Best Colin Shindler Jon Holmes Paul Kobrak Podcasts (2025)

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102. Why Don’t the Top Six Just Bugger Off? 42:10

6d ago42:10

42:10

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 wo…

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101. Do We Give Too Much Credit to the Game of our Youth? 47:04

13d ago47:04

47:04

This is a particularly emotive topic. Do we on this podcast give too muchcredit 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 wor…

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100. Postbag 46:14

21d ago46:14

46:14

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…

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99. Leaving Grounds 50:04

28d ago50:04

50:04

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 a…

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98. 1985 46:50

1M ago46:50

46:50

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…

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97. The One With David Pleat 42:44

1M ago42:44

42:44

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…

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96. Pundits 44:00

2M ago44:00

44:00

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 hav…

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95. Is English football still recognisably English? 37:09

2M ago37:09

37:09

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 m…

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94. England Managers After Sir Alf Part 3 48:36

2M ago48:36

48:36

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 t…

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93. Onfield Behaviour 38:46

2M ago38:46

38:46

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 …

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92. Fan Sentiment 51:10

3M ago51:10

51:10

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 …

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91. England Managers After Sir Alf Part 2 50:18

3M ago50:18

50:18

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 chal…

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90. England Managers After Sir Alf Part 1 36:47

3M ago36:47

36:47

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 Al…

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89. 1968 40:48

3M ago40:48

40:48

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 f…

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88. The One With Omid Djalili (reposted episode) 48:15

3M ago48:15

48:15

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 new…

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The Return of Football Ruined My Life 4:46

3M ago4:46

4:46

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 r…

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Patrick Barclay 4:41

6M ago4:41

4:41

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 hav…

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86. Home Internationals vs. Nations' League 41:23

7M ago41:23

41:23

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 inte…

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85. Penalties 41:14

7M ago41:14

41:14

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 cleverl…

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84. Those We Have Lost In 2024 (and also remembering Denis Law) 47:40

7M ago47:40

47:40

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 footba…

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83. The One With Ian Storey-Moore 40:26

7M ago40:26

40:26

The prolific goal-scoring winger Ian Storey-Moore turns 80 on the day this episode was published... and Football Ruined My Life has chosen to mark the occasion by giving him the greatest present a footballer of the 1960s and 1970s could possibly want - a guest appearance on the podcast with Paddy Barclay, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler. A star forwa…

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82. Centre forwards vs False 9s 48:51

7M ago48:51

48:51

Real centre forwards were old fashioned battering rams like Nat Lofthouse, Ted Drake of the great Arsenal side of the 1930s and Bobby Smith the rampaging leader of the Spurs double winning attack. As football has become more skilful, they have largely been replaced by False 9s as they are now called or deep-lying centre forwards as they were in the…

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81. The One With Michael Rosen 50:30

8M ago50:30

50:30

He’s a well-known and much liked voice on Radio 4’s Word of Mouth programme as well as Professor of Children’s Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London. But Michael Rosen is this week’s guest on Football Ruined My Life because he is a genuine Gooner - as visitors to the Emirates Stadium can see when they observe him depicted on the famous mur…

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80. Our Third Postbag 36:10

8M ago36:10

36:10

As a New Year’s gift, the panel come bearing the bulging postbag containing our listeners’ emails. Once again we can report a high standard of literacy and a comfortingly accurate recall of matches and teams from the dim recesses of all our childhoods. One correspondent, the self-styled King Arthur, a Liverpudlian now living in Malibu California, h…

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79. Yuletide Matches 43:40

8M ago43:40

43:40

Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Paddy Barclay wish all our listeners a very merry Christmas and we do so by recalling Christmas time matches from long ago. With far less choice on offer, both on television and on the dining room table, football at Christmas provided a fabulous feast of entertainment, the climax to which came on Boxing Day in 1963 wh…

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78. Utility Players 40:33

8M ago40:33

40:33

Colin Shindler, Patrick Barclay and Jon Holmes examine the value of utility players – the player who could fill in anywhere on the pitch from right back to outside left. There is a marked tendency by current managers to favour specialisation over utility yet we all remember, usually with affection, those players who could “do a job” anywhere on the…

