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

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.

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.