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Football Ruined My Life

Football Ruined My Life is the new podcast about old football.

Colin Shindler, author of the best selling Manchester United Ruined My Life, joins with the distinguished football journalist Patrick Barclay 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.

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About Football Ruined My Life

Football Ruined My Life is the new podcast about old football.

The podcast views those days fondly – though not uncritically – in comparison to today’s game, which it views critically though not unfondly. We welcome 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.

Nostalgic? Yes. Well informed? Certainly. But above all, it glories 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 and 80s that will warm you like a cup of scalding hot Bovril.

Meet the hosts

Colin Shindler

Author of the best selling 'Manchester United Ruined My Life'. Colin Shindler was born and raised in Manchester, educated at Bury Grammar School and Gonville & Caius College Cambridge, and has worked as a writer and a producer in film, television and radio. He has written two novels and presented history programmes on radio and television. In addition to the books and articles he has written on sport and British and American social and cultural history, he also lectures on film and history at Cambridge University. In recent years he has never been happier than when he saw Lancashire win the County Championship in 2011.

Patrick Barclay

Patrick Barclay began his career in football writing with the Guardian in Manchester in the mid-1970s, a few years after Sir Matt Busby had relinquished management and joined the Manchester United board. Barclay became one of Sir Matt's many acquaintances in the newspaper world and in 1994, having moved to the Observer by way of the Independent, attended the unforgettable match against Everton at Old Trafford that swiftly followed the great man's death. In that year Barclay was voted Britain's leading sports writer. He later worked for the Sunday Telegraph, The Times and the Evening Standard in London before retiring from regular journalism at the end of his tenth European Championship in 2016. He covered nine World Cups. Barclay has written acclaimed biographies of Sir Matt's successors Sir Alex Ferguson (Football - Bloody Hell!) and Jose Mourinho (Further Anatomy of a Winner) and is also the author of The Life and Times of Herbert Chapman.

Jon Holmes

Described by The Independent as "one of the most respected sports agents", Jon has for four decades managed the careers of sport and media professionals at the top of their respective industries. Prior to Leicester City Football Club's incredible Premier League title success, a consortium led by him saved the Club from going out of business. Jon, a politics graduate from the University of Leeds, was made an Honorary Master of Business Administration by De Montfort University.