Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes, Paul Kobrak (and the late Patrick Barclay)
103 episodes
4 days ago
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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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
We all know that that’s what the foreign owners want. Omid Djalili, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler discuss the reasons why we shouldn’t just wave bye bye to the top six elite clubs in the Premier League and let them all just bugger off and join what nearly every football supporter fears will be the inevitable European Super League. For them there would then be no fear of relegation but instead there would be trips to Milan, Madrid, Rome, Munich, Paris and Barcelona every other week instead of down the M3 and
the M27 to Southampton or up the M1 to Sheffield and Leeds… or even worse up the M65 to Burnley. We don’t suppose in the boardrooms of New York and Paris they look forward to being asked “Hello Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, how did you find the meat pies at Turf Moor last week?” But if they did leave, as they clearly want to, where would that leave the rest of English football?
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This is a particularly emotive topic. Do we on this podcast give too much
credit to the football of our youth and not enough to the Modern Game? We probably do – some might even argue it’s not the football of our youth we want back but our youth itself. And they could be right. Who wouldn’t want to be 20 years old again with a body that actually worked properly? But one reason Colin Shindler, Jim White and Jon Holmes are always happy to talk endlessly about football in the 1960s and 1970s in particular is that there’s a distressing tendency of modern football journalists and pundits to ignore the history of those years in favour of what appears to be an obsession with this week’s football or last week’s
football. Football talk in the media only confirms the misguided prejudice that the game began in 1992. We beg to differ.
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We can imagine no better way of celebrating our century of podcasts than by dipping into the postbag containing your emails. Every week we encourage you to write to us and you do so in comforting numbers. Once again, the tone is largely 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 - if only because it reassures us that we’re talking about the topics which you think and
talk about. Also, it’s a comfort to know that at least we’re not just talking to ourselves. With a rare appearance of producer, Paul Kobrak, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler begin of course with your generous tributes to our late friend and colleague Patrick Barclay.
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Prompted by reports of the last men’s game to be played by Everton at Goodison Park, the panel discuss the emotions that fans feel when they leave their traditional home for pastures new – the nostalgia for times past and the excitement mixed with some trepidation at what lies ahead. Jon and Colin have experienced this sensation as Filbert Street and Maine Road closed their doors for the last time and now the Old Evertonian Jimmy Mulville joins them to discuss this particular phenomenon. As football grounds modernise it is an emotion likely to be shared by the majority of football supporters across the land. Football is a game heavily influenced by tradition. How does a new ground manage the emotional response of supporters to a new stadium?
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Was 1985 English football’s darkest year? There could be a number of nominations for this much coveted title but 1985 contained the tragedies of Heysel Stadium and the Bradford City fire. Weeks before these events the sixth round FA Cup replay between Luton Town and Millwall degenerated into a shocking riot. The average attendance at a Division One match in 1972 had been over 30,000. By 1985 that had slumped to just 18,374. No British team had qualified for the Euros in France in 1984 so no British television channel bothered to cover it, so low was the interest in the game. Football in 1985 said the Sunday Times was a slum sport played in slum stadiums and increasingly watched by slum people. Jim
White, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes discuss whether or not that withering verdict was justified.
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David Pleat has been in football so long that most supporters have forgotten that he started out as a player for Nottingham Forest, Luton and Shrewsbury Towns, Exeter City and Peterborough United. He has been a sensible pundit on radio and television for many years following a successful managerial career at Luton Town, Tottenham Hotspur, Leicester City, Sheffield Wednesday and Nuneaton Borough. David has now published his very interesting autobiography Just One More Goal which
reveals just how dramatically the game has changed since he began his life in football when Harold Macmillan was still the Prime Minister.
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Andy Hamilton returns to join Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes as they discuss the contentious subject of football pundits. By pundits, they mean those know-it-alls who are either very wise after the event, are outstanding at stating the bleeding obvious or are as clueless as the rest of us when it comes to predicting the future. Yet somehow, they have become increasingly important in the broadcasting of football on radio and particularly television. Indeed the BBC Director General, guided by the new BBC Head of Sport, recently told us that audiences would prefer to listen to the pundits rather than watch the highlights of the match. Contentious? We should say so. In the days of Kenneth Wolstenholme and David Coleman, John Motson and Barry Davies there were very few pundits besides Jimmy Hill and we related largely to those commentators unless there was a World Cup panel. Why have the pundits become so
important in recent years?
