This month football’s longest running phone-in celebrated its 40^th birthday. There’s nothing quite like BBC Radio Sheffield’s ‘Praise or Grumble’. It is the original. The place where generations of fans have offered praise, and mostly grumbles, about the 90 minutes they’ve just enjoyed or endured.

For a few years I had the honour of hosting the show which covers the highs and lows of Sheffield Wednesday, Sheffield United, Barnsley, Rotherham United, Doncaster Rovers and Chesterfield. The breadth of the patch meant there were always fans wanting to have their say on a player, a manager or a referee.

At 3 o’clock you never knew exactly what the story would be, but you knew by 5 o’clock there would be one. I once went to the trouble of getting this statistically confirmed: Opta sifted through historical results and informed us there had never been a Saturday when all six clubs won.

Fielding what must have been thousands of calls on Praise or Grumble and its weeknight equivalent ‘Football Heaven’ taught me a lot about the game and its fans. Each club’s supporters are unique, but they often share a common belief. Their club “never does things the easy way.” I seldom took a call in which a supporter delighted in their side succeeding with the minimum amount of fuss. What would be the fun in that? Success that comes from strife is a much more powerful story.

But there are some clubs that have life (or perhaps make life) far harder than others. Some managers must clamber over more obstacles to earn three points. League Two began on Saturday with eight new faces in the dugout, and two of them met at Rodney Parade. In the spirit of the oldest football phone-in I’d like to offer a praise for Hayden Mullins.

Imagine the perfect pre-season as a new boss. For a start you’d have been appointed as near to end of the previous season as possible. You’d have time to assess the state of the squad and steer the club’s recruitment. You’d design pre-season. You’d have time to integrate new members of the team and establish your principles. You’d be able to build a relationship with the fans.

Suppose instead you had none of that.

Mullins was appointed as Newport County’s new boss just eight days before the Exiles’ first competitive game. His predecessor Christian Fuchs had quit in the summer, with all parties involved still offering only vague reasons as to why. Six players were signed by the club before Fuchs departed, another two arrived after he left. Mullins’ appointment came just a day before a friendly with Yeovil, and four days ahead of a meeting with Roma. Training sessions in which to impart his plans were scarce in comparison to his competitors.

Their first assignment in League Two looked daunting. This was a Newport side that had averaged less than a point a game at home in the previous season, a campaign which saw them fail to win any of their first 11 league games in front of their own fans. They had won just once on the opening day in the last 12 years.

Newport faced a Rochdale side which had accumulated 106 points en-route to promotion from the National League. The visitors were under new management too but had retained a significant chunk of their promotion winning squad. They had continuity, and a head coach who’d had far more time (and two cup matches) to establish his ideas.

In the event, it was Rochdale who looked like strangers.

Like the best designers, Mullins made a virtue of a restriction. There being no time to overcomplicate the game, Newport kept it simple. They were aggressive off the ball, and purposeful with it. In pre-season, Roma stars had been asking Newport players why they ran so much. Rochdale swiftly discovered the answer. Pressure forced mistakes, it drew fouls, it earned set pieces.

All three Newport goals emerged from balls into the box on an afternoon where the home side attempted 25 crosses. First the Rochdale offside trap malfunctioned after a corner was half cleared. 1-0. Next Shaquille Gwengwe beat Sam Sherring to Harrison Biggins’ clever centre. 2-0. Finally, a Cameron Norman long throw was met by a weak defensive header, allowing Yayah Bamba to blast home. 3-0.

An effective attack was complemented by defensive solidity. Rochdale didn’t have a single shot on target in the game. Their attacking moves were shunted into dead ends. The visitors held 68 per cent of the ball and returned an xG of 0.13. There were few signs of life in the contest before Bryant Bilongo’s red card, and none after.

Mullins does appear to have been helped by Newport’s summer recruitment, even if he had little say in shaping it. Experience levels have been cranked up. Last season the Exiles had an average age of 25, the second lowest in the division. On Saturday they started with an average age of 27.

New captain Kyle Cameron (29) showed immediately why he’s held the armband almost everywhere he’s been. At right-back, the returning Cameron Norman (30) has entered his second century of Newport games. It’s clear from his interviews that the Exiles’ two-time Player of the Year is back in his happy place. Shrewsbury fans will not recognise the transformation in Harrison Biggins (30), awarded the sponsor’s Player of the Match for his all-action display.