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77. Brits Abroad 38:56

9M ago38:56

38:56

Colin Shindler, Paddy Barclay and Jon Holmes discuss the phenomenon of Brits Abroad, those British footballers who made the transition to the sun, sangria and shenanigans of playing for foreign teams. Jon of course became a one-man Lunn PolyTravel Agency for his clients in the 1980s but the phenomenon of British footballers travelling to foreign cl…

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76. Screamers… 41:45

9M ago41:45

41:45

… is the word frequently given to goals scored, usually from outside the penalty box, like drawings in a Roy of the Rovers cartoon that bring the crowd to a fever pitch of excitement. Unless of course the goal has been scored by the opposition. In which case the spectacular goal will be suffered in a mute and somewhat resentful silence, one in whic…

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75. 1992 41:11

9M ago41:11

41:11

It was the year of the Sky revolution in football but for Jon Holmes it was also the end of Gary Lineker’s career in England as he prepared to move to Japan and ultimately into the television studio. Leeds United won the last First Division and their manager Howard Wilkinson was the last English manager to win the championship. It was the year that…

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74. Favourite Games 40:43

9M ago40:43

40:43

Paddy Barclay, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler talk about their favourite match and, to help them to do so, each of them invites as a guest on the podcast a player who took part in that match. If we could all take 8 matches to a desert island populated only by Roy Plomley and at some point you would be asked: “If seven of your matches were washed awa…

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73. Wingers 44:32

10M ago44:32

44:32

Whatever happened to outside rights and outside lefts? You remember those speedy tricky wingers who beat their full backs on the outside, got to the dead ball line and centred so that their centre forward could charge at the ball and force it into the net. The men ploughing those lonely furrows seem to have disappeared. Why has this happened and wh…

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72. Players into Managers 40:58

10M ago40:58

40:58

Why don’t great players automatically make great managers? Why did Bobby Charlton fail so disastrously at Preston when Kenny Dalglish succeeded so triumphantly at Liverpool as Johan Cruyff did at Barcelona? Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger had no careers at all as players but turned out to be great managers, Steven Gerard and Frank Lampard were grea…

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71. The One With David Peace 43:59

10M ago43:59

43:59

David Peace, the author of The Damned United, joins Jon Holmes, Patrick Barclay and Colin Shindler to talk about his latest novel. Munichs, details the story of Manchester United from 6 February 1958, the day of the plane crash that killed 23 people (including eight players) to the team’s appearance in the Cup Final in May 1958. He talks about what…

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70. The Football Pyramid 38:50

10M ago38:50

38:50

This week the Paddy Barclay, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler ask each other how the Football Pyramid has changed over our lifetimes of watching the game. Our first memories were of football in the mid to late 1950s when life was bounded by the First and Second Divisions and the Third Divisions North and South. Of course, there was no Premier League b…

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69. Substitute! 40:13

10M ago40:13

40:13

The use of substitutes began in the English Football League at the start of the 1965-66 season. After years of the Wembley “hoodoo” it was initially a simple system of ensuring that matches were not spoiled by 10 men playing against 11 because of a bad injury. From that sensible position in 1965 we seem to have arrived at a situation today when an …

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68. The One With Frank Foer 47:01

11M ago47:01

47:01

This is football as seen through the eyes of an Arsenal supporter, living and working in Washington DC. Frank Foer, a staff writer at The Atlantic and a former editor of The New Republic, is the author of the much respected book “How Football Explains the World”. It’s fascinating to hear the views of a man who genuinely understands and enthuses ove…

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67. Rituals 41:38

11M ago41:38

41:38

In the days of our fondly remembered youth which we can still see as it becomes ever smaller in the rear-view mirror of life, football matches kicked off at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. And part of the joy of the experience was what we did beforehand, how we met our friends, how we got to the ground, perhaps even what we wore in the false expectati…

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66. Number Twos 50:37

11M ago50:37

50:37

There are two distinct variations on the theme of Number 2s. The first is that he is the one who sits next to the manager when he is going berserk, berating the fourth official and kicking water bottles. That number 2 is there to calm him down and offer sage advice in moments of extreme tension. However, the other number 2 is the man who himself go…

