Football Ruined My Life

• 116. Giant Killers

  Ronnie Radford was a workaday midfielder playing for such legendary clubs as Worcester City, Bath City and Forest Green Rovers but in January 1972 he was playing for Hereford United in an FA Cup third round replay at Edgar Street on a quagmire of a pitch in front of a capacity crowd. With less than ten minutes to go and Newcastle comfortably 1-0 ahead Radford won a tackle in the Newcastle half and played a one-two. The return pass bobbled on the muddy surface but sat up nicely for Radford, and he unleashed a 30-yard strike into the top corner that left Willie McFaul the Newcastle goalkeeper helpless. It sparked a pitch invasion, and the images of that muddy pitch, Radford celebrating with arms aloft and the crowd invading the pitch, have since become immortalised in FA Cup history. If ever there was a single goal which defined the glory of the giantkiller this was it. Jim White, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler wallow nostalgically, as ever, in their memories of similar giant killing acts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 115. International Breaks

  Now that England have already qualified for next year’s World Cup finals, this makes all the remaining matches in the group completely pointless from an England perspective.  The November international break seems to have arrived 25 minutes after the October one.  These tedious autumn and spring international breaks also extend the football season which now starts in the middle of the Test match series and ends as the following season’s Test match series begins. Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Jim White discuss, sometimes with a sense of rage and frustration, their feelings that the traditional rhythm of a football season is being disrupted by these irritating international breaks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 114. The Team of the 1960s

  In this episode, Andy Hamilton, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes resume their role as selectors as they choose the best team of the 1960s from the English Football League as it then was.  That’s not one individual club or national side but a team composed of the outstanding players of that decade in some sort of logical formation that would bring out the best of them both as individuals and as team players. Players like Tom Finney and Stanley Matthews are ineligible as their greatest days were in the 1940s and 1950s even if their careers continued into the 1960s.  Some of the selections will undoubtedly coincide with yours but some of them might surprise you so press play and start luxuriating in a nostalgic wallow through the days of our youths. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 113. Football in the 1960s

  Colin Shindler tries to convince Jon Holmes and Jimmy Mulville that the 1960s was English football’s most glorious decade.  Not just the world cup triumph of 1966, though that obviously features significantly at the heart of the decade.  Secondary school was dark, depressing and alienating.  Football by contrast was light, colourful and inclusive.  All it asked of you was to enjoy playing and supporting your team.  As a teenager in that decade, Colin had no wife or children to demand attention as they would in later years and in the 1960s football seemed to offer a cheap and readily available entertainment.  Of course, the decade also provided terrible pitches, small wages to most players even after the abolition of the £20 minimum wage, dilapidated grounds with no toilets and the danger of swaying on the terraces with those rolling crowds.  It can’t just be nostalgia that elevates football in the 1960s, can it? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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• 112. Short Lived Managers

  We all remember Brian Clough’s infamous 44 days as manager of Leeds United, a fractious period of time which compared favourably with Liz Truss’s time as Prime Minister of the UK - and of course the lettuce that lasted longer than either of them. Colin Shindler recalls with ghastly clarity Steve Coppell’s 33 days in charge of the disaster that was Manchester City in 1996.  Both these short-lived phenomena have been beaten very recently: not just by what last week with Ange Postecoglou’s departure from Nottingham Forest but also by what happened at the start of this season – the sacking of Erik Ten Hag after just three competitive matches in charge of Bayer Leverkeusen.  Jim White, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes speculate as to what on earth Bayer Leverkusen could possibly have found out about Ten Hag after three matches that they didn’t already know when they made the decision to hire him in the first place? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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