In addition, the calculated gambles Newport often take in the transfer window are, for now, showing very promising signs. Bamba has two goals in two appearances. Gwengwe’s predatory instincts led to his first goal in the EFL. The latter scored 46 goals in 46 games last season in the Southern League Premier Division South. Three rungs up the ladder he’s made an encouraging start.

It’s clear Newport have continued a pattern of taking a punt on their head coach too. Each of the Exiles’ last seven permanent appointments have either arrived from coaching youth football, or made Newport their first senior managerial role. The sum total of Mullins’ EFL experience came in caretaker spells at Watford and 10 months in charge at Colchester. He’s spent the last few years with Fulham’s under 21s. So many first time managers never get another opportunity. Chairman Huw Jenkins has offered a second chance to make a first impression.

Newport have been tipped to struggle and after one game in a marathon season caveats abound. The club travel in tighter financial constraints than many of their rivals. Their squad depth remains questionable. But, on this early evidence, there’s certainly no reason to grumble.

Stray observations

• It would be an incomplete analysis not to mention Rochdale’s injury issues. Ian Watson named two goalkeepers on the bench. The visitors were without Cian Hayes, Lawrence Maguire, Sam Beckwith, Casey Pettit, Will Jenkins and the veteran Ian Henderson. Watson to his credit didn’t blame injuries for the defeat, saying his side’s performance was not acceptable.

• Two games into the season I’m yet to witness a goalkeeper call for treatment with what can best be described as a vague injury. The best law changes are invisible. The threat of losing an outfield player for a minute when an unchallenged keeper calls for treatment appears to have ended what had become a technical timeout. Good.

There can be no optimism as fragile as pre-season optimism. A season’s hope can be extinguished not just in a single game, but within a single half. One year the club I grew up supporting signed two England internationals in the summer, then found themselves 4-0 down at half-time on the opening day.

Optimism can be driven by well-worn cliché. After all, the Championship table begins with everyone starting on an equal footing (this year there’s one notable exception). But every club brings baggage into the 46-game grind and Stoke City might lay a claim to having more than most.

Stoke are still to trouble the top half of the Championship in eight seasons since their relegation from the Premier League. Last season saw a spectacular collapse from second place in November to 17^th in May. There are five sides who’ve made the second tier their home for longer than the Potters, however three of them have reached the playoffs at least once, and all of them have finished higher. But, with eighth place good enough for a place in the playoffs, might Stoke’s ninth year in the Championship offer hope that this season could be different?

There’s plenty about Stoke City that’s changed. The first thing visitors to the Bet365 Stadium will notice is the new crest, a design inspired by the badge worn between 1977 and 1992. This commentator is also pleased to see a new shirt containing a blank space on the back, finally making squad numbers visible from a distance greater than 5 yards.

But aesthetics are just the start. Stoke’s impressive new training facility opened in February and the club will hope to reap the benefits of its first full season. Damian Roden returned as Head of Medical and Performance in April, a response to the injuries that derailed last season’s promotion push.

Then there are the new faces on the pitch, most notably in midfield. Ethan Galbraith’s £10 million acquisition from Swansea adds class. Sporting Director John Walters has placed Galbraith is on the same level as last season’s Championship Player of the Season, Hayden Hackney. Svante Ingleson, one of the few bright sparks in Sheffield Wednesday’s miserable 2025/26, adds steel and a useful looking long-throw. Promising centre-half Luke Graham has swapped the Scottish Premiership for the English Championship. Graham’s old boss Steven Pressley says the 22-year-old has the talent to play in the Premier League.

All three started in Stoke’s first competitive action of the new campaign. And by half-time pre-season vibes were souring. Oldham were winning the midfield battle, and a mistake by Graham in failing to clear should have seen the League Two side leading the contest. Mark Robins has argued Stoke would have been 10 to 12 points better off last season but for the shoulder injury sustained by goalkeeper Victor Johansson. After witnessing the double save their Swedish international produced to deny Mike Fondop it was difficult to argue.

