Episode 17: The All-Ireland Senior Football Championship - "Where We All Belong"

From the muddy fields of Meath to Croke Park's sacred sod, this episode dives into one of the most fiercely loved and proudly Irish sports: Gaelic football. We explore what makes the game so unique - its rules, its roots, and the deep ties it holds to community and identity.

We trace the story back through time: to the birth of the GAA and its fight to preserve native games; to a tragic Sunday in 1920 when a football match became an unforgivable massacre, and another Bloody Sunday played out in blood, grief and inevitable whitewash. Not Ireland’s first such Sunday, and sadly not it's last.

And finally, on lighter grounds, we look at the long-suffering tale of County Mayo. A famed curse that no Mayo team would lift the Sam Maguire again while even one member of their victorious 1951 side still lived - seventy-five years, eleven finals, and a whole lot of heartbreak and ill-luck later... you can be forgiven for thinking there's something to it.

We’ve come away from this one with nothing but admiration for the sport, its history and its heart. Gaelic football is a living thread of Irish identity, with the All-Ireland final it's crowning moment. A sport and a history well worth learning about, wherever you're from.

Episode 16: A Boxing Story - Leen Sanders + Oleksandr Usyk vs. Daniel Dubois.

With Oleksandr Usyk and Daniel Dubois set to put their world titles on the line, we take a look at one of the most compelling heavyweight clashes of the year - two talented fighters, shaped by very different paths, meeting in the ring with everything to prove, to win and to lose.

But this week, we’re doing things a little differently.

Boxing is often called the loneliest sport. There’s nowhere to hide, no one to blame, and every fight has its reasons - some clear, some deeply personal. Some fight for pride, for country, for a way out. And some fight simply to survive.

At the heart of the episode is the story of Leen Sanders, a talented Dutch boxer with a hermetic defence, fighting in the inter-war years and whose career and life took a turn no one could have imagined. His fights weren’t always on canvas, and what was at stake wasn’t just titles. What he endured - and what he refused to give up - speaks to something far deeper than sport.

It's an incredible story that goes from heady heights in the ring to the darkest depths of 20th Century history, with an extraordinary man as its protagonist alongside other boxers of the era.

Come listen, but be warned, this episode hits hard.

Episode 15: The UEFA European Women’s Championship – “Women’s Football Confuses Men”

It’s a story almost as old as football itself: women start playing. People notice. They’re good - really good. Crowds grow, praise swells, more girls join in… and just as momentum builds, the men in suits step in.

With furrowed brows and dubious “health concerns”, they declare the game unfit for women - too rough, too unfeminine, too dangerous for their supposedly fragile reproductive systems. Too improper a spectacle for men to have to endure.

Rinse. Repeat.

It’s a maddening cycle that’s haunted women’s football for over a century: visibility, popularity… then paternalistic backlash. But through it all, the women kept going - not waiting for permission, not playing for praise, but for the pure, unstoppable joy of playing the game.

In Germany, they played hundreds of unofficial internationals and even hosted full blown European tournaments - all while the DFB officially banned the sport. In Italy, enthusiasm clashed with conservatism both at home and with UEFA. Meanwhile, in more egalitarian societies like those in Scandinavia, women’s football wasn’t sidelined - it was supported. And success followed. Funny that.

And then there’s England - slow to change, late to back the women’s game, left trailing rivals. But when talent finally met investment, a generation rose. With the right leadership, they took the game to stratospheric heights - and in 2022, the Lionesses did what no English senior team had done in over half a century: they won a major tournament. The result? An explosion of girls taking up the game, inspired by players who once had to fight just to be seen. Good times never seemed so good...

Because this isn’t just a story of struggle - it’s one of momentum. Those girls falling in love with football today? They’re tomorrow’s players, coaches, leaders, and decision-makers.

Once again, women are playing. Once again, the crowds are growing. But this time, the cycle might finally be broken. The opposition isn’t as loud, and is much easier to ignore. The support is stronger. And the game is rising.

The growth of women’s football isn’t done.

It’s only just getting started.