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This week Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler are joined by Omid Djalili to ask the question, “How English is the English football pyramid?” Of course, football reflects society and since we all began watching football, British society has changed out of all recognition. If you look at old football matches on The Big Match Revisited on ITV4 on Saturday mornings and other archive film programs you can see how different it was 40 years also ago and how widely British society has changed since then - not just off the field but also on the field. There is no question that many of the imports into the game from the rest of the world have been a blessing, not least skilful players who have added to the pleasure of the crowds who went to watch them. However, the sheer number of players playing in the English football game who are not English, Welsh, Scottish or Irish might be to some a cause of concern. The idea of the one club man who spent his entire career with his local club has passed into History. Is the globalisation of the game something to celebrate or regret?
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Jim White returns to contribute to the last in our series of podcasts about the England managers which takes the panel from Sven to Thomas Tuchel and the glories that lie ahead for the England football team - which is usually a reminder that they haven’t won anything since 1966. In the name of Allah go, they said to Bobby Robson. Yanks 2 Planks 0 the Sun helpfully pointed out to Graham Taylor. We know that the press, not just The Sun, can be very hostile and extremely rude to England managers. Are the national managers judged by a different yardstick from ordinary club managers? Are the press just waiting for England managers to fail so they can pile in on them? Jim White tries to defend his profession.
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In this edition of the podcast, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes are joined by Andy Hamilton to talk in a very headmasterly tone about Onfield Behaviour which quite frankly is bringing the good name of the Football Ruined My Life school into disgrace. In a Champions League quarter final this season two Real Madrid boys in the Lower Sixth, Rudiger and Mbappe, were shown on television after a fortunate win over their rival boys school Atletico Madrid making obscene gestures. Rudiger was appearing to make a throat-slitting motion, apparently towards the Atletico crowd, while Mbappe was shown seemingly making a crotch-grabbing gesture. Both boys then had to report to Mr Infantino’s study after Assembly where it would appear nothing at all happened to them. Government regulations unfortunately no longer permit Sir Stanley Rous to give both those boys a severe caning which would have happened in the more enlightened 1960s. Has onfield behaviour deteriorated so badly in recent years or does football simply reflect an increasing disregard for authority which can be seen in so many facets of society in the 21st century?
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We’re all fans. That’s why we make this podcast and that’s why presumably you all like listening to it. Fan sentiment is something we suspect we all feel strongly about but probably in our different ways. It’s not just foreign owners, ludicrous transfer fees, and (present company excepted) cynical agents taking money off both their clients and the clubs. Today’s panel (of Jon Holmes, Colin Shindler and Jimmy Mulville) consider how fans like all of us are being slowly alienated from the clubs to which we’ve given a lifetime of devotion. Colin even has sympathy for Manchester United fans who are appalled at the antics of their club since it became apparent that Jim Ratcliffe was not a knight on a white horse but a panic-stricken tax exile in a limousine trapped in a car park, surrounded by angry fans. We can’t help but accept that our clubs have to change, it’s inevitable but is it still our club? It’s a question we all ask ourselves, some with increasing anxiety.
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In the first podcast Football Ruined My Life has done since the untimely demise of Patrick Barclay, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler are joined by the Daily Telegraph sports columnist Jim White. Forced to restart the episode because the Producer had failed to press the record button first time round, eventually the panel turn to the “the poisoned chalice”. They consider the story from the sad night of defeat on penalties in Turin to the singularly appropriate day in 2000 when Kevin Keegan resigned the job in the toilets at Wembley Stadium after a 1-0 home defeat by Germany. In between came the nadir of Graham Taylor and the oh-so-nearly efforts of Terry Venables before Glenn Hoddle was defeated by the players’ decision to embrace his original tactics but reject his rather strange insistence on utilising the assistance of a faith healer called Eileen Drewery.
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It’s commonly known as “the poisoned chalice”. The only England manager to win the World Cup was Alf Ramsey in 1966. Nobody has done it since though a few have come close. In this, his last ever podcast, Patrick Barclay, along with Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler, analyses why that has been the case. Paddy and co. take the story from 1974 when Sir Alf was dismissed by the FA to the end of Bobby Robson’s unlucky regime after the defeat by Germany at Italia 90. Gazza cried, we all cried but we comforted ourselves with the thought that the next manager to try was Robson’s immediate replacement, Graham Taylor. It's unlikely that Paddy's wit and erudition was ever better displayed than in this, his last but triumphant farewell.
