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 cal...
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 h...
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 ...
This week the Andy Hamilton, Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler discuss the year 1970, which, to their collective astonishment, is 56 years ago. It’s Colin’s favourite year and much treasured by the 20-year-old Jon. Meanwhile the teenage Andy Hamilton skipped school to watch Chelsea beat Leeds in an infamous FA Cup Final replay (and was found out) and ignored his O level revision to watch Brazil v Uruguay in the Wo...
Today Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes look once more at the emails you’ve sent us since we did our last postbag at the end of last year. We encourage you to write to us every week and you do so in comforting numbers. Once again the tone is almost entirely positive with people wanting to contribute their own memories to the topic they’ve just listened to… or correcting our very fallible memories. We’re hap...
Tony Woodcock was one of Jon Holmes’ earliest clients, a superb player who scored 139 goals in 437 appearances for Nottingham Forest, FC Koln and Arsenal besides the 16 goals scored in 42 appearances for England. This record compares favourably with Jon and Colin Shindler’s combined contribution of no goals at all at professional level. It is therefore entirely appropriate that we leave the discussion on the ...
This week Jim White, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes wonder if the gap will ever narrow between the Championship and the Premier League. In 1964 Leeds United were promoted from the Second Division and in their first season in Division 1 they lost the League Championship to Manchester United only on goal average (as it then was). In the 1976-77 season Nottingham Forest finished third in the Second Division – well ...
This week Andy Hamilton, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes discuss turning points in football history. The historian A.J.P. Taylor, a name that has never graced a football podcast previously famously described the 1848 revolutions, particularly in Germany, as a "turning point in history that failed to turn". Well the panel now discuss those moments in football history which were significant turning points in...
About
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
Information
Creator
Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes, Paul Kobrak (and the late Patrick Barclay)
Years Active
2026 - 2023
Episodes
234
Copyright
Colin Shindler, Jon Holmes, Paul Kobrak
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