The Way We See Sport, The Way We See Life

Chris Bayes

A podcast hosted by Chris and Nathan that explores historical events through the prism of Sport.

  1. Jun 18 ·  Bonus

    Was Italia 90 really the moment 'football changed forever'?

    The 1990 World Cup Finals in Italy has long been heralded as something of a 'Year Zero' moment for football.  The tournament itself set to the strains of 'Nessun Dorma' in the BBC's coverage, Gazza's tears, the emergence of 'Toto' Schillachi and the collaboration between EnglandNewOrder have all achieved iconic status in the years since the tournament.   With respect to football in England, the performance of the national side at Italia 90 is seen as the catalyst for a step-change moment; one that changed the way in which the national team and its supporters were perceived and led to a shift in public perception paving the way for the emergence of 'A Whole New Ball Game' in the form of the Premier League. There have been numerous books, documentaries and podcasts produced to pay homage to the tournament.  Many of which herald Italia as the moment that 'football changed forever'.  In the fourth episode of our World Cup mini-series, we discuss whether this is truly the case? We begin by reassessing why Italia 90 is considered such an iconic tournament. Firstly, we explore how the competition emerged from the ashes of a decade in which English football fans were characterised by the Thatcher government as part of 'The Enemy Within' and football itself was decried by The Sunday Times as “A slum sport played in slum stadiums and increasingly watched by slum people” .   We then move on to explore how the performance of the England team, inspired by an emerging superstar in the form of Paul Gascoigne helped to shift the public mood throughout the tournament and resulted in a feelgood factor returning to 'The Beautiful Game'.  As a result, 'Gazzamania' exploded in the aftermath of Italia 90 and during the following season, Gascoigne almost singlehandedly inspired his club (Tottenham Hotspur) to the FA Cup Final before disaster struck.  A shockingly mistimed challenged resulted in ruptured cruciate ligaments and put his move to Italian club, Lazio in jeopardy.  Whilst Gascoigne did recover, it is arguable that his career never reached the dizzying heights that were perhaps anticipated during that heady summer. Gascoigne was not the only star who burned brightly during Italia 90 who struggled to maintain such levels afterwards.  At the heart of the host nation's attempt to claim the glittering prize were the goals of 'Toto' Schillachi, who started the tournament on the sidelines before firing six goals to inspire Italy on a run that (like England's) ended on a Semi Final penalty shoot out defeat.  Like Gascoigne, Schillachi struggled to maintain his form in the years that followed Italia 90.  A move from Juventus to Inter Milan was considered a failure and he played out the remainder of his career in the emerging J-League.  Does Schillachi's performance at Italia 90 mirror many of the infrastructural 'White Elephants' associated with the tournament across Italy. Lastly, we explore how the teutonic power of the West German side proved to be an unstoppable force during the competition, defeating old adversaries in the form of The Netherlands and England en route to a World Cup Final rematch against Argentina.  Speaking after his side had won to claim the world title for the third time, the West German coach Franz Beckenbauer, famously declared that "now that we will be able to incorporate all the great players from the East, the German team will be unbeatable for a long time to come.“   Whilst a unified Germany maintained a solid performance level throughout the decade that followed, the prediction of 'Der Kaiser' never truly came to fruition and former East German players remained firmly a minority in the squads throughout the tournaments of the nineties.  We discuss what this tells us about German reunification.

    Was Italia 90 really the moment 'football changed forever'?

  2. Jun 11 ·  Bonus

    'Back Home' - Mexico 70, Heath, Ramsey, Wilson & the final puncturing of the myth of 'English exceptionalism'

    The summer of 1966.  England had made good on the promise that Alf Ramsey made upon his appointment as the national team manager and become World Champions.  The Beatles and The Rolling Stones led a 'British Invasion' that topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic and Harold Wilson's Labour Party secured a historic landslide victory.  It seemed that Wilson's Britain was set to be at the forefront of the 'White Heat' technological revolution he had proclaimed three years earlier and that Ramsey's England side had claimed the position many had long felt was rightfully theirs - in spite of a great deal of evidence of the contrary! - as Champions of The World. Four years on, both Ramsey and Wilson were faced with a fresh test of their credentials.  The England national side (for the first and to date only time) entered Mexico 70 as World Champions and as ever, England expected.  Both the gentlemen of the press and Ramsey hypothesised that the squad assembled in 1970 was even stronger than that which had won the World Cup in 1966.  As the tie-in record released in the build-up to the tournament 'Back Home' stated "they ('the folks back home') think we're the greatest, that's what we've got to prove once more". If the period between the two tournaments had represented the national side's 'Arcadia' period, the Wilson government had found the intervening years much more tumultuous - In 37 by-election contests that took place between 1966 and 1970 Wilson’s government was defeated in almost half - and the furore surrounding the devaluation of the pound in 1967 threatened to undermine the Wilson government terminally. On the eve of the World Cup, the canny populist Wilson was fearful of the impact that a poor showing from England could have on his electoral prospects 'Back Home'.  However, he was buoyed by the fact that his opponent Ted Heath (who like Ramsey and Wilson had risen from humble beginnings to lead the Conservatives) appeared to lack the common touch and ability to connect with the electorate. In this, the third episode of our World Cup mini-series, Chris and Nathan explore the linkage between England's fortunes in Mexico and the political situation in the UK during this period.

