When Football Ruined My Life started back at the beginning of 2023 it was the new podcast about old football.
In it, distinguished football journalist Patrick Barclay joined with Colin Shindler, author of the best selling Manchester United Ruined My Life, and the Super Agent Jon Holmes (think Gary Lineker, Peter Shilton, Tony Woodcock etc.) to talk about football as it used to be in the days before the invention of the Premier League.
For over 80 weekly episodes, the podcast viewed those days fondly - though not uncritically - in comparison to today's game, which it views critically though not unfondly. And it welcomed everyone who wants to remember Jimmy Greaves and Bobby Charlton, Brian Clough and Bill Shankly and the days when you went to a Football League ground to watch your football and didn't wait for it to arrive on television.
After the tragic and untimely death of Paddy Barclay in February 2025, Football Ruined My Life took a break to consider how (and if) to carry on.
In May 2025 it has returned, with a panel of stars to make irregular appearances to join the regulars, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler. These now include writer and producer Andy Hamilton, television executive Jimmy Mulville, the sports journalist and columnist for the Daily Telegraph Jim White and stand-up comedian Omid Djalili.
But the feel and raison d'être of Football Ruined My Life remains the same. Still nostalgic? Yes. Still well informed? Certainly. But above all, it continues to glory in the football of our youth when the game seemed charmingly innocent, full of skillful, good hearted, kindly men like Norman Hunter, Ron Harris and Peter Storey.
Join us every week for a romp through the 1960s, 70s, 80s and beyond that will warm you like a cup of scalding hot Bovril.
Produced by Paul Kobrak.
Contact the team at footballruinedmylife@gmail.com
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Données mises à jour le 29/09/2026
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There is an initial resistance by the panel to the question: can you build a team around one player? The instinctive response is one of scorn and derision – I mean how do you build a team around Peter Shilton? But then the World Cup arrived and along came Messi to suggest that this was a perfectly viable topic, particularly as his performances aroused our memories of Maradona in Mexico in 1986. Frequently we read of managers attempting to lure a very good player to a new club with the promise of building a team around him. That must sound very enticing to an easily influenced if talented young player, but does it mean that the said manager is going to sign inferior players so that the sun at the centre of his future universe will shine more brightly? So how do you successfully build a team around one player? Colin Shindler, Jim White and Jon Holmes discuss.
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149. The One About Jimmy Hill
vendredi 18 septembre 2026 • Durée 39:04
This week Jon Holmes, Colin Shindler and Jim White are talking about one particular player – and one manager and one club director and one club chairman and one trade union official and one television executive and one presenter and one analyst and famously on one occasion, one linesman... none other than the Bearded Wonder that was Jimmy Hill. That simple list of his achievements and the different roles he played within football indicate what a unique individual he was. It’s regrettable that in later life he became something of a caricature and a figure who could be easily mocked with his pointed chin and his cross of St. George earrings. Yet no single figure made a bigger impact on English football in the second half of the twentieth century than Jimmy Hill. It was Hill who suggested three points for a win which stopped both teams playing
for a draw twenty minutes from time. He never received the honours that his innovations merited and his final years suffering from dementia made for a sad end which Football Ruined My Life is determined to correct.
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148. The One with Steve Walsh
vendredi 11 septembre 2026 • Durée 44:25
There are times when the panel like to turn the spotlight on those men who do incalculable good work behind the scenes of a football club but remain largely anonymous. Such a hero is Steve Walsh who for many years has performed the job of Head of Recruitment, most famously at Leicester City where he spotted and brought to the club Jamie Vardy, N’Golo Kante and Riyad Mahrez who between them were the spine of the team that won the Premier League in 2016 and cost the equivalent of what it would cost to take a finger nail from Erling Haaland on loan. In a fascinating behind the scenes look at how clubs sign players these days, Steve compares what happens now with what happened when he started out as a scout. The difference in the money is of course breathtaking but also the extraordinary scouting network over which a Head of Recruitment presides. No longer does manager have to travel midweek to watch a player in the Scottish Second Division but a combination of a world wide scouting network and endless footage captured by cameras in every league in every country provides the information on which millions of pounds can be spent without the manager ever seeing the player in action until he arrives at the club. No arguments this week but a series of fascinating revelations.
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147. Which Players From The Pre-1992 Era Would Be Stars In Today’s Football?
vendredi 4 septembre 2026 • Durée 48:11
In this episode Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Andy Hamilton set out to annoy everyone with a discussion of which players from the pre-1992 era – the year when the world of English football changed with the arrival of Sky Sports and the Premier League – would have been stars in today’s
football. It is arguable that great players will always be great players whatever era they play in and this discussion is therefore entirely pointless, but it is impossible to set a topic for three football enthusiasts without an inevitable disagreement. We can only hope that these points of disagreement don’t lead to tempers being raised to be followed by verbal fisticuffs if such an interesting oxymoron can be said to exist. To see
if Colin, Jon and Andy turn into the Argentina players at the end of the recent World Cup Final tune in to this podcast.
