The Dynamo Football Bookclub

It's the 1980s, Maradona's decade. Who will win the crucial toss in the latest draft between Alistair and Johnny? Those two straight up don't like each other... The 80s saw Italy win won, Argentina win the other, both of them beating West Germany in the finals of 82 and 86 respectively. Names are starting to get a lot more familiar and hell, we even remember some of these guys. It's 2-2 in the series. Can Alistair take the lead for the first time?! Please tune in to find out.

In continuation of our World Cup series 🌍🏆, we find ourselves in the 1980s 🕺 with the greatest team never to win the World Cup. At least, that is the contention of Stuart Horsfield 📚, the author of The Glorious Failure, a book about the Brazil 1982 team 🇧🇷 that was (spoiler alert 🚨) beaten by Italy 🇮🇹 and, specifically, Paolo Rossi in a weird round robin second round of that competition. Tune in to find out what happened 🎙️👀. Oh wait. Well, tune in anyway 😅. That Brazil team really did score some amazing goals ⚽✨ and we know a website that has them all 🌐. Oh, there is a competition too 🎁 — our first ever! Please do listen, like ❤️, and subscribe 🔔.

It’s Injury Time 28 ⚽️ and we are immersing ourselves in the 1970s 🕺 with a draft of players from the World Cups of that decade 🌍🏆 Throughout the lifetime of the Dynamo Football Bookclub 📚, Alistair has tried to fit around 12 players on the football Mount Rushmore 🗿. But if there really were only to be four on such a landmark, there is a very real chance that three of them would have played in the 70s ⭐️. It was the decade that football embraced modernity 🎥, with matches broadcast in colour for the first time, projecting the beautiful canary yellows 🟡 and blood oranges 🟠 of that magnificent era. With John leading the World Cup series 2 drafts to 1 📊, can Alistair even things up? Please do join us to find out 🎙️👀

In Episode 58, we continue our World Cup series 🌍🏆 with The Greatest Show on Earth - The Inside Story of the Legendary 1970 World Cup by Andrew Downie. The book is a recap of the most iconic World Cup of all — the Mexico 1970 tournament 🇲🇽⚽️ Downie’s 2021 book is a kind of oral history 📖, with the players involved describing each match of that World Cup in their own words, with Downie only jumping in here and there to provide some background and direction. A bit like the Titanic movie, you probably know how it ends, but join us as we discuss the highs and lows of the first World Cup to be broadcast in colour. Please do like 👍 and subscribe 🔔

In Injury Time 27, we continue our draft journey through the World Cups, focusing this time on the tournaments in Chile in ’62 🇨🇱 and England in ’66 🏴. Al has been comprehensively battered in both our previous World Cup drafts, but he is on home turf here having lived in both countries. With his pride and reputation at stake, can he dig as deep as his heroes of ’66 ⚽ and claim his first victory in our World Cup draft series? Please do like 👍 and subscribe 🔔.

In Episode 57, we take on a seemingly impossible task — getting to know the unknowable ⚽🔍. Bobby Moore was England’s World Cup captain in 1966 🏆. He is a colossus of English football, the first name on the all-time England XI and no doubt captain too. But so great is the Moore legend that Moore the man is something of a mystery 🤔. But as we learn in Matt Dickinson’s biography Bobby Moore: The Man in Full 📖, he was a mystery even to many who actually knew him. Please do join us as we try to figure him out — the World Cup win in ’66 🏆, the bracelet incident in ’70 💎, and many, many half pints of lager in a pub somewhere near Upton Park 🍺. And please do like and subscribe too 👍🎧.

In Injury Time 26 🎙️⚽, we are doing our 1950s World Cups draft 🏆🔥 With the Nasazzi’s baton 🏏 securely in Johnny’s clutches after the first of our World Cup draft series, can Alistair muster the forces of the ’50s to wrest it from him? 💪⚡ Join us as we learn about some of the quirkier elements of international football in the 1950s (qualification by coin toss you say? 🪙😅) and chat about some of the players we knew — and a few that we didn’t 👀📚 The fifties was when the World Cup started to be televised 📺✨ and things really started to get sexy 😎🔥 Please do like and subscribe!