Robins has also noted his side weren’t good enough from set plays last season. He will have taken satisfaction from Stoke’s opening goal. Sorba Thomas’ inswinger produced enough pressure to force a mistake. Oli Norburn was the unfortunate man to put though his own net on his Oldham debut. He was the second man to do so defending a set play against Stoke in the space of a week.

With nerves settled Stoke started to play the better football. But for all that was new about the home side, it was a familiar face who set up the game’s decisive moment. Bae Jun-ho’s introduction coincided with a greater degree of incisiveness in the home side’s play. He’d already set up fellow substitute Robert Bozenik for a chance the Slovakian squandered, before doing so again to devasting effect. Speculation around an exit for Bae, who has a year remaining on his contract, has swirled in recent weeks. An assist, two other chances created, and a 100 per cent pass completion rate in his 24-minute cameo showed why he may remain Stoke’s best option in the number 10 role.

Who starts up front remains up for debate. Sam Gallagher’s fitness issues saw him start just four Championship matches last season, and he was unable to convert any of three first-half opportunities. Bozenik’s effort eight minutes from time doubled his Stoke City tally in a single afternoon. Milan Smit has played 31 minutes of competitive football since March and was an unused substitute here. Nathan Lowe has been loaned to Hibernian.

If there is to be further investment in Stoke’s squad, you’d expect it at the tip of the spear. Walters has talked down loan deals, stating he’d prefer not to develop other clubs’ players. Developing what Stoke have in house might be the unsexy, but sensible play. Bozenik claims to be stronger, fitter and smarter than before. Stoke have league fixtures against Swansea, Southampton and Wolves before having to decide whether what they have is enough. It remains the biggest doubt surrounding their season.

But Stoke can boast players many of their rivals would envy. They have arguably the best goalkeeper in the Championship, and one of its most dangerous wide threats. Johansson signed a four-year deal in May. Potters’ fans will hope Sorba Thomas isn’t tempted away. In his non-league days a Tesco meal deal was the Welsh international’s pre-match nutrition. These days he’s offering silver service to whoever Stoke play up front.

Robins says the club are “desperate” to get promotion. He says it feels different. There’s no doubt Stoke have an excellent manager with a proven track record. A cup win, even as the hosts took a while to find their feet, keeps optimism alive ahead of much bigger tests to come. And if they have an answer in front of goal, internally or externally, Stoke might actually give themselves a chance this year.

Stray observations

• This was a rare chance to see the League Cup kick-off the new season, and it was an innovation I’d be glad to see repeated. On the whole, clubs played stronger lineups than they otherwise would have done had the first round been sandwiched in between the season’s opening league games. It led to a much more compelling spectacle.

• On this evidence Oldham will be a force to be reckoned with in League Two. New signings Oli Norburn and Keenan Appiah-Forsun have the potential to dominate midfield, the latter covering an exceptional amount of ground and using the ball smartly in possession. Micky Mellon’s side already had a formidable defence, and Stoke loanee Favour Fawunmi looks set to add a significant degree of flair.

Research on the cutting room floor

• Oldham’s Tom Pett has been promoted three times in his career, but I’d argue his biggest success is having a first date that involved watching football on TV, getting a second date, and the woman in question now being his wife. It probably helped that Hannah Blundell is also a professional footballer. Nevertheless, Tom Pett, well played.

My next game

• Sat 15^th August: Newport County v Rochdale, 12:30 (Sky Sports+)

There’s a thing about players who have gone on long dry spells in front of goal. For the most part it is completely unremarkable. Pointing out a Championship left-back hasn’t scored for more than three years is the kind of insight you only need the moment that player ends their barren spell, or has perhaps missed a golden opportunity to do so. And yet, it’s the kind of information you always need to hand.

When commentators talk about most of their preparation going unused, this is the kind of thing we mean. There are many nuggets of information that could lift the audiences understanding of the game and the players involved, but don’t become relevant.

Ahead of the League Two playoff semi-final, for example, I’d noted Grimsby centre-half Cameron McJannet and Salford’s Ryan Graydon were teammates at Derry City, where they’d won the FAI Cup together. But Graydon spent the game playing on the right wing and the pair never really came into contact.

You can’t manifest a moment into existence, you can only be prepared for the ones that might arrive. The chance to mention Burton Albion’s Curtis Tilt quit football and was working on a quarry aged 16 may never come. Luther James-Wildin of Stevenage is a Grade 8 trumpet player, and pretty handy on the piano too – but how many times does a right back call the tunes in a game?