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146. Can An Ex-Player Ever Make A Successful Owner?
vendredi 28 août 2026 • Durée 43:16
This week Jimmy Mulville, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler examine ex-players who become owners. It used to be that players saw how managers behaved and thought they could do better when they retired. Now with the increase in players’ affluence, they have seen how the clubs they played for were run and have decided that they could do it as well, if not better. This philosophy underlay the actions of Derek Dougan at Wolves, Francis Lee at Manchester City and a man who remains perhaps the biggest enigma. Terry Venables, after a distinguished playing and managerial career, was desperate to take the last big step into ownership and decided to partner Alan Sugar when they took over Tottenham Hotspur from Irving Scholar in the 1990s. Well, we all know what happened then but is it ever possible for an ex-player to buy, own and then successfully run a football club? And do fans want such an owner or
would they prefer to stick to Middle Eastern nation states and American hedge fund managers? Tune in and find out.
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145. Don Revie’s England
vendredi 21 août 2026 • Durée 47:04
In 1974, Leeds United won the First Division by five points, transforming themselves from the ugly side known as Dirty Leeds. It was Don Revie’s greatest triumph as a club manager. At the end of that 1973-4 season Alf Ramsey was sacked. Don Revie was his obvious successor as the FA had no intention of ever appointing Brian Clough. In March 1975 England beat Germany at Wembley with a standout performance from Alan Hudson. The press was ecstatic as England ended the season three points clear at the top of their qualifying group for the following year’s Euros. Just two years later Revie resigned before he was sacked and went to manage the UAE team for a lot of money for which he was widely reviled. His time as England’s manager is pointed to as England’s nadir. Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Jim White discuss how things went so wrong so fast for Revie’s England?
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144. The Return of Football Ruined My Life
vendredi 7 août 2026 • Durée 03:19
After a long hot summer, Colin Shindler welcomes back our favourite football podcast with the start of what will be our 5th series. And it begins on the same day as the Premier League season kicks off - Friday 21st August, with a special (they're all special) look at England under the stewardship of Don Revie.
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143. The One With Duncan Hamilton - 1966 And All That
vendredi 29 mai 2026 • Durée 43:17
In our last edition before the World Cup break, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes are joined by the distinguished author and journalist Duncan Hamilton. Duncan has written almost twenty books on various aspects of football and cricket including three William Sports Book of the Year winners. Among those twenty are biographies of George Best, Harold Larwood and Neville Cardus, a fascinating portrait of Brian Clough called Provided You Don’t Kiss Me and his latest Answered Prayers about Alf Ramsey and the winning of the World Cup. You would think that there was
nothing left to say about 1966 but by concentrating on the rather tortured
character of Alf Ramsey, Duncan makes us relive that whole experience with fresh insight. In particular Duncan promotes the importance in Alf’s life of the Spurs manager Arthur Rowe, the now almost forgotten manager of the Tottenham Hotspur side that won the League Championship in the 1950-51 season. His tactics came to be called “push and run” and in Alf Ramsey, Rowe found a willing student. To discover all sorts of fascinating details about Alf and the 1966 World Cup triumph download the latest podcast.
And just to re-iterate: Colin, Jon and their indefatigable producer, Paul, are arriving at the World Cup like all the players – utterly knackered. In order to recharge the batteries, they will have a close season where they will not be found drunk and disorderly in a nightclub in Ibiza. Instead, they will be back bright eyed and bushy-tailed for the new season towards the end of August. If you really can’t wait till then and you want to see them all in operation you will be able to find them at the Nevill Holt Festival in the glorious Leicestershire countryside near Market Harborough at 4.45pm on Saturday 13 June.
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142. Team of the 1980s (with Steve Coppell)
vendredi 22 mai 2026 • Durée 44:17
Today we’ll be following on our discussion of football in the 1980s with an entirely self-indulgent session of selecting the team of that decade. To help Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler to do so they are delighted to be able to call on the services of Steve Coppell, a man who was playing for Manchester United and England at the start of the decade and at the end of it was the manager of Crystal Palace. It’s hard to think of anyone better suited to evaluating the talents and characters of the players of that decade. There have been two previous podcasts on teams of the 1960s and 1970s so we can usually rely on Jon to supply the goalkeeper, the position awarded in the 1960s to Gordon Banks and in the 1970s to Peter Shilton - except that now a new rule is in operation. Like Wisden’s Five Cricketers of the Year, no player can be selected more than once so what is Jon going to do now that he can’t start off his team with his client Peter Shilton again? Listen and you’ll find out…
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141. Football in the 1980s
vendredi 15 mai 2026 • Durée 50:15
In this podcast episode Jim White, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes turn their attention to one of the darkest decades in recent football history - the 1980s. It wasn’t all bad. We got to the quarter finals of the World Cup in 1986 and were unlucky to lose to a goal punched past Shilton by the Hand of
God. We had a fascinating rivalry at the top of the game between the two sides based in Liverpool one of whom was not Tranmere Rovers. Three different English sides won the European Cup between 1980 and when we were banned from Europe after Heysel. However, if you look at the crowds during the decade there was a steep decline. The hooliganism was bad and getting worse, the government hated the game and everything to do with it and television was accordingly losing interest. The decade was the last chapter of the game as it had traditionally been played in this
country and it culminated in one of the great finishes to the League Championship as Arsenal won at Anfield. Tragically
too, it was the decade of Bradford fire and the Hillsborough disaster when 96 innocent people died needlessly. What
are your feelings about football in the Eighties?
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