Sixty years ago, academics considered football hooligans as Marxist freedom fighters. Forty years ago, they were Britain’s folk devil. Twenty years ago, we were told they were gone. But in 2024, we realised they never went anywhere. The media has portrayed football hooligans as some of the most deviant and dangerous characters in British society – but what can we find out if we dig a little deeper beyond the stereotypes and tabloid headlines?

The English Disease is the latest podcast from Stak, and the second documentary series on their new narrative feed, Legacy. This gripping series traces a remarkable movement through British culture, dissecting the legacy of ‘hooliganism’ through fashion, music, football, politics, and policy. From football’s dark old days in the 1980s to the increasing prevalence of the Far Right across football and wider society, the movement has morphed and transformed, but never vanished. This new 6-part series will take listeners straight to the centre of these dark spaces.

Written and presented by football writer Sam Diss, this documentary shares open conversations with former hooligans, some who say they were ‘the best days of their lives’. Others openly voice their regret, including a 21-year-old man who writes from prison charged with manslaughter after being involved in football-related disorder. Sam will take listeners inside some of the biggest online football fan groups, as well as speaking to the leading experts who have devoted their lives to understanding this complex yet primal instinct to fight for something beyond yourself.

The English Disease shines a light on football and British society. Embedded in the UK’s national sport, this is a story of class consciousness, rebellion and adventure turning to embittered violence, tribalism and greed. It is a story of what happens when society disenfranchises its people, dismantles social structures and a void is left – and what fills that void.

We caught up with Sam Diss to talk about the creation of The English Disease and dig a bit deeper into what ‘hooliganism’ means to him.

Hi Sam! So firstly, what made you want to make The English Disease?

I felt there was a gap in how people understood football hooliganism. It’s often portrayed as ‘mindless violence’, which never rang true to me. Growing up on a council estate in the East End, I spent years observing how young men found identity and belonging in places society ignored.

Now, I wanted to explore the story of why these subcultures existed, what they provided, and what they’ve turned into.

Has the media portrayal of football hooliganism evolved at all?

Not enough. You still see the same headlines: lobotomised monsters beyond redemption. Years ago, academics saw hooligans as ‘Marxist freedom fighters,’ but now they’re the soldiers of far-right agitators. The media dismissed that evolution because they were too busy pretending it all went away.

What was your most memorable moment making the podcast?

Seeing just how raw our impulse to connect is. Take Riaz Khan: a second-generation Pakistani-Afghani lad growing up in National Front-era Leicester, who found his way through football violence. He told me he was a respectful Asian boy at home but became a football casual as soon as he stepped out the door. Slowly, the mask started to eat the face. The most fascinating part: He told me he hated the National Front, but at least they stood for something.

What do you hope listeners take away from The English Disease?

I hope people walk away with some empathy. I want this to be a show that doesn’t go for easy routes: I wanted to ask awkward questions and hear uncomfortable answers, in a way that hopefully speaks to people across the political spectrum.

Listen and subscribe to The English Disease wherever you get your podcasts. Episode one and two were released on October 1st.

Listen to The English Disease on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other popular podcast apps >>

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Adam Richardson caught up with Seb White and Owen Blackhurst to discuss Reminding You Why You Love Football, a show that steps back from the reactionary and analytical side of football podcasting and delves deeper into the many reasons most football fans fell in love with the game in the first place. Old kits, cult heroes, terrific haircuts, non league weirdness, long range screamers, unsavoury red cards and so much more in between. From the team at Mundial magazine and creators of Pod Bible favourite GIANT.

Check out Reminding You Why You Love Football on Spotify 

Check out Mundial magazine

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Your friendly neighborhood Pod Bible folks joined the team behind GIANT last week for a listening party on Twitter where we explored their first episode, “Ronaldo: A Superhero Origin Story”, about the Brazilian football legend’s time playing for PSV in Holland. If you haven’t given all six episode a listen yet, we can’t recommend it enough, whether you’re a football fan or simply a lover of great podcasting production and storytelling. There’s something in there for everyone.

When listening to yesterday’s drop, fans of the programme will be reassured to hear as Mundial features editor Owen Blackhurst once again introduces us to another brilliant episode. Blackhurst, alongside Seb White and executive producer Tayo Popoola, comes together with We Came to Win’s Nando Vila to discuss the thing that brought the global game to its knees only three short months ago: the coronavirus.

In two equally beautiful but heartbreaking stories, we experience the impact the virus has had on the football community on both a small town and global scale. The GIANT gang take us to the Hampton & Richmond Burough Football Club, part of the National League South. Here we meet coaches, staff, players and fans, all of whom passionately describe the screeching halt that ended their season, and how important the football club is to the surrounding community.

