Football for Breakfast

The Good Companions
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  • Soccer
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Football for Breakfast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jim Johnson, filmed in a purpose-built greasy spoon cafe. Not tactics. Not transfers. The real side of football. Every Tuesday, Jim sits down with footballers, business leaders, entrepreneurs and cultural figures for honest conversations about identity, trust, leadership and what the game truly means. From Premier League dressing rooms to the boardroom - Football for Breakfast explores what football teaches us about life and business. Cafes. Clubs. Communities. Culture. This is where the game gets honest.

Episodes

  1. Anthony Parker | George Best's Testimonial, Wayne Rooney's Hat Trick Debut and Finding Your Rhythm

    19h ago

    Anthony Parker | George Best's Testimonial, Wayne Rooney's Hat Trick Debut and Finding Your Rhythm

    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 so he could play. He had bags and bags of skill. Anthony was five or six years old. He never forgot it. In episode eleven of Football for Breakfast, Jim Johnson sits down with Anthony in the greasy spoon cafe to talk about Manchester United, the weight of history and what it means to be a fan of a club built as much on tragedy as triumph. They talk about the Busby Babes, Duncan Edwards - probably the best player in the world at 18, with virtually no substitutes available - and the way the Munich air disaster created something mystical about United that even their rivals can't deny. They talk about 1992-93, when Anthony's dad turned up on the Sunday with scarves out the window, a cake and a bottle of champagne. Twenty-six years. Worth every second. Midway through the conversation, Man United call. He answers. He tells them he's recording a podcast. He hangs up. In the second half Anthony talks about a career that started at 17 in an accounts department that happened to be in the gates and barriers industry and ended up, thirty-odd years later, with him as managing director of Country Gates and Barriers. He didn't plan it. He found his rhythm. He found something he was good at and let it take him somewhere. His object is the ticket stub from the Fenerbahce game in 2004. Wayne Rooney's Manchester United debut. A hat trick. Anthony was there. The result he'll never get over? Agüero. QPR. The last minute. Football for Breakfast is presented by OSS Security. Cafes. Clubs. Communities. Culture.

    30 min
  2. Harry Davies | You'll Never Walk Alone as a Lullaby, Inheriting Istanbul and Whether Youth Culture Is Over

    Jun 30

    Harry Davies | You'll Never Walk Alone as a Lullaby, Inheriting Istanbul and Whether Youth Culture Is Over

    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 found his dad's Istanbul 2005 tracksuit top in a wardrobe one day and quietly claimed it. He wasn't even there in 2005 - he was one year old. But he wears it now to every big game, including the 4-3 win over Spurs when Jota scored the 96th minute winner. In episode ten of Football for Breakfast, Jim Johnson sits down with the youngest guest the show has had so far to talk about inheriting football, inheriting music and what it means to be young and obsessed with both in a city that's given the world The Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers and a song that started as a chart hit before kick off and somehow became Anfield's emotional centre of gravity. They talk about Bath City, the grassroots club Harry adopted at university, and going to see the Oasis reunion twice this summer - shaking with excitement for a band he was only four or five when they first split. The conversation turns properly interesting in the second half. Is youth culture over? Can social media ever again produce the kind of unifying cultural moment that gave the world Britpop, Merseybeat or punk? Harry says he has to believe it can. He's an optimist. He thinks somewhere out there is the next Liam Gallagher, even if nobody's found them yet. Jim closes on him: proof that the next generation of football fans feel it just as deeply. The game is in safe hands. Football for Breakfast is presented by OSS Security. Cafes. Clubs. Communities. Culture.

