The Football Ramble

The Football Ramble
Presentation
Hosted by Marcus Speller
Jim Campbell
Luke Moore
Pete Donaldson
Genre Sports/Comedy
Language English
Length ca. 50 minutes
Production
Production

Doc Brown (Live shows)

Pete Donaldson (Podcast)
Publication
Debut 2007
Website http://www.thefootballramble.com/

The Football Ramble is a podcast, book and website about football, produced in and around London by The Football Ramble Ltd.[1] Originally provided fortnightly, this was increased to a weekly show at the beginning of the 09/10 football season, mainly due to repeated listener requests. In October 2015, the podcast became biweekly with a preview show of the weekends football going out on a Friday followed by a reflective preview show on Monday.

It is presented by Marcus Speller, Luke Moore, Pete Donaldson and Jim Campbell. On the podcast, emphasis is placed upon European (especially the English Premier League), and World Football and to a lesser extent the Italian, German, Spanish and Scottish leagues providing an irreverent viewpoint on the sporting issues of the day.

Podcast

The podcast began in April 2007, in Luke Moore's kitchen, featuring original presenters Christopher Apples and Chimmers "Chimmers" Chimmers. 2008 saw Apples leave the show, to be replaced by XFM DJ Pete Donaldson. In June 2009, the podcast reached the number 1 spot in the iTunes sports podcast chart, beating off competition from titles from The Guardian and the BBC.[2] It is currently the largest independent podcast in the UK, and one of the largest anywhere in the world.

Each episode begins with the Ramble theme tune playing which is sometimes preceded by famous footballers speaking, for example "I'm Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and you're listening to The Football Ramble". The host Marcus then introduces the panel individually before asking a question based on a recent event which each host answers before Marcus picks the best answer, awarding the winner an unspecified number of points, which are essentially inconsequential.

The main bulk of the show consists of a review of the previous week's fixtures, with the majority of the focus spent on the Premier League and then the rest of the major European leagues, notably the Spanish, Italian, German and Scottish leagues. Alongside this, Marcus picks out interesting and notable stories from the rest of the football world. Regular inclusions in this section include Sven-Göran Eriksson, Diego Maradona, Ronaldinho and Gigi Becali.

The final section of the show includes contribution from the listeners through email and social media. Contributions, or 'Highlights of the Week', are read out by Luke Moore with the other three adding their own highlights.

One regular feature on the Ramble was a "funny stories" section, originally read by Chris Apples and later by Jim following Apples' departure. The section focused on bizarre stories from the world of football, almost inevitably originating from South America. A running theme has also been Marcus' recommendations of his "book of the week", usually given to most books referenced on the show. One of the only books to explicitly not get this honour was "Carra" by Jamie Carragher. Prior to this a book written by Tim Lovejoy was similarly snubbed.

The Football Ramble Preview Show

During the 2015/16 season, The Football Ramble began producing a weekly preview show, currently sponsored by bet365 for the 2016/17 season. The Football Ramble Preview is a shorter show than the usual Monday fare and features Marcus, Luke, Jim and Pete’s thoughts on the upcoming fixtures in England’s top flight. At the end of each show, courtesy of bet365, the Ramblers will place a £50 bet with all winnings going to Prostate Cancer UK.[3]

Syndication

SiriusXM

As of Tuesday 6th October 2015, The Football Ramble became available twice a week on SiriusXM FC.[4] Every Tuesday, from 1pmET, the regular Football Ramble show is syndicated nationally for Sirius subscribers across the United States. There was also a phone-in show aired on Thursdays but this stopped for the 2016-17 season.

Eon Sports Radio

The show is also syndicated regularly on Eon Sports Radio in Australia.

Live events

The Football Ramble has also evolved into a live theatre show featuring the regular cast. These events have been in locations all over the UK, including London, Manchester and Edinburgh. Shows outside the UK have included Dublin, Ireland and Oslo, Norway.

In 2016, The Football Ramble toured the UK in both spring and autumn, the latter tour culminating in a sold out show to a capacity crowd at the 1,200 Hackney Empire in east London. Support for these shows was provided by Doc Brown.

These live events are usually less structured than the regular shows, including audience interaction and questions, and have more of a comedy focus.

Website

The website contains a blog in which writers from various countries and various websites submit stories on multiple footballing topics, a large forum, the podcast and a shop to buy podcast related items. The website is currently curated by Kelly Welles.

Book

The Football Ramble - By Four Men Who Love The Game They Hate is a book written by the presenters and published in October 2016 by PenguinRandomHouse through their Century imprint.

A non-fiction work about various different aspects of football, it was supported by a UK book tour and theatre show, and released to critical acclaim. The Daily Express gave it four out of five stars and commented '...whether you’re a season ticket holder or a Sunday League player, there’s something for every type of football fan'.

The Football Ramble - By Four Men Who Love The Game They Hate debuted at no.1 in the Amazon Sports chart and was the highest selling non-fiction audiobook on Amazon in the first two weeks of release.

Media appearances

The Podcast can be found in the Championship Manager 2010 video game[5] as one of the 'media outlets' who review manager progress throughout the season.

The Football Ramble has been featured in various Football and non-football publications. Football Punk, Four Four Two and The London Paper[6] have all featured lengthy articles on the podcast. All members have appeared on Sky News, debating various footballing matters.[7]

Regular cast

References

  1. ↑ "UKDATA Company Profile". Ukdata.com. 13 October 2008. Retrieved 24 June 2010.
  2. ↑ Piercy, James (9 June 2009). "Football Ramble battles to top sports podcast league". Guardian. Retrieved 24 June 2010.
  3. ↑ http://www.thefootballramble.com/latest/entry/the-football-ramble-preview-show-with-bet365
  4. ↑ http://www.thefootballramble.com/latest/entry/news-the-football-ramble-team-up-with-siriusxm-for-two-shows-a-week
  5. ↑ "The Football Ramble in and around Championship Manager 2010". Retrieved 24 June 2010.
  6. ↑ Holland, Jessica (28 July 2009). "The Ten best podcasts". The London Paper. Retrieved 24 June 2010.
  7. ↑ “”. "Luke Moore and Marcus Speller appear on Sky News". Youtube.com. Retrieved 24 June 2010.
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