Best Danielle Spurling Podcasts (2025)

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116. Giant Killers 41:59

Play Pause

2h ago41:59

41:59

Ronnie Radford was a workaday midfielder playing for such legendary clubs as Worcester City, Bath City and Forest Green Rovers but in January 1972 he was playing for Hereford United in an FA Cup third round replay at Edgar Street on a quagmire of a pitch in front of a capacity crowd. With less than ten minutes to go and Newcastle comfortably 1-0 ah…

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Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast with Sam Williamson - From Commonwealth Rookie To World Champion 47:45

3d ago47:45

47:45

Send us a text Sam WIlliamson joins us on Torpedo Swimtalk to discuss everything from medaling at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, to claiming the 50 breast world title in Doha. Sam walks us through the mental and technical shifts that turned nerves into a plan. He explains why the start didn’t need to be perfect, how he engineered a ruthless last 15 m…

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115. International Breaks 41:24

1h ago41:24

41:24

Now that England have already qualified for next year’s World Cup finals, this makes all the remaining matches in the group completely pointless from an England perspective. The November international break seems to have arrived 25 minutes after the October one. These tedious autumn and spring international breaks also extend the football season wh…

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Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast with Bobby Hurley - World Records To World Class Coaching 1:03:18

7d ago1:03:18

1:03:18

Send us a text World champion and former short-course world record holder Bobby Hurley joins me for a ripper Torpedo Swimtalk episode — from winning the World SC 50 Back in Istanbul to racing everything from the 50 back to the 1500 free, then flipping the script as a coach and World Aquatics commentator. We get into range, resilience, and how the s…

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114. The Team of the 1960s 50:24

4d ago50:24

50:24

In this episode, Andy Hamilton, Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes resume their role as selectors as they choose the best team of the 1960s from the English Football League as it then was. That’s not one individual club or national side but a team composed of the outstanding players of that decade in some sort of logical formation that would bring out t…

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Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast with Martin Bennell - How Targeted Training, Racing Practice and Heavy Lifts Turned Into World Titles in Singapore 47:22

18d ago47:22

47:22

Send us a text Gold medals at the World Masters Championships don’t happen by accident. UK based Martin Bennell, a Masters world champion in his late 40s, joins Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast walks us through the exact blueprint that turned a six-month promise—break 30 in the 50 breaststroke—into British records, lifetime bests, and three golds. We get i…

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113. Football in the 1960s 53:12

7d ago53:12

53:12

Colin Shindler tries to convince Jon Holmes and Jimmy Mulville that the 1960s was English football’s most glorious decade. Not just the world cup triumph of 1966, though that obviously features significantly at the heart of the decade. Secondary school was dark, depressing and alienating. Football by contrast was light, colourful and inclusive. All…

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Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast with Olympic Medallist and WR holder Geoff Huegill 1:03:30

8d ago1:03:30

1:03:30

Send us a text What does it take to turn swimming punishing kilometres into smarter, faster racing? Olympic medalist and world record holder Geoff Huegill joins us on this week's episode of Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast to unpack the evolution from “character-building” grind sessions to a sprint philosophy built on skill, precision, and purpose. Geoff t…

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112. Short Lived Managers 40:25

14d ago40:25

40:25

We all remember Brian Clough’s infamous 44 days as manager of Leeds United, a fractious period of time which compared favourably with Liz Truss’s time as Prime Minister of the UK - and of course the lettuce that lasted longer than either of them. Colin Shindler recalls with ghastly clarity Steve Coppell’s 33 days in charge of the disaster that was …

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Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast with Strength Coach Jack Brown - How to lift more and swim faster 53:23

16d ago53:23

53:23

Send us a text Ready to rethink how strength work fits into your swim life? We welcome strength coach Jack Brown of Aqua Strength Performance to Torpedo Swimtalk Podcast and unpack a smarter approach to dryland that actually shows up on the clock. Jack blends a swimmer’s background with strength and conditioning chops to build programs that scale a…

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111. No Hopers 45:45

21d ago45:45

45:45

On the first day of every season nearly all football supporters experience the same surge of pride and expectation. When they get to the ground it looks gleaming. The grass is green and the white lines stand out in marked contrast inviting the arrival of our heroes and stimulating thoughts of promotion and championships and European football. This …

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110. Who Runs The Club? 43:36

28d ago43:36

43:36

It’s an increasingly pertinent question in football. In the days of Shankly, Clough and Ferguson it was blindingly obvious who ran their clubs. But as the manager’s role has been split between the Head Coach and the Director of Football, that vision of total authority has become increasingly blurred. The Head Coach might pick the team on Saturday a…

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109. Team of the 70s 42:29

1M ago42:29

42:29

Following on from the previous edition, Colin Shindler, Jim White and Jon Holmes set themselves the task of choosing from the English Football League as it then was, a team of the 1970s. That’s not one individual club or national side, but a team composed of the outstanding players of that decade in some sort of logical formation that would bring o…

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108. The One From The 70s… with Jon Spurling 43:40

1M ago43:40

43:40

Not unusually for this podcast, we look back – with quite some affection – to the 1970s. Many of our listeners will also no doubt remember the decade through a haze of nostalgic introspection… but of course it was also a tumultuous ten years that not only laid many of the foundation stones for the modern game, but also witnessed the English nationa…

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107. Falls From Grace 40:17

2M ago40:17

40:17

Jim White was astonished to find that Andy Carroll is now turning out on Saturday afternoons to play in the sixth tier of English for Dagenham & Redbridge. So it’s Jim who leads the discussion (with Colin Shindler and Jon Holmes) of players who once strode purposefully at the summit of the game but ended their careers in far less salubrious circums…

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106. The One With Daniel Gray 47:03

2M ago47:03

47:03

This week Jon Holmes and Colin Shindler are joined by the author Daniel Gray to discuss his 2013 book “Hatters, Railwaymen and Knitters” – a fascinating travel book about England as seen through the less glamorous clubs of English football and the communities that support them. It’s time that clubs like Crewe and Chester and Bradford City were give…

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105. Football in 2050 44:35

3M ago44:35

44:35

Jon Holmes, Jim White and Colin Shindler speculate (if present trends continue) about what football will look like in the year 2050 when it is very likely that none of them will be around to feel embarrassed by how badly they got things wrong. Colin mischievously teases Jon to consider what will have happened to Leicester City in 25 years time. Wil…

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104. You Don’t Win Anything With Kids 47:37

3M ago47:37

47:37

In this episode Colin Shindler, Andy Hamilton and Jon Holmes examine Alan Hansen’s notorious observation that you don’t win anything with kids. It’s rather a shame that his reputation as one of the leading pundits has been slightly tarnished by the fact that he said those words on Match of the Day on the day Manchester United had been well beaten b…

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103. Creative Midfielders 47:48

3M ago47:48

47:48

This week the panel discuss that most prized of assets on a football field – what we all used to call the creative or scheming inside forward, now called I suppose the creative midfielder which isn’t as euphonious in my opinion but it’s only my opinion. However it would include players like Danny Blanchflower and Paddy Crerand who both wore the num…

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

3M 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

4M 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

4M 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

4M 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

4M 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

4M 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

5M 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

5M 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

5M 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

5M 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

6M 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

6M 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

6M 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

6M 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

6M 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

6M 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

9M 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

10M 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

10M 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

10M 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

10M 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

11M 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

11M 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

11M 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

11M 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

11M 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

12M 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

12M 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

12M 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

1y 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

1y 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…