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65. The One With Gary Lineker 48:23

11M ago48:23

48:23

It’s been coming, hasn’t it? We all know that the relationship between Jon Holmes and Gary Lineker started about 45 years ago and we’ve heard many stories related by Jon about his most famous client. However here is Gary talking about himself, his career as a player and his transition into broadcasting. Together with with Colin Shindler, Paddy Barc…

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64. Formations 48:35

12M ago48:35

48:35

We grew up with the old WM formation. Brazil won the World Cup with 4-2-4 and Alf Ramsey did the same thing with what was called the Wingless Wonders, in other words 4-3-3. After that, another “forward” was withdrawn into midfield and 4-4-2 became the standard for most teams for many years but now we have a confusing muddle of numbers, including 3-…

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63. Cheating 48:00

12M ago48:00

48:00

We know that cheating isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s been in sport ever since the Greeks failed to provide any drug testing during the Olympic Games of 776 BC – so there’s no reason why football should be any different. In the 1950s and 1960s, promising youngsters’ parents were allegedly bribed with washing machines and other “luxury” goods by clubs …

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62. The One with Nick Hancock 43:17

12M ago43:17

43:17

He’s best known still as the host of Jon Holmes’ supreme television creation the game show ‘They Think It’s All Over’ in which his most famous clients combined with comedians to play such legendary games as “Feel the Sportsman”. He’s a talented comedian and writer but at heart Nick Hancock would always describe himself first and foremost as a Stoke…

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61. Chairmen Vs. Owners 46:59

1y ago46:59

46:59

This week, the panel looks at old fashioned Bob Lord style Chairmen of football clubs as against the current fashion for billionaire owners from oil rich nation states or American hedge fund managers. Bob Lord at Burnley and Joe Mears at Chelsea, Louis Edwards at Manchester United and the Hill Woods of Arsenal were all rich men but their wealth did…

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60. Transfers 42:28

1y ago42:28

42:28

Now, as most of our listeners will know, there was a time when there was no such thing as the Transfer Window and, as all of our listeners know, before 1961 players couldn’t earn more than the maximum wage which at the moment of its abolition that year stood at £20 a week. Therefore there was no need for a player to agitate for a move to a bigger c…

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59. We're Back Once Again (Series 3 Trailer) 3:33

1y ago3:33

3:33

After our computer-enforced summer break Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes and Patrick Barclay return next week on Friday 9th August - just as the new football season kicks off. If you've not already done so, subscribe now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesBy Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes, Paul Kobrak (and the late Patrick Barclay)

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58. A Message From The Cabinet Room... 4:40

1y ago4:40

4:40

Good morning listeners - here's a message from Colin Shindler. We'll be returning with the podcast in time for the new season at the beginning of August. Enjoy your summer holidays - see you in a few months. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoicesBy Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes, Paul Kobrak (and the late Patrick Barclay)

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57. Footballing Cricketers 48:49

1y ago48:49

48:49

In the days when the cricket season finished at the end of August and did not begin again until the first week in May it was perfectly possible to be a professional sportsman who played both games. Now it would be impossible to find a footballer who also played county cricket let alone Test cricket. Digging back, as ever, into the days of our youth…

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56. The F. A. Cup 37:24

1y ago37:24

37:24

The Football Association Challenge Cup is the oldest and most prestigious cup competition in the world, having been in existence since 1871. Winning the Cup for many of us was actually more highly valued than winning the First Division championship which had none of the excitement and charisma of walking up the steps to the Royal Box and holding up…

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55. Route One vs. Tiki Taka 39:55

1+ y ago39:55

39:55

The panel turn their forensic eyes on the question of football tactics and, with a respectful nod to one of the great Monty Python sketches, their wider reference to the world of philosophy. In particular this edition sets the supporters of the philosophy of Route One against the supporters of playing out from the back or Tiki Taki as it is sometim…

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54. Reserves 37:59

1+ y ago37:59

37:59

There used to be such a thing as a Reserve team which we watched if we couldn’t afford to travel to watch our team away from home. Young players started in the A and B sides and made their way up from the B to the A team until they reached the Reserves. The Reserves contained a sprinkling of first team players coming back from injury and embittered…

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