Research is the bedrock of any broadcast. You never know exactly what you’ll need, and there is nothing worse than watching the players step onto the pitch and feeling underprepared. As a result more hours than I dare to count are spent trying to discover not only the basic facts, but things fans of each side will find noteworthy.

I’m always looking for ways to streamline this part of the job and it’s at this point I should make a confession. I am a sucker for productivity hacks. I have purchased my fair share of hardware and software aimed at making the process of research and delivery more efficient. And this summer, convinced by the idea that we are now living in the era of personal software, I’ve been trying my hand at vibe-coding.

If there are alarm bells ringing in your mind I want to be clear – Artificial Intelligence is not, and will not be doing my commentary research. Despite advances, trusting an AI with finding facts is as perilous as redeploying a brutish centre-half in a new role playing out from the back. The results are predictable and calamitous.

The AI I’ve been using is very good at coding but, despite confident assertions of its research capabilities, frequently blunders. Recently I was confidently informed that the meeting between Notts County and Leicester City on the opening day of the new League One season would feature “two new permanent managers, both taking charge of their first competitive fixture in the job.” This would be news to Notts County’s Martin Patterson who led the Magpies to promotion last season. Leicester’s Russell Martin would raise an eyebrow too. His first competitive game in charge will take place week earlier in the EFL Cup.

There’s a wonderful quote about AI which went viral a couple of years ago….

“I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.”

I’ve approached AI with the same mindset. I don’t want AI to do my research, not least because it will make mistakes. But it’s also because the process of doing the research is the very reason information puts down roots in your brain, ready to be recalled at right moment. In that spirit I’ve been using AI to build tools for research.

Transcription

One of the sad realities of modern journalism is that many smaller clubs no longer have dedicated reporters from independent media writing regularly. The result is that easy to access, in-depth journalism on clubs in League One and League Two (with some notable exceptions) is increasingly difficult to find.

Sitting through hours of manager and player interviews is often the only way to get solid, dependable information on some clubs. But one thing that’s become very clear in the last couple of years is that AI can do a remarkable job with audio transcription.

So I asked AI to build a tool that transcribes interviews from multiple online sources, allowing me to find the best news lines and insights. The app builds an interactive transcription. Clicking on any word starts the audio playing from that point so I can hear the tone and context.

This means I can get to the good stuff faster. If I’m listening to a player interview from three months ago, because the player hasn’t spoken publicly since, I don’t need to hear their thoughts on the “tough game” they have at the weekend. But, there may be something lurking in the interview which I wouldn’t otherwise have time to find. And I can broaden my scope. Now absorbing an 11-minute interview with a player about their tattoos isn’t out of the question.

The software builds a queue of multiple transcriptions. While it’s busy listening, I can get on with another part of my pre-match prep.

Player Identification

One of the challenges in any season is getting to know the new players. In the EFL and WSL most contracts are short, and squad churn presents a real problem.

In a TV commentary you live and die by player identification. Say the wrong name of a goalscorer and there’s no walking it back. Watching as much game footage as possible helps with knowing who’s who, but I want to know the names, numbers and faces are sinking in for sure. I tasked AI with building a tool that gamifies player identification.

This app gathers profile pictures for each player in a club’s squad along with their name and number to create flashcards. I’m then presented with a picture at random. The task is to name the player before turning over the card to reveal whether I was right.

This app lives on my phone so I can ‘play’ while waiting for the microwave to ping or the kettle to boil. In August, when the ball drops in the penalty area among a sea of new faces, I want to be ready as I can be. That counts for double if it turns out everyone is wearing pink boots this season.

The Database

One of the recurring challenges I’ve faced over the years is the limitations of my note taking system. A US college professor once called my penmanship “spotty”, and that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said about it. Therefore I work using printed stickers, with each player occupying a snug space containing the sum total of my research. Each sticker is then placed in formation when the team news is announced. Last season it looked like this;

So ahead of a game each player needs a printed sticker featuring the following information;

• Name (and pronunciation)

• squad number

• age

• nationality (and international record)

• position

• appearances, goals and cards

• previous club

This is then furnished with other significant details. What history does the player have in this fixture? Are there any interesting facts, connections or spicy quotes. If the game became about this player, what would the story be?