    29 min
  3. Abdul Malik Ahad | Building Belonging Through Football, the Bangladeshi Reds and Homes Without Racism

    Jun 23

    Abdul Malik Ahad | Building Belonging Through Football, the Bangladeshi Reds and Homes Without Racism

    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 in Oldham on a Saturday afternoon before a match. A skinhead put a beer can on his head and smashed it. That was the backdrop to football for the British Bangladeshi community in the early 1980s. You watched from home. You kept the shutters down. But Abdul didn't let it stop him. He built something else. In episode nine of Football for Breakfast, Jim Johnson sits down with Abdul in the greasy spoon cafe to talk about belonging, community and what football does when the game that's supposed to bring everyone together isn't yet safe to attend. They talk about the 5-a-side and 7-a-side tournaments Abdul helped organise for the Bangladeshi Youth Movement in Oldham - competitions that started as a way of finding a safe space and became fiercer and more meaningful than anyone expected. A community building itself from the inside out because no one else was going to build it for them. In the second half Abdul talks about a career from community cohesion manager after the 2001 Oldham disturbances to CEO of Steve Biko Housing Association in Liverpool - one of only two Black and Racial Minority housing associations on Merseyside, built on the mission of homes and communities without racism. He brings a Liverpool champions t-shirt to the table. The one his community couldn't celebrate in 2020 because of Covid. So thirty Bangladeshi Reds waited two years, got together at a restaurant in Oldham and finally let it out. Jim closes: proof that the people who had to build their own game from scratch are usually the ones who understand it the most. Football for Breakfast is presented by OSS Security. Cafes. Clubs. Communities. Culture.

    35 min
  4. Jane Hoskisson | Everton, "People Die Twice" and the Fight to Get Women Seen

    Jun 16

    Jane Hoskisson | Everton, "People Die Twice" and the Fight to Get Women Seen

    You're right - Spotify is just the prose narrative, no chapters or emoji section headers. That's the YouTube format. Here's the Spotify version in the normal style: 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 of it. She still couldn't name every player. But she could always tell you what Everton means to her. In episode eight of Football for Breakfast, Jim Johnson sits down with Jane in the greasy spoon cafe for a conversation about belonging, memory and why being able to see yourself in the picture changes everything. They start with her earliest memories of match day - the energy of the crowd, the police horses, being lifted onto the bar to see. From there the conversation moves through tribalism, banter at work, and how football became the love language she still shares with her dad, who sat just off camera as her live artefact. Jane talks about her grandad Jim, who ran Saint Matthew's Football Club in the early 60s and gave a generation of local boys somewhere to go. She brings his engraved award to the table, and with it the line that runs through the whole episode: people die twice, once when they take their last breath, and again when the last person says their name. Football, she says, is how the people you love stay in the room. In the second half the conversation widens out. Jane leads diversity for the global aviation industry, where her work has helped move female pilots from around 4% towards 6% worldwide and lifted women running airlines from 3% to 9% in six years. Her reason is simple: you can't be what you can't see. It's true in a cockpit. It's true on a pitch. They talk about the quiet decline of grassroots football, the disappearing community organiser, and the moment Goodison Park was named the home of Everton's women's team. The result she'll never get over? Everton coming back from two goals down against Crystal Palace to stay up - watched on her phone in a car in Geneva, battery dying, refreshing the score. A woman who knows that the most important work, in aviation or football, is making sure people can see themselves in the picture. This is Football for Breakfast. Cafes. Clubs. Communities. Culture. Football for Breakfast is a production by The Good Companions, presented by OSS Security. New episode every Tuesday morning.

    46 min
  5. Jamie Carragher | Some Fan Podcasters Know More Than Most Pundits | Football for Breakfast

    Jun 9

    Jamie Carragher | Some Fan Podcasters Know More Than Most Pundits | Football for Breakfast

