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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.