In this episode I interview an old friend, Ollie Pardo, about our mutual interest, (some would say obsession), with football.
We look at football finances. Why did six leading British football clubs recently choose, albeit temporarily, to agree to join a breakaway European Super League? How are semi-professional football clubs financed and are there other models which could make football clubs more accountable to their supporters and economically sustainable?
Ollie describes his lifelong passion with Leicester City Football Club and talks about the night they won the English Premier League.
We talk about the non-league football pyramid, the smaller clubs who are described as the grassroots of English football. What do these clubs mean to their local communities?
Listen out to find out if your club gets a mention as we explore the English league and non-league football scenes - both Ollie and I have visited all the league club grounds in England and many hundreds of non-league grounds in the United Kingdom and some European countries.
Finally, we reveal our shared secret passion - Ollie keeps his in a cellar or basement and mine are currently stored in cardboard boxes in a secure location. But just what are these precious items?
For more information about this podcast series, or to make any comments or to ask any questions relating to English Language learning, please contact me at johnscottlawton@hotmail.co.uk or visit my LinkedIn profile at https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-scott-lawton/ or my company page at https://www.linkedin.com/company/john-scott-lawton-consulting/?viewAsMember=true Finally, please take a look at my website where I post additional content to support this podcast series: https://johnscottlawtonsenglishyouknow.wordpress.com/