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This is the penultimate podcast in which Patrick Barclay appeared. In it the original Football Ruined My Life panel of Paddy, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler analyse the year 1968, as the latest in their periodic examinations of one particularly memorable year. In football terms 1968 was the year that Manchester United followed Celtic to become the first English club to win the European Cup but even that landmark occasion was only one of many. It was also the year of the Tet Offensive, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, the riots in Chicago, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia and the alliance between students and workers which brought France to a state of total paralysis. Two black American athletes held up a black gloved fist in support of Black Power during the medal ceremony at the Mexico Olympics and the anti-Vietnam war protest movement came to Grosvenor Square in London. West Bromwich Albion fans need not worry because we do not ignore their victory over Everton in the FA Cup Final or Manchester City’s triumph as they were crowned League Champions. A memorable year indeed.
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This is the first of the last three episodes recorded with Patrick Barclay. We are re-releasing the podcast he made with the original Football Ruined My Life team of Patrick Barclay, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler because it was previously published the day we heard of Paddy’s tragic death and we removed it out of respect as soon as we heard the news.
Stand-up comic Omid Djalili was born in Chelsea and has been a passionate and regular spectator at Stamford Bridge from an early age. Forced out of London by the impact of the pandemic, he re-appeared in Suffolk and became increasingly interested in the fortunes of what is now his nearest football club, Ipswich Town. In a predictably amusing podcast episode, Omid explains his new found interest in Ipswich Town but adds a variety of stories of growing up a Chelsea fan at the time of not only increasing violence amongst supporters and but also when to be of Middle Eastern origin was not a pathway to automatic acceptance, either by football crowds or by a British society growing increasingly intolerant of immigrants. As ever, Omid deals successfully with all problems through humour.
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Back in February, when we learnt about the tragic and shocking death of our friend and colleague, Patrick Barclay, we suspended the podcast and took time to consider if and how it can continue. Replacing Paddy is impossible; the breadth of his knowledge and his infectious (and mischievous) sense of humour made him unique. But here we announce our return with roster of stars who will make irregular appearances to join the regulars Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler. Also, we reveal a special week-long series of releases of the last episodes Paddy recorded with
Colin and Jon.
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It is with deep sadness that Jon, Paul and I have to tell you all that our friend and fellow podcast host Patrick Barclay died suddenly on the morning of 12 February. All of us and no doubt many of our listeners who responded to Paddy's cheery Scottish burr over the course of 80 or so episodes will have cause to feel his loss. Out of respect we have removed this week's edition. We are obviously talking among ourselves as to if and how the podcast can continue. For the moment we feel that a brief pause is the right approach to this deeply depressing and tragic news.
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This week the panel (and their producer) are bitterly divided on the contentious issue of the Nations League and its value compared to the old Home Internationals when England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland played with themselves. One side sees a desperation of the television companies and UEFA to ensure that no summer passes without an international tournament, leading to player burnout and spectator indifference. The other side sees a sensible arrangement that abolishes pointless friendlies, gives every match a purpose and ensures that the weaker sides play each other and are not just cannon fodder for the big boys. Fortunately, remote recording ensures that violence amongst members of the panel, though seemingly imminent, never requires police intervention.
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Twelve yards away, the keeper can’t move off his line until the ball is struck. How does anyone ever miss a penalty? Well, as we all know they do miss and frequently it’s crucial in a match. So it can be too for the award in the first place of a penalty for handball with no intent to handle by the defender and for fouls when the forward has cleverly tripped himself up but made it look like it’s a deliberate foul. Plenty for Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Patrick Barclay to get their collective teeth into here.
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A change of pace for Football Ruined My Life this week. In this podcast we’re looking back at football players and managers who died during 2024. Clearly we can only deal with a handful of the many who left us last year but what follows is the choice of Jon Holmes, Paddy Barclay and Colin Shindler as they discuss the lives and careers of the football men who meant something to them and whom they wish to honour in this brief tribute. Not so much a eulogy but a celebration… so still pretty upbeat.
That said, the episode ends with additional memories - of Denis Law, who died after the original episode was recorded and for whom we could not wait for an Obituary programme looking back at 2025.
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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
