Episode 38: The Three Lives of the Kaiser - the Franz Beckenbauer Biography by Ali Hesse

Having passed out Crouchie in the podcast charts a couple of weeks ago, we've decided to tackle more giants of the game 🤖   In Injury Time 11 🎙️ we tackle a question that’s baffled football fans for years: who are the greatest players standing at 6′5″ and above? 🏰   ⚽ Have there been any genuinely decent towering strikers beyond the aforementioned Peter Crouch ? 🛡️ Is Per Mertesacker really the best colossal centre-back we’ve ever seen? 🤔 And why on earth are there almost no giant midfielders?   Tune in and find out whether Al can make up more of the ground he has lost to Johnny in our draft series 🚀  

In Episode 41, we move beyond biographies and autobiographies for the first time and into the wonderful world of the language of football with Do You Speak Football by Tom Williams.  In his book, Williams takes us, Palinesque, on a tour of the world explaining how football is spoken about by fans everywhere. If you would like to find out where a defensive midfielder is known as a faecal plug, what To Zlatan means in French, or what sunshine and piano football means in South Africa, this is the episode for you.  Please do like and subscribe. 

🎧 Once more into the football-musical breach… 🎤⚽   We’re back with one final (for now) dive into the weird and wonderful world of footballers who made music. 🎶👟    Footballing genius doesn’t always translate to musical talent (spoiler: some of these are rough) 😬🎵 — but there are surprises. And its all good fun anyway...   💫 The players featured in this episode have won six Ballons d’Or between them. And one legend — whose music is probably the best of this particular lot — won zero, but only because the award wasn't open to non-Europeans throughout his career. (France Football later said he’d have won seven!) 👀🇧🇷 Can you guess who we’re talking about?

This week, we dive into Flight to Bogotá by John Leonard — the true story of Neil Franklin, the England defender hailed by Tom Finney as the finest defender of his generation… until he threw it all away.   In the years after WWII, Franklin played 27 times for England and had a ticket to the 1950 World Cup in the bag 🏆. But instead of heading to Brazil, he shocked the football world by signing for Santa Fe in Colombia’s rebel pirate Dimayor league — sacrificing his career for freedom, dollars 💰, and a new life beyond the FA’s reach.   We explore the post-war players’ rebellion 🛫🇬🇧, their fight against “slave contracts” in British football, and what awaited them in the chaotic, cash-rich world of Colombian football.   A story of risk, revolt, and thick, thick soup 🔥.

In this episode of Injury Time, Al and John dive into the chaotic, colourful world of the North American Soccer League (NASL) — the wild 1970s and 80s league that brought Pelé, Cruyff, Beckenbauer, and Best to America.   Each host drafts a 5-a-side dream team of NASL stars. We use this as a vehicle to tell the story - or at least some of the story - of a league where: Clubs wore cowboy kits 🤠 No game ever ended in a draw (thats right, game rather than match) And half-time shows featured live concerts and armadillo racing  And of course, the super computer decides whose team wins.   🎧 Available now — listen wherever you get your pods.

⚽ The Dynamo Football Book Club Podcast — Episode 39: Di Stéfano We kick off our rebrand as The Dynamo Football Book Club with a book about a real legend Di Stéfano by Ian Hawkey.   Alfredo Di Stéfano — the Blonde Arrow 🏹 — won the first five European Cups 🏆 with Real Madrid, played for three national teams 🌍, and lived a life packed with drama: a Venezuelan kidnapping 🕵️, 514 career goals ⚽, and a near-marriage to a woman 50 years his junior 💍.   This episode blends football history with Cold War intrigue, featuring cameos from a young García Márquez ✍️, Che Guevara 🧳, and a future King of Spain 👑.   🎧 If you like football books, wild biographies, and the golden age of the game — this podcast is for you. 👉 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share.

It is our 8th edition of Injury Time, and we return to the football musical canon. This time round, we are listening to football’s greatest rappers. No Ballon D’or winners this time, but one World Cup winner and lots of hits on YouTube and a lady somehow singing with a Liverpool winger’s voice. It’s not John Barnes; he has been banned.   Please do like and subscribe.

In Episode 38, we discuss the life – or rather The Three Lives – of the Kaiser Franz Beckenbauer by Uli Hesse.   Another of the faces on football’s Mount Rushmore, Beckenbauer is one of only three men to win the World Cup as a player and a manager and he is the only one of those three guys who also won three European Cups on the bounce with his club and who saw Grace Jones naked on a white horse in Studio 54.   Tune in to hear about a remarkable series of lives.   Please do like and subscribe.

For the 7th edition of Injury Time, we are picking the best and most interesting players who have received drug bans. From party boys like Diego to your boring performance enhancing types like Stam, we take a tour through the players who were caught with their hands in their wife’s medicine cabinet. This is also our first episode to feature an alleged war criminal.   Grab your methylephedrine and tune in to find out whether Alistair can narrow that growing lead of Johnny’s…

In Episode 37, we visit the captivating story of Gazza in Italy.    This rather short book by Daniel Storey really packs a punch. Having read so many of these books by now, this one highlights the most important element of all - an interesting protagonist. Gazza is one of the most interesting of all - gifted, haunted and poor entertainment gold.   Have a listen to hear about him slapping an elderly Agnelli on his bald pate, faking motorbike accidents, and sending poor old Jimmy Five Bellies to Rome via Cambodia. Good man Gazza.    Be sure to like and subscribe.