The Way We See Sport, The Way We See Life

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

  1. 2d ago

    "Enthusiasms" – Baseball and the Roaring Twenties

    In this episode of the Way We See Sport, The Way We See Life, Chris and Nathan return to the Roaring Twenties; the decade in which, according to F. Scott Fitzgerald, “the parties were bigger, the pace was faster, and the shows were broader.”   From the glittering fashion of the Flappers, through the fun beat of the Charleston, to the Golden Age of Cinema, your hosts take you on a journey into the world of Gershwin, Armstrong, Gehrig and Ruth. Yet beneath the glitz and the glamour, 1920s America was also a place of rural poverty, entrenched racism, and the corruption and violence that resulted from the prohibition of alcohol through the 18 th Amendment. It was less a decade of unfettered wealth, and more a decade of deep contrasts. Perhaps nothing captured the inconsistencies of America in the 1920s better than the sport of Baseball. America’s Pastime has never been so central to the sporting life of the USA as it was in that decade. In an era long before the creation of Super Bowl, there was no annual event as renowned as the playing of the Baseball World Series each fall. Ballparks were full, stadiums rose like Cathedrals, and megastars like Babe Ruth had fans from coast to coast. Yet closer investigation reveals that the racism and corruption that blighted American society was as prevalent in Baseball as anywhere else, and a scandal at the beginning of the decade rocked the sport to its very foundations. We hope you enjoy this episode, as Chris and Nathan explore the American love affair with baseball in perhaps the most American decade of all.

    "Enthusiasms" – Baseball and the Roaring Twenties

  2. Aug 7 ·  Bonus

    'It's just not cricket!'

    In 2017, the ECB publicised plans for a new cricketing showcase – 'The Hundred'. Eight city-based franchises would compete in innings lasting just 100 balls – the shortest format the game had ever seen. Almost a decade down the line, 'The Hundred' has now become engrained within the English cricketing summer. The tournament has attracted millions of pounds in investment, and produced a greater platform for the women’s game than had ever existed before. Yet, 'The Hundred' still comes in for criticism from established cricket fans. With some franchises struggling to attract supporters through the gate, and huge turnover in the personnel at each team, questions remain about whether the future of 'The Hundred' is quite as rosy as the ECB would like us to think. In this episode of The Way We See Sport, The Way We See Life, Nathan and Chris investigate the newest and most controversial of cricket’s many formats. They attempt to fairly acknowledge the Hundred’s attributes, but also to move past the ECB’s propaganda to explore the criticisms made by many traditional cricket fans. It is an investigation which helps to frame broader questions about the role of franchises in sporting competition, and the changing nature of the relationship between Britain and India. We hope you enjoy this exploration of why many feel 'The Hundred' is “just not cricket”.

    'It's just not cricket!'

  3. Aug 1 ·  Bonus

    'Why Does It Always Rain On Scotland?' - An assessment of the tragicomedy of The Tartan Army at Major Tournaments

    As the dust settles on another World Cup, Chris and Nathan reflect on the performance of Scotland at International Tournaments.  The most recent competition saw the Scots make unwanted history as they became the first nation to be eliminated from the competition at the Group stage nine times! In 'Why Does It Always Rain on Scotland?', we explore why Scotland seem destined never to progress beyond the Group stage and discuss whether this has now become a self-fulfilling prophecy and if Scotland and their hordes of 'Tartan Army' followers are forever doomed to never progress to the latter stages of the World Cup or European Championships. In the episode, we chart Scotland's adventures in successive World Cups between 1974 and 1990 and look to assess at which point Scottish failure became a self-fulfilling prophecy, before moving on to reflect on the reigns of Craig Brown and more recently Steve Clarke, managers who reached the finals of three major competitions, but were unable to shake off the weight of history and lead Scotland beyond the Group Stages.

    'Why Does It Always Rain On Scotland?' - An assessment of the tragicomedy of The Tartan Army at Major Tournaments

  4. 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'?

  5. 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'

  6. 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

  7. 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?

  8. 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
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A podcast hosted by Chris and Nathan that explores historical events through the prism of Sport.

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