Show Notes
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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More from Football Ruined My Life
In this episode Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes talk to the author Dave Tomlinson about his book Doing A Leeds. Even by the standards of traditional football chaos, what happened to Leeds United between 1996 and 2005 constituted a financial, football and psychological roller coaster. The Elland Road club ascended at breathtaking pace to the Champions League semi-finals and plunged almost immediately into a nightmare of bankruptcy, relegation and a fire sale of the outstanding players who had got them onto the top table of Premier League and European football. David O’Leary seemed to be the manager of the future, he and chairman Peter Ridsdale forming a winning team before the latter abruptly sacked the former and was then ejected from the board he had been running. Plenty for both panel and listeners to get stuck into – like a Norman Hunter tackle.
Since we’ve had two weeks off from the Premier League (and the Championship) in order to wallow in beating up Croatia and the Czech Republic as well as losing (as is our tradition) to Spain, we thought you might like to hear again the familiar, engaging voice of Patrick Barclay who took strong exception to Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler as they dismissed the Nations League as a sop to the demands of television and the financial greed of UEFA. Listen to Paddy as he berates the other two who are nostalgic for 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.
In this edition, Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Jimmy Mulville are talking about one particular phrase and its meaning within football. Never Go Back is a particularly poignant phrase for two of the panel when it’s used to refer to two of their heroes - Malcolm Allison and Howard Kendall. The other name which crops up immediately in the conversation is Kevin Keegan who went back to Newcastle when it was owned by Mike Ashley and left quickly when he realised that it wasn’t the same club he had managed a decade earlier under the more benevolent patronage of Sir John Hall. It applies to players too – players who had achieved great things at one club return to the same place at the end of their careers to find they simply cannot reproduce the magic of those early years. For Colin the phrase also evokes the sad memory of his old City hero Francis Lee returning to Maine Road with the club in the doldrums in the 1990s only to be driven from the chairman’s office by the fury and yes, the hatred of those supporters who had once been his greatest fans. All supporters will have their own nominations for this topic.
In a change to our usual podcast, we bring you a special edition of Football Ruins My Life in which we consider the leak at the end of last week that Manchester City have apparently been found guilty on 114 of the 115 alleged breaches of Premier League rules. Not so much a discussion as a series of opinion pieces offered by Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Jim White. Very much from the heart, as well as the head. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices