Following on from our series on the 1980s, we’ve one final visit to the decade as Chris Lepkowski, Aidan Williams and Stu Horsfield offer their choice of the goalkeeper, defender, midfielder, striker and manager who should be chiselled onto the decade’s Mount Rushmore. Gary Thacker attempts to retain some semblance of order.

A striker unearthed at lastminute.com, Robbie Savage writhing in agony, the winning manager watching the last few minutes of the game on TV in a cupboard, all human life is here in this FA Cup quarter-final at Filbert Street as Leicester, fourth in the Premier League, succumbed to third tier Wycombe.  Helping guide the regular team through the carnage is Gary Silke, co-author of the Got Not Got series and a lifelong Leicester fan. He can laugh about it now. Nearly…

Phil Harrison joins us in the Centre Circle to talk us through some shadowy tales of footballing life in Albania, all captured in his excellent new book, Inside The Hermit Kingdom.

And so the 1980s odyssey ends with a tumultuous season. We pay our respects to the Hillsborough disaster, with further podcasts to come on that subject, but this ONE concentrates on the football. Liverpool come through the tragedy to beat Everton in the FA Cup final, but a second double of the decade eludes them when it’s all up for grabs in one final game at Anfield AS Arsenal snatch the title from them. Brian Clough wins one more trophy with Nottingham Forest, while Chelsea and Manchester...

We move into the 21st century with this tie, and find that it was easier to remember the 1970s. Nonetheless, rediscovering the day that Conference side Lincoln City went to Turf Moor and upset Sean Dyche and his Burnley team is a joy - unless you’re a Burnley fan. A year when the Cowleys burst onto the national scene as a management team, setting down the foundations that have since seen Lincoln re-establish themselves in League One, while for Burnley, taking the cup seriously was still no...

After surrendering their title to Everton, Liverpool come storming back, fuelled by John Barnes, Peter Beardsley and John Aldridge. A second league and cup double in three years seems inevitable but at Wembley, Dave Beasant saves a penalty and Wimbledon carry off the FA Cup after just 11 seasons in the Football League.  Elsewhere, Luton  stun Arsenal with a late comeback to win the League Cup, Chelsea collapse from title contenders to relegation fodder and on Tyneside, samba-style football...

1986/87: in the Mersey Wars trilogy, we’re up to Everton Strike Back as Howard Kendall’s side regain the league title. Keith Houchen ensures he will be forever frozen in time with that diving header in the FA Cup final as Coventry win the trophy and disappoint a Spurs side that promise so much but end up empty handed, despite Clive Allen’s 49 goals. In Scotland, Graeme Souness starts his Rangers revolution, while Aberdeen lose their manager as Alexander Chapman Ferguson trades Pittodrie for...

The team mark the sad passing of Stan Bowles with a tribute to the man who illuminated Loftus Road, fell out with Malcolm Allison and Brian Clough, and who should surely have won more than just five England caps. A wonderful maverick.

A season that began in the shadow of Bradford and Heysel, with a blackout of TV coverage and the implications of the European ban, 1985/86 emerged as a campaign full of highlights. In the title race, Manchester United started like a train and ended like a rag and bone cart, West Ham couldn’t quite come through on the rails, Everton long looked like champions, but, in the end, it was Liverpool who won the title. Of course they did, this was the 1980s. But did they have to win the double as...

Wrexham might have their own TV show, but the greatest League Two season of the 21st century surely belongs to Bradford City. The 2012/13 campaign saw them make two visits to Wembley, becoming the first fourth tier team to play there in one of the senior cup competitions, before returning to do battle in the playoffs.  It’s a ripping yarn that would make Barnstoneworth United proud, and City Gent editor Mike Harrison is here to tell it in the company of Scragg S. and Bowler D.

With football still reeling from the tragedy of the Bradford fire at Valley Parade, just 18 days later, on 29 May 1985, came the Heysel Stadium disaster at the European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus. Some 39 people, mostly Juventus fans, were killed and around 600 injured when a wall collapsed. Liverpool supporter Chris Rowland was there, and he later wrote his own account of those events, From Where I Was Standing. He joins Steven Scragg to discuss the tragedy, its causes and...

Join us in the Centre Circle as we talk to author Gary Thacker about his latest book, O Jogo Bonito, focusing on the great Brazil team that won the 1970 World Cup. It’s a glorious tale of the events that led to the competition, the triumph itself, and what happened afterwards.

11 May 1985, Bradford v Lincoln. It should have been one of the most joyous days in the history of Bradford City, as they celebrated winning the Third Division at a canter. Instead, a fire in the Main Stand turned it into a day of tragedy, with 56 spectators  killed and at least 265 injured. Mike Harrison, editor of the legendary City Gent fanzine, was at that game and he joins Steven Scragg to discuss the causes of the fire, the events of the day itself and the legacy that it has left.

With England beleaguered by the wintry weather, non-league Blyth Spartans made two abortive trips to Stoke's Victoria Ground to get their FA Cup game played. Eventually, it was third time lucky as the collection of coalminers, sales reps and schoolteachers sprung one of the competition’s greatest ever shocks. Let Steven Scragg, Bill Hern and Dave Bowler take you back to the days when FA Cup ties were all about blood, thunder and all the bedroom furniture you could eat.

A season of agony and ecstasy with tragedies unfolding at Bradford and Heysel, both the subjects of separate podcasts in this series. We concentrate on the on-pitch issues in this one, Howard Kendall’s Everton emerging to take Liverpool’s crown from them, winning the Cup Winners’ Cup too and coming within a whisker of becoming the 20th century’s third double winners, beaten in the FA Cup final by Manchester United. There’s a League Cup win - and relegation - for Norwich, Oxford replace them...

With the announcement of Jürgen Klopp’s impending departure from Liverpool at season’s end, this week’s podcast concentrates on the job he’s done at Anfield, the moments that will live long in the memory, and the legacy that he will leave.

The midway point in our series, and not much changes as Liverpool win a third straight First Division title and a fourth League Cup in a row. But a new, blue presence is emerging at the bottom of Stanley Park with Everton reaching Wembley twice and carrying off the FA Cup, a portent of what is to come. Spurs win the UEFA Cup before Keith Burkinshaw walks out on them having had a visitation from the Ghost of Football Future, while Nottingham Forest miss out on that final courtesy of a brown...

The greatest FA Cup game of all time according to many, Hereford’s third-round replay win over Newcastle in 1972 helped build the iconography of the FA Cup in the television era. Locked out fans climbing trees and floodlit pylons to watch, kids sitting behind the goal on hay bales, the pitch invaded three times by a tribe of snorkel parka wearers, Malcolm MacDonald missing sitters and that goal from Ronnie Radford. What more could you ask for? The mighty Keith Hall of the Talking Bull...

In the past, the European powers mercilessly exploited South America for its raw materials, making them wealthier and locking the indigenous people of the continent into poverty. Is there a similar trend developing with ever younger players being taken away from South America to the rich clubs of Europe?

As Ron Atkinson would have doubtless said, it was a case of déjà vu all over again in 1982/83, with Liverpool romping to the league title and retaining the League Cup. But there was change elsewhere, with Tottenham’s iron grip on the FA Cup finally released, Big Ron  getting his hands on a trophy, much to the delight of Gerald Ratner. Graham Taylor’s Watford blitzkrieged their way to second place in their first ever crack at the First Division while Manchester City get relegated and David...