Football for Breakfast

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.

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.

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.