In the second half, Nando introduces us to broadcaster Kike Mateu, who covers Valencia and was deemed “patient zero” after contracting coronavirus at the Champions League match in Milan between Valencia and Atalanta. The story of how the virus spread throughout players and fans alike reminds us all why we are enjoying the podcast from the safety of our homes, and not on the way to a packed stadium.

Though the tentatively scheduled Premier League season will be played behind closed doors, far from the raucous, singing, screaming throngs of fans that are so integral to the vibrancy of football, the underlying message of yesterday’s GIANT stories rings more true than ever. While some games are played, the football that fans truly love is still a long way off. So until then, we look forward to more stories of intensity, victory, heartbreak, and redemption.

GIANT is a Spotify Original podcast, produced in partnership with Mundial. We Came To Win is a Gimlet Media Production.

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Hi. I’m Joel Emery. I write The Offensive podcast so you don’t have to.

The Offensive was originally developed as an idea for television, with its principle concept being ‘The Thick of It’ but for Premier League football. Our main aim was to not compromise on any football-related jokes and satire, and try to narrow in on just the football audience. Naturally, that laser-focus on a particular type of viewer wasn’t that attractive a prospect to mainstream broadcasting, so the idea kind of sat on the shelf for a couple of years after a video demo. In short, they said no and I got disheartened.

But that’s not the end of the story, there’s more – in March 2018 the idea for showcasing The Offensive as a podcast came to fruition. In the intervening months before the next season we faced the challenges of writing, casting, rehearsing and recording but, despite all that, we were pleasantly surprised by the freedom podcasting allowed us. If we wanted to stage an episode at Emirates Stadium – we could, the narrator just says ‘we’re at The Emirates’ and with some crowd noise and bang; you’re there. No need for crews and extras, permission from Arsenal, lighting… nothing. 

With that newfound freedom, we got greedy and decided to have the show go throughout the season, not just back to back episodes – all while in sync with the Premier League. Games would finish up on a Sunday and we’d push an episode out on Monday morning. Looking back, it was a ridiculous decision that probably required more thought and consideration – but without doubt a hugely popular creative model with our fanbase. I’ll sometimes listen to an episode and think ‘God we all sound knackered’ but it would seem no one else has noticed yet. 

And thus; our biggest challenge. We have to work tirelessly to write a script, record it and edit it within the week. If we had nothing else on our plate, that would be easy. But with normal jobs and normal lives, cramming a weekly (sometimes bi-weekly) sitcom in there can become a challenge and we occasionally are very tight to the deadlines. 

Performers will often be away or busy on other jobs so they’ll provide remote recordings, or we’ll find creative ways as to why such and such a person is on the phone in this episode, and so on. Availability, remarkably, has become one of the most potent creative forces for the entire show. Once we have the availability of people then the episode idea and structure come next. If I get lucky the idea will come to me reasonably quickly, or I can work with something that has happened in football that week. Often something like a cabbage being thrown at Newcastle United manager Steve Bruce is a vital lifeline. Otherwise, I’ll just start writing and see where it goes, shove a funny ending on the end and get it out to the performers ASAP.

Paul Waggott was cast in the summer of 2018 and has moulded the Patrick character into something I didn’t really see coming. He’s morphed into a paranoid, penny-pinching, childish, vain, and yet somehow likable, Etonian millionaire. I can’t put my finger on when Paul really took over the wheel of Patrick, but I would say the first time we heard him ‘whine’ as Patrick it really made us laugh and we haven’t looked back. Paul is passionate about audio and being a voice artist and, although I don’t think he’d admit it, he’s a consummate perfectionist. [His] perfectionism, moulded with Adam Jarrell’s helps balance out the unstructured chaos of myself and Helena.

Helena Doughty was also cast that summer and unlike the growing admiration of Paul, she completely blew us away, straight away. I’m hoping that Helena continues to talk to me after I write this, but I’ve made her character Jess more and more like her as the season has gone on. Helena is a very funny, sardonic person and that moved Jess away from this stony, lecturing arsehole to more of a devilish, tormenting arsehole. 

Adam Jarrell, who edits and directs the show as well as playing Woody, is like another co-writer — except the majority of his writing is done in the edit. He’ll often fill holes, add pieces of extra material or offer line changes, thus making him an indispensable last line of defence. Sometimes episodes can come together like a patchwork over the whole week, sometimes they’re edited and put together in a day or two. The additional voices of the side characters in the show are so often voiced by Adam and myself because of time. Do we have time to find an actor, wait for the reply, wait for the file and edit it? No, probably not. 