    'Back Home' - Mexico 70, Heath, Ramsey, Wilson & the final puncturing of the myth of 'English exceptionalism'

  3. Jun 4 ·  Bonus

    Austria in the 1930s; From Wunderteam to Anschluss

    In 1932, the Austrian football team had the world at their feet. A glorious victory in the Central European International Cup had seen them conquer the best teams that mainland Europe had to offer. With many South American heavyweights refusing to travel to the 1934 World Cup, it seemed highly possible that the so-called Wunderteam might soon be crowned the best football team on the planet. Yet just six years later, that same Wunderteam was no more. Despite successfully qualifying for the third edition of the World Cup in France, by 1938 Austria no longer had an international football team and were unable to take up their place in the tournament. Not only that, but they were not even considered to be an independent nation. In this episode of The Way We See Sport, The Way We See Life, Nathan and Chris explore the first decade of the Football World Cup through the lens of the Austrian national team. Against the rising tide of European fascism, the story considers how both Mussolini and Hitler impacted the fortunes of the Wunderteam and, ultimately, how a side with so much verve and promise were never able to fulfil their true potential.

    Austria in the 1930s; From Wunderteam to Anschluss

  4. May 28 ·  Bonus

    USA 94 – Inspiring or Insubstantial?

    In 1994, America stood triumphant as the world’s sole superpower. The Berlin Wall had fallen, the Soviet Union had collapsed, and 9/11 was still seven years away. Fukuyama declared the end of history, and scriptwriters began crafting a speech to be released two years down the line, through which the fictional President Whitmore would rally the human race to defend the earth against alien invasion. In short, liberal democracy had triumphed. It was against this backdrop that the USA prepared to hold the World Cup final at the Rose Bowl in California – the pinnacle of a tournament that had broken every attendance record in the history of the competition. Yet the match between Brazil and Italy was something of a disappointment – a 0-0 draw which failed to provide the climax that football fans had hoped for. As the tournament prepares to return to North America for the first time in over 30 years, Nathan and Chris explore the positives and negatives of USA 94. As Nathan embraces his nostalgia for the tournament, and Chris casts a more detached and critical eye, this episode of The Way We See Sport, The Way We See Life considers whether the tournament, and 90s America in general, was inspiring or merely somewhat insubstantial.

    USA 94 – Inspiring or Insubstantial?

  5. May 18 ·  Bonus

    Special - pt. 2 of 2 - 'When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going'? - An exploration into Mental Health through the prism of Sport

    In the second part of our two-parter released to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week | Mental Health Foundation, we take a deeper dive into the relationship Mental Health has with three specific sports: Boxing - Analysing how and why many fighters struggle with life beyond the ring 'once the lights go out' on their in-ring careersCricket - An exploration into the long-standing relationship between Cricket and depressionFootball - How Mental Health Awareness has become part of being 'match fit' and exploring whether the game has learnt lessons from the tragic cases of Gary Speed and Robert EnkeThe episode builds on some of the themes explored in our first episode of this special, in which we studied how attitudes towards Mental Health in Sport could be viewed to have evolved over time.  Within this second episode, we assess how these three sports are currently approaching supporting participants in terms of managing their Mental Health.  We explore whether there are any key takeaways and commonalities to be found in each of these three sports and whether the riches prevalent within the sporting domain can help us to learn any lessons applicable to wider society?

    Special - pt. 2 of 2 - 'When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going'? - An exploration into Mental Health through the prism of Sport

  6. May 9 ·  Bonus

    SPECIAL pt. 1 of 2 - 'When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going'? - An exploration into Mental Health through the prism of Sport

    In the first of a two-part special released to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week - Mental Health Awareness Week | Mental Health Foundation - Chris and Nathan explore how attitudes towards understanding Mental Health have evolved within the world of sport over the past 30 years or so. The episode begins by analysing what constituted old-school attitudes towards the concepts of Mental Health in sport.  We explore how mind games and mentality have been part of sport as long as we can remember, embarking on a journey that takes us through Kevin Keegan's famous 'I'd Love It' rant as the pressure of a Premier League title race reached boiling point.  We then discuss John Gregory questioning the validity of Stan Collymore's mental struggles - 'He's earning £20k a week, what has he got to be depressed about?', before assessing Bill Shankly's assertions that players experiencing the riches of top-level football success understanding of 'pressure' paled into insignificance when compared with the daily struggles faced by workers in traditional industries such as mining or those on the breadline struggling to find work.  Our overview of traditional assessments of the role mentality played within sport ends with a discussion of the infamous speech from Jim Telfer as part of the 1997 British and Irish Lions Tour.  Telfer's speeches from this Tour have taken on legendary status, but does his overarching view that "There are two types of Rugby players, boys.  There's honest ones and the rest." represent a gross oversimplification when comes to understanding the mental toughness required to succeed in elite level sport? Our focus then shifts to assess how three modern sporting greats (Michael Phelps, Mark Cavendish and Lindsey Vonn) and their thinking regarding their Mental Health.  We discuss whether their attitudes are representative both of a shift in societal attitudes and understanding of Mental Health, but also raise the questions of if and how sport can be seen as a forerunner in terms of pioneering approaches that could be more widely adopted across society as a whole. In Episode Two, we will take a deeper dive into three particular sports (Boxing, Cricket and Football) and explore how each of these sports are seeking to develop new approaches to ensure participants are 'match fit' and able to manage their own Mental Health.