    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 in 1984. His dad is an Evertonian. He still gets three football magazines delivered every month. He never stopped being a fan. Whatever else he became. In episode seven of Football for Breakfast, Jim Johnson sits down with Jamie in the greasy spoon cafe for one of the most honest conversations about football, fame and what the game really means that you will hear anywhere. They start on the brown at Marsh Lane in Bootle. From there the conversation moves through Bootle Boys versus Liverpool Boys, the schoolboy leagues that shaped his career, and what it means to grow up inside football before the academies get you early. Jamie talks about the 23 Foundation, his charity providing free football kits to kids teams, and why the decline of men's grassroots football is inseparable from the decline of the pub. In the second half the conversation moves into punditry and media. He is withering about context being stripped from clips for engagement. Social media, he says, is not a barometer of opinion - it is full of cranks. Some fan podcasters who have never played the game are better prepared than most professionals who have. And when the camera stops rolling after a debate with Gary Neville, he is usually laughing. He brings a bronze handshake to the table. The Athletic Club Bilbao One Club Man Award, presented to Jamie Carragher in 2025. Charlie Adam was offered it first and hasn't yet accepted. The result he'll never get over? Champions League final. 2007. Football for Breakfast is presented by OSS Security. Cafes. Clubs. Communities. Culture.

    1h 2m
  6. Jez Clein | No One Hates Everton More Than Everton Fans, Ukraine on a Day Return and the Referee's Whistle

    Jun 2

    Jez Clein | No One Hates Everton More Than Everton Fans, Ukraine on a Day Return and the Referee's Whistle

    Jez Clein played football from 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 does ten to fifteen matches a week now. He's never been more certain of anything. In episode six of Football for Breakfast, Jim Johnson sits down with Jez to talk about Everton, refereeing and what the game does to you when it becomes the thread running through everything. They start in 1977. Jez's first game - Everton versus Manchester United, an evening match, the Upper Park End, the floodlights on for the first time. From there the conversation moves through the 1984 Milk Cup final, the golden goal ticket that paid out £125 when Jez was 14, his son playing in the same grassroots team as Curtis Jones, and Harold Dean's - the only Jewish football club in Liverpool - where Jez started playing senior football at 14 and kept going until his back gave way thirty years later. One line comes early and stays with you. "No one hates Everton more than the Everton fans do." Delivered with the resigned wry precision of someone who has been going to Goodison since 1977 and means every word of it. In the second half, Jez talks about twenty years at Heinz, voluntary redundancy at 44, student houses and becoming a landlord - and then picking up the whistle. What refereeing taught him surprised even him. He was shy. The courage of his convictions - believing you are right even when you might not be - came from standing in the middle of a pitch with a whistle and having to mean it. That belief spilled into everything else. He brings the whistle to the table. Jim blows it. It is very loud. Football for Breakfast is presented by OSS Security. Cafes. Clubs. Communities. Culture.

    39 min
  7. Danny Schweiger | Playing Pro Football in Zimbabwe at 18, Man City and the Champions League Final That Still Hurts

    May 26

    Danny Schweiger | Playing Pro Football in Zimbabwe at 18, Man City and the Champions League Final That Still Hurts

    Danny Schweiger's dad calls him the failed footballer. His mate Ashley Ward - who used to be in Danny's house every other day - made it as a professional. Danny didn't. Or so the story goes. At 18, Danny went to Zimbabwe. He ended up in a factory with 2,000 people, got a trial at Darren Tornadoes of the Zimbabwean Super League - the same league as Bruce Grobbelaar and Peter Ndlovu - signed a contract and played every week in front of 30,000 people as the only white man in the province. He brought a scrapbook to the table. He hadn't looked at it in years. None of his mates believe any of it. They think he's making it up. But he was there. In episode five of Football for Breakfast, Jim Johnson sits down with Danny in the greasy spoon cafe to talk about Manchester City, Zimbabwe and what football does to a person when it gets properly under their skin. They start on the Kippax. Danny is old school City - Wednesday nights at Grimsby, dark humour in the Third Division, leaving the Gillingham play-off final with a minute to go and running back when City equalised. He traces the club he fell in love with back to Joe Mercer, Malcolm Allison and the 1968 championship team. In the second half Danny talks about a career built on everything football taught him - how to relate to anyone, how to survive, how to lead. From the factory floor in Harare to playing at Highbury for Paul Merson's testimonial because he was Rank Xerox's top salesperson that month. Everything he's ever achieved, he puts down to football. He doesn't hesitate. Football for Breakfast is presented by OSS Security. Cafes. Clubs. Communities. Culture.