In Episode 56 🎙️⚽ we talk about The King of Football 👑, Edson Arantes Do Nascimento. That’s Dico to his friends and family 👨‍👩‍👦, and Pelé to the rest of us 🇧🇷✨ Tune in for some important pronunciation advice 🔊🗣️. Your friends may all be laughing at you behind your back 😂for how you pronounce this man’s name… Find out why Al thinks Cristiano Ronaldo is football’s real King 🐐 and learn all about Pelé’s one particular vice 👀🍾… Please do like 👍 and subscribe 🔔 for red-hot football content.

⚽️ With the World Cup bearing down on us like a busy full back 💨, we are getting into the groove of things 🎧. 🏆 In Injury Time 25, we begin our own countdown to the summer’s festival of football with our first World Cup draft. In this episode, we are selecting the best players from the three World Cups that took place in the 1930s 📜. Lots of familiar names in there like… em… that one guy 🤔 and… ummm… that other guy 😅… 📚 But football facts ahoy, and the winner takes home the Nasazzi Baton 🥇.

🗽⚽️🔥 In Episode 55, join us for the story of the New York Cosmos, as told by Gavin Newsham in his book Once In a Lifetime 📖🎙️ The Cosmopolitans, to give them their full name, burned fast and bright ✨🔥 from 1971 to 1985, lighting up the North American Soccer League ⚽️🌍. They were — to borrow a line from the book — the best thing and the worst thing to happen to the NASL 📈📉. They had Pelé ⭐️. They had Beckenbauer 👑. So how on earth could they be the worst? 🤔 Please do join us to find out 🎧✨ Available wherever you get your pods 🎙️⚽️

In Injury Time 24, we take Sean Dyche’s advice and play the lookalikey game 👀⚽️ — the game he once said makes the world go round. It may not be that integral to the earth’s orbit, but it sure is fun Thanks Sean Dyche / Mick Hucknall / Chris Evans 🙏 Please do listen and like (in that order 😉) Available wherever you get your pods 🎧

🚀📉⚽️💷🎙️ In Episode 54, we review Keith Gillespie’s How Not to be a Football Millionaire. A Class of ’92 graduate alongside Becks and co., Gillespie enjoyed a solid career at Newcastle, Blackburn, and a handful of other lower-league clubs. The book charts his rocket-propelled rise 🚀 and his lamentable fall 📉. Capped 86 times for Northern Ireland ⚽️, Gillespie reckons he blew somewhere in the region of £7 million through gambling and slippery financial advisors 💷. I know, its amazing to believe Keith Gillespie earned £7 million... 🎙️📖 Please do give us a nice chunky rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.

In our increasingly polarized world, what a tonic it is to think about where the footballers we so admire fall on the political spectrum. We can even go one further and consider who wins when the footballer conservatives take on the game's SJWs? Tune in to Injury Time 23 of the Dynamo Football Bookclub and find out which ideology was best all along. Or at least best at football... Available wherever you get your pods.

In our first episode this year, we review our first football novel, David Peace’s The Damned United 📖⚽ Having already reviewed both Clough and Taylor’s autobiographies, this was Alistair’s way of cramming in more Clough 😄 The book has been described as the best novel about football 🏆📚 — a fictionalised account of what happened during the 44-day reign of Clough (and don’t forget Taylor) at Leeds United ⏳⚽ It’s also been made into a film 🎬, which we discuss too. 🚨 Spoiler alert: the 44 days didn’t go well… Happy New Year, folks 🎉 Have a smashing 2026! 🥂✨