    SPECIAL pt. 1 of 2 - 'When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going'? - An exploration into Mental Health through the prism of Sport

  7. Apr 10

    'Crossing The Great Divide’ – Maurice Johnston’s 1989 transfer saga and how it was influenced by and impacted upon Sectarianism in Scottish society

    Nowadays, barely a day passes by during a transfer window without hyperbolic transfer speculation amongst both the traditional Tabloid media and 'fan media' outlets.  However, in the summer of 1989, a transfer saga ensued that was genuinely seismic.   The signing of Maurice Johnston by Glasgow Rangers turned a century of tradition upside down, led to potential boycotts amongst Rangers fans and saw fans on the other side of The Old Firm divide shattered by 'an almighty blow' that Graeme Souness had delivered to Celtic through securing Johnston's signature. Johnston was presented as the first high-profile Roman Catholic player to be signed by Rangers.  Staunchly loyalist Protestant fans of the Ibrox club were aghast at the decision not only to sign a Catholic, but one who had previously been outspoken in his condemnation of both Rangers fans and the club's "religious policy they maintain(ed)".  Fans interviewed on the day threatened a boycott, some burned season tickets and others vowed never to set foot inside Ibrox again, seeing the signing as a betrayal of the club's traditions. If the transfer in itself was not sensational enough, the situation was compounded by the fact that only a matter of weeks previously, Johnston had been paraded as a Celtic signing ahead of the 1989 Scottish Cup Final (a contest between the two Old Firm titans, which Celtic won 1-0 denying their arch rivals a domestic treble).  At Hampden that day, Celtic fans saluted their returning hero - chants of "Mo, Mo.  Super Mo!" echoing amongst their jubilant support.  The Rangers' fans response of "Mo, Mo.  F**k your Mo!" made their feelings on the matter clear. In the immediate aftermath of the fixture, Rangers manager Graeme Souness made an off-the-cuff remark about Rangers being about to do something over the course of the summer that would hurt Celtic for years to come.  No-one could have foreseen what happened next. In this episode of 'The Way We See Sport, The Way We See Life', we explore how the transfer took place, why it represented such a seismic shock and landmark transfer and what the long-term impact of the transfer was.  Did it represent “a quantum change in Scottish football and Scottish society” as was suggested at the time or was it merely more a reflection of wider societal shifts that had already taken place with respect to the role of The Church in Scotland?

    'Crossing The Great Divide’ – Maurice Johnston’s 1989 transfer saga and how it was influenced by and impacted upon Sectarianism in Scottish society

  8. Mar 29

    'Look Down Under'

    In the opening chapter of 'Down Under', the account of his epic journey across Australia, Bill Bryson once wrote that Europeans and Americans pay "shamefully scant attention" to their Antipodean cousins. It is hard to argue with his conclusion. While Ashes Syndrome might strike the UK every few years, and those nostalgic for teenage memories might occasionally bop along to the music of Kylie Minogue, it is rare that news of political wranglings in Canberra or the sporting agenda at the Adelaide Oval engender much attention in the media beyond Australia's shores. Yet Nathan and Chris have long held a passion for two aspects of Australian culture that exist outside of the mainstream consciousness of most in the UK: State of Origin Rugby, and the Premiership of Paul J Keating. The annual rugby league contest between New South Wales and Queensland is as titanic a sporting rivalry as anyone could ever wish to witness. Sparkling skill, unparalleled intensity (not to mention the occasional "blue"), and matches which often go right down to the wire, we defy any sports fan to engage with a State of Origin series and not be hooked for life. It really does represent the pinnacle of a sport that is dear to the heart for both Nathan and Chris. Likewise, to watch a political performance from Paul Keating, Australia's PM between 1991-96, is to watch a supreme political operator at work. In the latest episode of 'The Way We See Sport, The Way We See Life', the podcast makes a case for why those interested in sport and politics should pay a little more heed to events in the Antipodes. We hope you enjoy this attempt to encourage you to Look Down Under.

    'Look Down Under'
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A podcast hosted by Chris and Nathan that explores historical events through the prism of Sport.

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