But with squad turnover so high my method of keeping track of all the players had become overwhelming and inefficient. I often ended up inputting the same information into new places over and over again. And at any time only so much information about a player could exist in GoodNotes or Excel.

Now I have the AI coded database software which you saw at the top of this post. This is where player information lives, and only the most relevant facts for each fixture make it into the stickers for any given matchday. It means when I research a player’s EFL Trophy history it isn’t discarded when I cover the same player in a league fixture two months later.

When I’ve finished my prep, the database generates the stickers I need and allows me to select just the information I want for that game. And better still, when players move clubs the software moves them for me thanks to a built-in transfer tool. On the day following the transfer deadline, I’ll be able to move hundreds of players to the right clubs in a matter of minutes. For me, this is a game-changer.

Productivity 1 Admin 0

I suspect there are other ways I could use this technology to even greater effect. And the most impressive thing about vibe coding is how accessible it is. My coding knowledge is next to nil. But in natural language I was able to describe what I wanted and prompt the AI as the apps took shape. I'd never opened Xcode before, but all of a sudden I was making suggestions, corrections and adding new features.

And AI can be useful in other ways. I used the transcription tool to go through an entire commentary from last season. Then I fed the transcript back into the AI to find out which words and phrases I leant on too often. You’ll hear those words less frequently next season. And hopefully, at the right moments, you’ll hear some good stories which didn’t take quite so long to find.

NB: No AI was used in the writing of this article…

Clive Tyldesley has an excellent rule for broadcasting in general, and commentary in particular: never say “of course”. These two words used in tandem have the power to undermine whatever it was you were trying to communicate. Your audience will contain die-hard fans and casual observers, but using “of course” at a stroke alienates both. One half of the audience feels as if it is being talked down to, the other that its time is being wasted.

Using “of course” might be one way to alienate the audience, but there are plenty of others. And in commentary there’s one element where you can alienate an audience by being right just as much as you can alienate them by being wrong. Let’s talk about pronunciations.

While watching or listening to a game you may have muttered to yourself about a mispronunciation. Please know that commentators agonise over this stuff all the time. In my experience there is a rule similar to Godwin’s Law: “As a discussion between commentators grows longer, the probability of the pronunciation of a name being addressed approaches one.” The next time you’re in conversation with a commentator at a social event and you’re stuck for something to say, ask them how to pronounce the name of Queens Park Rangers’ Belgian-born Moroccan international Ilias Chair.

I first encountered Chair when I was working in BBC Local Radio. Featuring at the World Cup was a distant dream for the then 20-year-old midfielder when he appeared as an unexpected name on the substitutes bench. The task when faced with a surprising name on the team sheet back then was a simple one – find and talk to your opposite number working for the other BBC Local Radio station covering the game. These conversations, friendly but usually brief, allowed you to swap all unknown pronunciations in one go. And in this instance it was established that the name was actually quite straightforward to say – Chair, as in a piece of furniture.

Except a few years later, a TV commentator pronounced it entirely differently. Chair became “Sha-hear”. Eyebrows were raised. Was this a new signing? It was, in fact, the same bloke who had been playing at Loftus Road for years. There was some ribbing, but the reality was the commentator was right – we’d been saying Chair wrong for years. This would later be underlined when Chair said his own name to camera ahead of the 2022 World Cup.

And yet when Queens Park Rangers produced their pronunciation guide for the 2025-26 season, Chair’s ninth at the club, it was the anglicised version of his name that was listed. “Sha-hear” – it seems – will forever be Chair in England.

Chair encapsulates one of the enduring problems for commentators. Many names are anglicised, and using or ignoring a well-established pronunciation is more of a tightrope than it may seem. Over time, some change to a more accurate pronunciation. Belgium’s Kevin De Bruyne has trended towards accuracy, for example. Bruno Fernandes never has. Nobody in Portugal says Fernandes, they - and he - say “Fernansch”.

Sometimes, bizarrely, things move in the other direction and names start with accurate pronunciations but become anglicised over time. When French winger Anthony Knockaert arrived at Leicester City he advised that the ‘K’ at the start of his name was not silent. There’s plenty of BBC Radio Leicester archive where he is correctly called “K-nock-art”. The problem was no-one else got the memo. By the time Knockaert reached the Premier League he had given up asking for his name to be pronounced correctly, noting that even in France no-one pronounced the K. An example perhaps, of the soft power of the Premier League.