We have used over 80 performers throughout the show at this point, whenever we get the chance to cast and work with the actors we will. The same is for live recording with all of us in the room, that will be around 60% of the episodes, that’s the best scenario. Working with Paul, Helena and Adam in the room together is always a joy and yet a catastrophic waste of time on occasion, as we spent at least half the time mucking about.

The Offensive is growing continually and we expect to take it into more exciting and challenging areas in time but for now, we’re just taking each game as it comes.

You can check out The Offensive via their website, Acast, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.

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If you could go back to just before you recorded your first podcast and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

Speak less. I value people who don’t get in the way of all the interesting things their guests are going to say. Sometimes I’m in a bit of a hurry to tick off all the boxes that are lying there to be ticked, I think speaking less gives everyone else a little bit more room.

What makes a great podcast guest?

James: Some direct knowledge or experience or emotional connection to the subject matter. I think podcasts exist in a pretty crowded field now. Everyone can read what’s happening in games, so I think what’s interesting is the detail, the context, the story behind the story and that’s something that often only a guest with a particular involvement or interest in that topic can really bring to life.

And a great podcast host, what makes one of them?

That depends on the subject of the podcast but I think in strictly football terms a sense of humour is always welcome and I think a strong editorial sense and short questions.

What makes a bad podcast host?

Banter. Forced banter. I think that there’s a mistaken assumption that chumminess is de rigour in football podcasts.

What’s been your worst podcast moment?

Well, in the various incarnations of podcasts that I’ve done we’ve had some guests who have been a bit of a struggle. Sometimes it might be because their attitude has proved, well, perhaps not one we would share, and it’s a bit disconcerting to then find them expressing those attitudes in your podcast. Sometimes, maybe it would be because on a personal level, we just didn’t quite see eye to eye.

What is it about podcasts that appeals to you?

Podcasting is a great format to work in because it’s so flexible, it’s so open, it’s so democratic, anyone can do it. Nowadays, thanks to technology, it doesn’t require huge outlay to get yourself into a decent recording set up. Literally anybody can have a voice and hopefully can find success with whatever subject they want to shed some light on. So it’s tremendous and in terms of listening to podcasts, they’re much better than radio. It’s that old issue with linear broadcasting; you don’t have to be tied down to when a broadcaster wants to show you something and you don’t have to sit in front of it for the duration of the show. You can now control that, you can consume it in the same way you consume every other decision you make about what you bring into your life. So it’s fabulous and of course, the wealth of podcasts and the ease with which you can make a podcast means that nowadays we have access to information. We choose what we become informed on because there’s access to information about almost everything. And that means we can effectively pursue lines of enquiry that were previously dictated to us by broadcasters, by one or two broadcasters, this is what’s going to be a story and this isn’t.

What frustrates you about some podcasts?

I don’t tend to get annoyed with podcasts because I think like most listeners, I have a very relaxed view of them.  I have a lower expectation threshold with them. If I don’t like something, I haven’t lost any of my time or money to it, I’ll just switch it off. But I certainly don’t particularly warm to enforced jollity. As I said before, that kind of desperate search for chumminess.

Is there anything you’ve found annoying as a podcast listener but then understood when you were making your own?

Nose breathing. It’s really annoying but, listener, it’s really easy to do because you can’t hear it when the recording is being made. But your nose just might be too close to the mic.

Which one podcast episode of your own means the most to you?

I think maybe Roma Nel Mito, the Golazzo episode that we did after Roma’s extraordinary comeback victory over Barcelona in last year’s Champions League. James Horncastle and I are able to really bring in that idea of some emotional connection to the subject matter, and some experience as well, having both lived in Rome, being Roma fans, we can bring together a soundscape hopefully that gave some inkling of what that result meant to a long-suffering Giallorossi.

Which one podcast episode not of your own means the most to you or which other podcast do you like?

I love The A-Z of David Bowie by Marc Riley and Rob Hughes. It’s a fascinating insight into the kaleidoscopic and chameleonic career of one of the greatest artists of the last five decades. He did so much with so many people that there’s always something you didn’t know, forensically revealed and all delivered in such an affable tone.

You can hear James Richardson presenting The Totally Football Show every Monday and Thursday and Golazzo: The Totally Italian Football Show every Wednesday on Apple, Spotify, Audioboom and all the usual places. James will also be presenting The Totally Ice Hockey Show from the 2019 Ice Hockey World Championships in Slovakia from 10 May.

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