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 superiority of either the long ball tactics favoured by Stan Cullis’s Wolves, Graham Taylor’s...

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 playing in the Central League or the Football Combination. As such spectators got to see old...

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 shows such as Have I Got News For You and Father Ted.  In this podcast he shares with the panel the...

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 many mavericks then?  Were there none before and none since then?  The Brains Trust scratches its...

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, Leeds won the League and Liverpool won the Cup after which both their managers left. Brian...

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 thoroughly satisfying gluten free edition of Football Ruined My Life try the new improved Delia Smith...

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 half as the bulwark of the defence.  Paddy Barclay, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler discuss the...

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 in turn are quick to proffer thanks to the writers, even those who take pleasure in correcting...

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.  Amongst a host of amusing and revealing anecdotes, he tells us about how he orchestrated the infamous...

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. Why then do football writers and supporters have such a respect for those teams? Colin Shindler,...

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 for a look at the football he watched on our behalf and told us about in such clear and...

He has frequently been referred to as “the bastard in the black”. One person with a whistle can arouse more enmity than the worst tackle on a football field. We feel that their only purpose is to give decisions in our favour. If they give a decision or worse a goal against us they are obviously stupid, blind and arguably corrupt. Now of course we have VAR, so we don’t have to worry about the referee’s decisions on the field any more. Or do we? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

Jon Holmes, Paddy Barclay and Colin Shindler explore the impact of nature and nurture on footballers from the same family.  Is it genetic inheritance or environmental factors that accounts for the remarkable number of fraternal and father-son relationships in football over the decades?  From the famous Charltons to the Schmeichels, from the forgotten Rowley brothers to the Redknapps, the Cloughs and the Summerbees the numerous examples of this fascinating phenomenon sends the conversation far...

Jon Holmes, Paddy Barclay and Colin Shindler meet Gordon Milne who had a fascinating and long career in football.  He was a player with Tom Finney at Preston, a key part of Bill Shankly’s first great Liverpool side and later manager of Jimmy Hill's Coventry City and Jon’s beloved Leicester before moving abroad and winning three successive league titles for Besiktas in Turkey.  Now approaching his 87th birthday Gordon Milne has total recall of that career and tells stories of players and clubs...

West Ham won the Cup in 1964, the European Cup Winners Cup in 1965 and, according to Alf Garnett, the World Cup in 1966. They were a stylish, attractive and at the time a victorious team in those mid 1960s but they never kicked on and those three World Cup heroes eventually left Upton Park in a disappointing anti-climax, not having won anything else at club level. For years though they were everyone’s second favourite team. Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Patrick Barclay try to explain that...

Colin and Paddy attempt to make Jon feel better about the Midlands trophy desert. Looking at the Football League’s checkered history over the 135 years of its existence you can’t but be aware that the Midlands hasn’t pulled its weight.  Half of the founder members of the Football League were Midlands clubs so there seems to be no logical reason why the whole of the Midlands has won so much less than those clubs from the one county of Lancashire.  Jon attempts a spirited defence of his...

Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Patrick Barclay wonder whether the concept of sportsmanship has vanished from the game. We all remember that famous photograph of Bobby Moore and Pele exchanging sweat soaked shirts after their titanic struggle in Guadalajara in the 1970 World Cup group match. It was iconic because it symbolised and personified the concept. But is that sort of behaviour still around in today’s world of football? Or are the three septuagenarians simply on an epic journey of...

Back in the dim and distant past of our youth, the coverage of football on television was minimal and we instinctively turned to local and national newspapers for the latest information and analysis on the game and our favourite club. In subsequent years, and particularly since the emergence of Sky Sports in 1992, we have all seen the decline of the print journalist and the seemingly unstoppable rise of the tv pundit. Patrick Barclay bemoans the decline, Jon Holmes revels in the power of TV...

It’s everywhere. There’s at least one match on television every day, up to half a dozen over the weekend. The newspapers that used to devote a page to football now devote three. Radio5 Live exists, like Sky Sports, to broadcast football to the people who clearly want it. But, the panel ask themselves, is this media domination a good thing for the game and its supporters?  If less is more would they really swap life in today's saturated market for the rationed football coverage in the...

Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Patrick Barclay are joined by a long-standing Chelsea fan – the writer and broadcaster Andy Hamilton – to discuss his lifetime of support since the late 1950s. He shares his frustration that some of the less attractive developments in modern football have significantly diminished his passion for the club although, like the panellists, he remains dedicated to the game itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the first year of Football Ruined My Life draws to a close, the panel read out a selection of their favourite emails which have been received from listeners all over the world. They include trenchant observations on the panellists’ manifold failings as well as the writers’ childhood reminiscences and their reaction to the podcasts they’ve heard as well as suggestions for future subjects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It was a most remarkable year.  It started with the Big Freeze, ended with the assassination of President Kennedy and included the emergence of the Beatles and the Profumo Affair. On the football field (as soon as the ice melted in April) it was equally notable with Alf Ramsey’s first game in charge of England, Leicester City missing out on the Double (sorry, Jon), Manchester United winning the Cup but just avoiding relegation (sorry, Colin). And off the field, it the famous Eastham case...

The former Chairman of the FA, David Bernstein, joins Colin, Paddy and Jon for an honest discussion on the failings of governance in football. He tells of how his attempts at reform of the FA were constantly thwarted and how the FA lost any battle they tried to fight against the overwhelming power of the big clubs once they had divested themselves of the old Football League. The discussion ranges from the days of Alan Hardaker and the great figurehead for thirty years, Sir Stanley Rous, to...

It is the moment every footballer dreads – the day when he finally accepts that his career on the field is over. Jon tells Patrick and Colin that even those who have made a spectacular success of life after football like Gary Lineker can never recreate the joy of scoring a goal. Retirement is supposed to be much better for players these days because of the money they have earned during their careers and the plans put in place by their clubs. But is it? And what happened during retirement...