To mark the festive season 🎄, we discuss some of the weightier religious and historical topics 📜✝️ such as the cause of Herod’s death ☠️ and the schism between the Catholic and Protestant churches ⛪️⚔️⛪️. Yes indeed, it’s a Christmas 5-a-side ⚽️🎅. Join us as we find ever more tenuous and tangential ways 🧵🤔 to connect top footballers to the 25 December 🎁🎂 and find out if Al can get a nice early present for himself 🎁😬 with a long-overdue win in the ongoing Injury Time draft series 🏆. And as it’s the season of goodwill to all men 🤝✨, please do give us a nice rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Merry Christmas, folks! 🎄🍷🎙️

Pour yourself a very very large glass of wine 🍷, sit back 🛋️, and enjoy Episode 52 of the Dynamo Football Bookclub. This week, we are taking a lesson in humility from Big Sam Allardyce. 📘 The Premier League’s original innovator turned reactionary, Big Sam elbowed his way up and down England as a player before becoming one of the most noteworthy managers of the Premier League era. His Bolton team really were something back in the day ⚪️⚽ with flair, grit 💪, and no shortage of long punts up the field despite what Sam might say. It was a management career that started with humble Limerick FC 🇮🇪 and hit some memorable high notes 🎶 before ending on the sour notes of England and Leeds 😬. It was a heck of a journey for the Big Man Brute who is not, as it turns out, from the north of England 😂. Join us for Sam’s rose-tinted view of it all. 🌹👓

We are skin deep in Episode 21 of the Dynamo Football Bookclub’s Injury Time looking at footballers’ tattoos. 🏉🖋️ From numerology with Sergio Ramos 🔢 to Richarlison’s tattoo tribute to team mate and all-around good guy Neymar 🇧🇷✨, there is quite a lot to talk about. Will Johnny take up Al’s offer of a five-figure sum to get a tattoo of Al’s face? 🤔💰😬 And more importantly, can Al finally win one of these damn drafts? 🏆🤞 More important questions answered in Episode 21 of Injury Time. 🎙️ Please do likey and subscribe. 👍🔔

In Episode 51, we’re back with the Oranje 🇳🇱 as we dive into Basta, the autobiography of the one and only Marco van Basten. The rather oddly nicknamed “Swan of Utrecht” 🦢 rattled in 242 goals and swept up everything in sight: three Eredivisie titles 🏆, four Scudetti 🇮🇹, two European Cups 🏆🏆, and not one, not two, but three Ballons d’Or 🥇🥇🥇 And he did all this before the age of 28. Amazing, football’s Alexander the Great ⚔️ Tune in to discover: If you enjoy the episode, please like, subscribe, and leave us a rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ — it genuinely helps the show grow.

It’s injury time on Injury Time ⏱️⚽️ In Episode 20, we pay homage to all those fine fellows whose careers were brought to a premature end due to injury 🤕💔 From the most famous (David Busst) 😬 to some of the more obscure and unlikely — including the goalkeeper who ended his career up a tree while rescuing a cat 🧤🐈🌳 There is also the harrowing tale of the end of a Sprite-drenched Alistair’s fledgling career 🥤😵‍💫 Oh, what could have been… Please do tune in 🎧, like 👍, subscribe 🔔, and tell your friends all about The Dynamo Football Bookclub 📚⚽️

🎉 EPISODE 50! 🎉 We’re celebrating our half-century in style — that’s right, it’s Denis Wise’s autobiography 😏📖⚽️ Wise is one of the three musketeers of English football books. Along with Glenn Hoddle and Steve McMahon, he somehow appears in everyone else’s autobiography — and almost no one ever has anything nice to say about him 😬😂 But rather than just blindly swallowing whatever’s served up by untrustworthy footballers, we decided to go straight to the source. 🎯 Denis’ 2012 autobiography is a suitably short book 🪶 — written while he was still playing, and includes: 📖 The greatest ever FA Cup story 🥜 Vinnie Jones’ penchant for grabbing balls 💥 And all the amazing things we’ve apparently lost to “woke” It’s Episode 50 — a milestone and a madness all in one 🎙️ Please do tune in, like, and subscribe ❤️⚽️