    28 min
  8. Syed Rashid | The Invincibles Shirt, Arteta's Arsenal and the Technology Giving Blind Patients Their Sight Back

    May 19

    Syed Rashid | The Invincibles Shirt, Arteta's Arsenal and the Technology Giving Blind Patients Their Sight Back

    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. That conversation was filmed before Arsenal reached the Champions League final and went top of the Premier League with two games to play. Syed is Vice President of Worldwide Market Access and Government Affairs at Samsara Vision, working to bring a groundbreaking implantable telescope to patients with late stage age-related macular degeneration. His job is to convince health authorities around the world to fund technology that gives blind people their sight back. Faces. Words. Hobbies they gave up years ago. The world, coming back into focus. In episode four of Football for Breakfast, Jim Johnson sits down with Syed to talk about Arsenal, leadership and what the game teaches you about bringing people with you. They start in 1979. Syed grew up two miles from Wembley watching the FA Cup final on a black and white TV. Alan Sunderland scores in the fifth minute of injury time and a guy with a big afro becomes the reason Syed follows Arsenal for the next 45 years. In the second half he talks about influencing without authority - getting people to cross the line of their own free will when you're not their line manager. About leading global teams at Sanofi, Abbott and Johnson and Johnson. About what Wenger's transformation of Arsenal tells you about building culture, and what Arteta's journey tells you about backing a vision when everyone around you is losing patience. Jim reveals he owns a Freddie Ljungberg away shirt from the same Invincibles season, signed by the entire squad, that he wore under his jacket to feel invincible in meetings. They might be the only two people on the planet who understand exactly what the other means. The result neither of them will ever get over? Barcelona 2006. Turns out it's Jim's too. Football for Breakfast is presented by OSS Security. Cafes. Clubs. Communities. Culture.

    32 min
  9. Graeme Kelly | People First Leadership, Growing a Business in Recession and the Istanbul Champions League Ball

    May 12

    Graeme Kelly | People First Leadership, Growing a Business in Recession and the Istanbul Champions League Ball

    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 business. Nobody was let down. He didn't tell anyone at the time. He just did it because it was the right thing to do. In episode three of Football for Breakfast, Jim Johnson sits down with Graeme in the greasy spoon cafe to talk about football, people and what happens when you put both at the heart of everything you do. They start in the mid-80s at Anfield - Graeme's first game, Liverpool versus Nottingham Forest. It opens up a brilliant conversation about Forest's place in football history, back to back European Cups, and what it means to have that kind of pedigree stitched into a club's identity. From there they move through the 2005 Champions League run - the Chelsea semi-final that Graeme describes as the only time he has ever been genuinely scared at a football match, the atmosphere wound up by Mourinho, the ghost goal - and then Istanbul. Two days after the final, Graeme found himself at a Kenny Dalglish charity night at the Grafton. A bin bag went round. He put his name on a fiver three or four times. Andy pulled his name out. He won a Nike Total 90 ball signed by the entire Champions League squad. He brought it to the table. In the second half, Graeme talks about a career built entirely around one belief - that without people, you can't do anything. From running a bookmakers as a community hub during his university years, to growing an engineering business 60% during the 2008 recession, to quadrupling a packaging business under a mentor who could dictate a professional letter at 90 miles an hour on the M6 without missing a beat. The through line in every chapter is the same. Do the right things when no one's watching. Look after your people and they will look after you. Football for Breakfast is presented by OSS Security. Cafes. Clubs. Communities. Culture.

