Football for Breakfast

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.

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.

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.