OUR THINKING / OPINION https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD0okWLz9zk Martyn Potts grew up in Blackpool in the 1950s. His dad was at the Matthews Cup Final in 1953. In 1959, aged nine, he and his mates on a cinder-surfaced cul-de-sac in Lancaster had no football. So they went round collecting empty pop bottles, claimed […]

OUR THINKING / OPINION https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut3eKWhXT7A Anthony Parker’s first ever football match was a Matt Busby testimonial. George Best was on the pitch. They moved the goalposts to the 18-yard line because Best was carrying a few extra years and a few extra pounds by then, and nobody wanted to see […]

OUR THINKING / OPINION https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PprHh_NBxY Harry Davies’s dad sang him You’ll Never Walk Alone as a lullaby. Every single night. Instead of anything else. Harry is 21. He’s about to graduate in mechanical engineering. He’s a musician. And he found his dad’s Istanbul 2005 tracksuit top in a wardrobe one […]

OUR THINKING / OPINION https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIK2qkzuMtw Abdul Malik Ahad arrived in England on Christmas Day 1979. He was seven years old. He hid under his auntie’s poncho at Heathrow because he had never felt cold like it. A few years later, aged ten, he found himself surrounded by football fans near […]

OUR THINKING / OPINION https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuyPGWU18SU Jane Hoskisson grew up going to Goodison Park with her dad in the early 80s, right at the start of the Howard Kendall years. She was a little girl in a huge crowd, too small to see over the bar, carried along by the noise […]

OUR THINKING / OPINION Jamie Carragher grew up in Bootle watching his dad’s Sunday League team on a Sunday morning. His earliest football memory is Everton winning the FA Cup against Watford in 1984. He still gets three football magazines delivered every month – FourFourTwo, World Soccer and When Saturday […]

OUR THINKING / OPINION Jez Clein played football from the age of 14 to 44. Then a prolapsed disc ended it – not on the pitch, but batting at the crease in a cricket match. A friend suggested he take up refereeing. He hasn’t stopped since. Ten to fifteen matches […]

OUR THINKING / OPINION https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACDg7-3RNUs Danny Schweiger’s dad calls him the failed footballer. That’s because his mate Ashley Ward – who used to be in Danny’s house every other day growing up in Manchester – made it as a professional. Danny didn’t. Or so the story goes. At 18, Danny […]

OUR THINKING / OPINION https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgiIUE_RWVA Syed Rashid brought an Arsenal shirt to the table. The O2 home kit from the 2003-04 Invincibles season – the last time Arsenal were champions of England. He hasn’t worn it since 15th May 2004. Syed is Vice President of Worldwide Market Access and Government […]

OUR THINKING / OPINION https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54baTCNS0LA Graeme Kelly turned down his dream car in January 2020. Two months later, Covid hit. Because he hadn’t taken the dividend, he was able to pay every single member of his staff their full wage for the entire duration of the pandemic. Nobody left the […]