Football Ruined My Life

Every year at this time we ensure that we have a postbag of your emails to spread joy and happiness among the growing Football Ruined My Life community.  We encourage you to write to us every week and you do so in comforting numbers.  Once again the tone is almost entirely positive with people wanting to contribute their own memories to the topic they’ve just listened to or correcting our very fallible memories.  We look forward to these occasional episodes because it enables us to connect with our audience.  And we’re very grateful that you take the time and trouble to write even if only because it reassures us that we’re talking about the topics which you think and talk about.  But also it’s a comfort to know that at least we’re not just talking to ourselves.  So a merry festive season and a happy new year to one and all and do keep those emails pouring in.  There’ll be another postbag in a couple of months. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Following on from the last episode (the special on FIFA and their Peace Prize that was awarded to Donald Trump), this week Jon Holmes, Andy Hamilton and Colin Shindler ask themselves the question: “Is the game more or less exciting than it was when we first started watching football in the late 1950s/early 1960s?” It certainly seems to be more exciting to judge by the hysterical radio and television commentators and the ludicrous goal celebrations we have to suffer. Back in the day a goalscorer might have his hand shaken, his hair ruffled and on occasion his bottom fondled, albeit very briefly. Of course, what appears hysterical to fans of mature years might not appear so to someone fifty years younger. The game has grown, Premier League grounds are full, players are faster and more skilful. Surely that means that the game is more exciting. Listen and find out… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is a shorter but very special edition of Football Ruined My Life. It was recorded three days after the sickening and humiliating farrago of nonsense which was the draw for the 2026 World Cup. It contained, of course, the sickening sight of a convicted felon being awarded a Peace Prize. The sheer inanity of the exercise made it entirely nonsensical. Within minutes of the draw starting, our producer Paul Kobrak, messaged Jon and Colin saying he was sickened by the spectacle that was unfolding on television. Jon was feeling exactly the same and we jointly wondered how the game we have all loved for almost the entire duration of our lives could possibly have sunk so low. The reason we all fell in love with with game of football was because it appealed to our better instincts of joy and romance. Football can give you those feelings.  But that football has gone and if we needed confirmation then FIFA’s lunacy was the proof.   As football fans we have the right to howl in protest. Let us know if you were also howling. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode Colin Shindler and Jim White are delighted to welcome one of the few Economics graduates to play for England and manage successfully in the Premier League.  Steve Coppell’s potential career as an economist was somewhat overshadowed by 360 games as a right winger for Tranmere Rovers and Manchester United, despite being forced to retire at the age of 28 because of a bad knee injury. Incidentally he also had a subsequent career of over a thousand games as a highly successful manager of a number of clubs but principally Crystal Palace and Reading. Now at the age of 70 he has the perspective to compare football when he played and managed with the game as it is played and managed today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The panel discuss the players they most feared because they were really good players and always played well against their own team... or players who were basically hatchet men who set out cold-bloodedly to injure their best player.  When we talked about goalkeepers Pat Jennings came into the former category and you have to say nobody could dislike Pat who always seemed such a pleasant self-effacing bloke – unless you were trying to score past him. Don Revie’s Leeds United on the other hand were both feared and disliked. Various teams of course have made us wonder whether there is any point in turning up to watch the inevitable defeat – Liverpool in the 80s, Manchester United from 1994 for the next two decades, perhaps Guardiola’s Manchester City from a few years ago. Do memories of Ron Harris, Peter Storey, Norman Hunter etc. evoke the warm glow of nostalgia? Andy Hamilton, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler fight it out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices