The Football Ramble Daily Live – The Lowry, Salford

Reviewer: Matt Forrest

The world of the podcast is big business these days. It seems everyone is creating a podcast these days and we have a podcast for absolutely everything. The Football Ramble Daily team have been in the game for 12 years now and their success shows no sign of waning. Books, radio and television appearances and a worldwide tour – this is a podcast with a global fan base, all the more impressive when you consider just how many football podcasts there are!

Featuring the show’s four hosts, Marcus Speller, Jim Campbell, Luke Moore, and Pete Donaldson, the live show sees the quartet mull over the hot topics currently impacting the beautiful game, whilst also hammering some of football’s more questionable characters. These include a disgraced former Sky presenter who seemingly gets a much deserved verbal kicking, and the ever marmite pundit Robbie Savage also deserves the ridicule heaped on him.

Obviously the show is a must for football fans, as the four use their fandom, comedy and media backgrounds to provide an insight into not just football, but also into the ‘media bollocks’ and primadonna pampering and big egos that make up the world of football punditry. In addition there were ‘in’ jokes and features from the podcast that made their way into the live show, which as someone like myself who hasn’t heard the show before soon manage to catch the gist of.

The trick with any show like this is to appeal to a wider audience than it’s initial target audience and The Football Ramble Daily Live certainly does that. A focus on crap football autobiographies, such Michael Owen’s latest offering and the lengths the publishers have gone to to boost sales are quite boggling. Footballers are easy targets sometimes and the stupid/insane stories TFRD boys shared tonight about the likes of Diego Maradona, David Beckham and Harry Redknapp are funny, entertaining and ridiculous enough to appeal to even the most casual of football fans. Even a story about footballer Will Hughes failing to secure transfer by having a roast dinner with manager Neil Warnock, is entertaining because of its absurdity.

In addition to the show, the support for the night was from Leeds comic Maisie Adams, who did a great job of warming up and winning over the crowd whom as she put it were “from the other side of the Pennines”. Material about her school days and epilepsy worked well and set the tone for the evening.

Overall this is a fun, ridiculous, laid back show that was very much like a night down the pub with your mates, who all try to outdo each other with their best stories. The fact that the stories are centred around football is irrelevant; it’s that they’re interesting, absurd and well delivered that is the show’s main appeal. I’d never heard of the podcast beforehand but must confess will be subscribing from here on in.

Reviewed on 2 November 2019