Cup? And is the gulf between what the fans want and what the club’s accountants want now at breaking point?

End Of An Era makes a welcome return as Steven Scragg and Dave Bowler mull over the final years of Alf Ramsey’s tenure with England, as his side went from wingless wonders to winless wonders. Where did it all go wrong? We delve into the detail.

A new series exploring issues in the game today. The Champions League is nearly upon us and it has taken on a slightly bewildering new format. The team try to pick their way through that and any potentially unintended consequences that might arise, as well as looking back at the summer transfer window and the murky world of FFP, PSR and other acronyms. We reckon only Birmingham  have got it sussed...

Over the course of a glittering career, Alan Kennedy won pretty much everything that there was to win during his time with Liverpool, but the closest he got to an FA Cup winners medal was in his time at Newcastle , who went all the way to the  final in 1974. Fifty years on, we spoke to Alan about a season of riots, tea dances and Tommy Smith.

Coming up to the 50th anniversary of Aston Villa’s 1975 League Cup win, the precursor to promotion from Division Two that season, Dave Bowler talks to Villa goalkeeper – and Worcestershire opening bowler – Jim Cumbes about that season.

President Javier Milei’s drive to deregulate football ownership in Argentina could mean a massive change in club ownership. What could this result in for some of the continent’s biggest clubs? Gary Thacker, Pete Watson and Matthew Gibbs explore the implications.

For fans of football kits, we are taking you to podcast heaven as TFT’s very own Alex Ireland talks us through his new book, Double Diamond: 100 Years of Umbro . Rob Fletcher and Steven Scragg are suitably attired as they quiz Alex on the company that is more synonymous with football’s greatest kits and biggest moments than any other kit manufacturer. 

The football season is nearly upon us and that means we’ll fairly shortly be putting the league on hold for an international break. With that in mind, under the chairmanship of Gary Thacker, Chris Lepkowski, Dr David Turner and Dave Bowler reflect on Gareth Southgate’s tenure as England, debate the qualities his successor will need, and run the rule over the early favourites for the job.