Jason Stockwood co- owner of Grimsby Town Football Club was my guest on the last episode of Ratio Talks.
Consistent with the format, I invited Grimsby Town supporter and teacher Adam Howard to reflect on what Jason had to say. But it soon became clear that Adam had much to offer that a short commentary. As a Grimsby resident, highly committed to his town and region, he identified a lot of the missing ingredients and wrongheadedness of public policies to rescue so called left behind places.
It wasn’t a difficult decision to give Adam a full episode of his own. The first, by the way, that required no editing whatsoever.
I found Adam from the View from the Findus podcast (available on Apple, Spotify and other podcast hubs), to which he contributes.
Football club podcasts are proliferating. They are revealing. Radio stations have been begging football fans to contribute to phone-ins for well over a decade. They are designed as a sort of entertainment. A couple of hosts ridiculing each other, and encouraging their guests to make outlandish claims -sack the manager, buy a player the club cannot afford, or welcome the billions that comes with State sponsored owners (never mind the annoying human rights issues).
Podcasts like View from the Findus have a different flavour. The hosts are football fans. The conversation is intelligent, ranging from tactics, the economics of the sport, the culture of the club, and the emotions of winning and losing. They comprise conversations not sound bites.
If you want to know something about Grimsby, you could do worse than listen to episodes of View from the Findus. Or, for understanding Doncaster, check out podular STAND. (Apologies to Grimsby fans for mentioning Doncaster).
At the end of this podcast I bring the conversation back to David Goodhart’s book, The Road to Somewhere, published by C Hurst & Co. and mentioned by Jason Stockwood last week.
I am grateful to Chris Mills and Paul Savage at View from the Findus for introducing me to Adam, and of course to Adam for his contribution.
Ratio Talks is available on Substack, on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Get in touch with us any time by messaging us on the Substack
Ratio Talks is produced with the help of sound designer Nik Paget-Tomlinson.
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