    51 min
  10. Callum Webb | From Building Site to Global Fitness Brand, Istanbul 2005 and What Football Teaches You About Business

    May 5

    Callum Webb | From Building Site to Global Fitness Brand, Istanbul 2005 and What Football Teaches You About Business

    Callum Webb grew up on a council estate in Liverpool, spent his first ten years working on a building site and at 25 had £3,000 in a drawer. He spent every penny of it on a personal training course. Today he co-founded POW8R - the number one live stream and on-demand fitness app, featured in Vogue and GQ, with members across the globe. In episode two of Football for Breakfast, Jim Johnson sits down with Callum in the greasy spoon cafe to talk about football, fitness and what they have in common. The answer, it turns out, is everything. They start on the Kop. Callum's earliest football memory is sitting on a stanchion on the old standing Kop as a four or five year old with his grandad. From there the conversation moves through the treble season, the 2001 FA Cup final his grandad's brothers took his ticket for, and the week in 2005 where Callum scored a free kick at Anfield for Cardinal Lennon on the Monday night and watched Liverpool win the Champions League in Istanbul on the Wednesday. He brings a ticket stub to the table. It isn't his. His parents accidentally burned his memorabilia when he moved out. So he called his grandad. In the second half, Callum talks about the moment at 25 when he looked around the building site and knew it wasn't the life he was signing himself up for. How he spent his last £3,000 on a personal training course. How three months in he made the decision to coach female clients only - a niche move that felt risky and turned out to be the making of him. How he went into online coaching before Covid, watched thousands of people show up to his free Instagram classes during lockdown, and walked away from a six figure coaching business to launch POW8R with zero members on day one. Jim puts it to him halfway through: you left the building site, but you've been building ever since. Callum hadn't thought of it that way before. Football for Breakfast is presented by OSS Security. Cafes. Clubs. Communities. Culture.

    37 min
  11. Neil Atkinson | Building The Anfield Wrap, Football Storytelling and What Gary Neville Said

    Apr 28

    Neil Atkinson | Building The Anfield Wrap, Football Storytelling and What Gary Neville Said

    Neil Atkinson has built one of the most distinctive football media brands on the planet. As host and managing director of The Anfield Wrap, he has taken the voice of the match-going Liverpool supporter to every corner of the globe. When Gary Neville tells you that you're a better pundit than him, you know you're doing something right. In the first ever episode of Football for Breakfast, Jim Johnson sits down with Neil in the greasy spoon cafe to talk about what the game really means. Not the table. Not the tactics. The feeling. They start at the beginning. Neil's first game at Anfield - a five nil win over Birmingham City where Gary Gillespie scored a hat trick from centre back, including a penalty the Kop demanded he take. Decades later, Neil walked into Gillespie's house to interview him and found the signed match ball from that very game sitting in the hallway. A full circle moment that stops you in your tracks. From there the conversation moves into the power of football commentary, why certain voices unlock specific memories, and what Clive Tyldsley's Radio City commentary from 1986 taught Neil about storytelling long before he knew that's what he was going to do for a living. In the second half, Neil talks about building The Anfield Wrap from a Monday morning recording in Parr Street Studios into a global football media brand. How do you know when the moment is right? What do you do when your business model works better when the team wins? How do you build a community that compounds rather than spikes? Neil's thinking on timing, leadership and making the most of the good times - not just surviving the hard ones - is some of the most honest you'll hear from anyone who has built something real in football media. They also get into the 1986 Merseyside FA Cup Final, what it means for a city when both clubs are strong, and the Pat Jennings trivia that will surprise even the most devoted Everton supporter. Neil closes with the penalty shootout - five quickfire questions - and the one result he will never get over. It isn't the one you'd expect. Football for Breakfast is presented by OSS Security. Cafes. Clubs. Communities. Culture.

    49 min
  • 11 Episodes

About

Football for Breakfast is a weekly podcast hosted by Jim Johnson, filmed in a purpose-built greasy spoon cafe. Not tactics. Not transfers. The real side of football. Every Tuesday, Jim sits down with footballers, business leaders, entrepreneurs and cultural figures for honest conversations about identity, trust, leadership and what the game truly means. From Premier League dressing rooms to the boardroom - Football for Breakfast explores what football teaches us about life and business. Cafes. Clubs. Communities. Culture. This is where the game gets honest.

Information

  • Creator
    The Good Companions
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    11
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © The Good Companions
  • Show Website
    Football for Breakfast

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