So how do we try and get it right? Thankfully on this subject commentators in English football have never been more fortunate. At the start of every season English clubs in each of the top four tiers now provide guides on how to say the names of each of their players.

It’s not an infallible system. Without wanting to name his club, for whose efforts I really am grateful, an EFL striker who bagged a hatful of goals in 2024-25 was mispronounced again and again (including by me) because of an error in the guide. I’m pleased to say the error was addressed last season, and his continued goalscoring exploits have been marked appropriately this year.

But not every league has the same level of service. As a result, much of my time is still spent trying to get names right. Many players feature in YouTube interviews and podcasts. Some, however, are too shy or polite to correct a host if their name is pronounced incorrectly. As a result, I’m also indebted to several press officers in leagues without a co-ordinated system of guides. They all patiently took my calls about the likes of Wilma Leidhammar, Tove Almqvist and Sofia Dix-Trujillo.

And it should be said many players are understanding. Often players know certain sounds are extremely difficult for a native English speaker, and therefore why their name gets anglicised. Even England internationals with foreign surnames are not exempt from error. Phil Jagielka – pronounced “Yag-yil-ka” and not “Jag-yel-ka” – considered the mispronunciation a stage name.

So when is the right pronunciation wrong for the moment? This is often more art than science. As a general rule an anglicised version of a pronunciation is probably better if that’s what your audience is expecting to hear. If your audience is a global one, it’s better to lean towards accuracy.

But a tension remains. Big moments in matches belong to players and fans, and not the commentator. When expectations differ as to how a name should be roared, it’s not simple to set out a hard and fast rule as to whose interests are paramount. Is it the player’s pronunciation, or the fans’ expectation? Often, it’s the wisdom of the crowd that dictates, and that power is something even the captain of Manchester United has been unable to overcome.

We’ve reached a point where pronunciations have never been more accessible, but 100 per cent accuracy in broadcast isn’t yet obtainable. For Ilias Chair and Bruno Fernandes it’s an unfairness that probably won’t be corrected. But the proliferation of players saying their own names to camera has only really become established precedent in the last few seasons. In time the audience should be able to expect fewer discrepancies, and I’ll have to find something else to talk other commentators about before kick-off.

Reaching the end of the group stage at the World Cup often feels like halfway. It really isn’t. Even before this edition was expanded to 48 teams playing 104 matches, a World Cup at its knockout stage was far closer to the end than the start. This time only 32 of the 104 matches will be left to play. England’s defining moments will arrive at some point in the next few weeks, shaping a summer just as they have done since I first fell in love with the tournament.

Like so many, as each World Cup arrives I remember exactly what I was doing in previous years. Perhaps more accurately, I remember exactly what I wasn’t doing. I wasn’t, for example, putting in some last-minute revision for a GCSE Business Studies exam which began at half-time during England’s quarter-final with Brazil. My fellow classmates were probably among the last in the country to know of England’s elimination. And – this being 2002 - it would not be until hours afterwards that I would be able to see the agonising way it happened.

Those are the sort of formative experiences that make a football obsessive plan for all future tournaments. At my first job, annual leave was booked months in advance to ensure I could watch as many games as possible. Now I’ve built a career where it is my responsibility, my duty, to know exactly what’s going on. By the time the group stage is completed I’ll have watched about half of the 72 group games in full, and extended highlights of all the others. I’m grateful for what I’ve been able to watch given half of the group matches have kicked off after midnight in the UK, and the mortgage won’t pay itself. I’m also grateful for my very understanding wife.

But if I interrogate the last few weeks a bit more closely, did I really watch that many games?

As Ivory Coast took an early lead against Brazil on Thursday I remember reaching for my smartphone. By the time I’d put it down again the first hydration break had been and gone. I can’t even tell you what I looked up. I can only tell you that my second screen, which was showing Ecuador v Germany on mute, had now become my third screen. The World Cup, the quadrennial showpiece, a landmark in my life, had given way to mindless scrolling.

How many times had this happened so far? I couldn’t say for sure. I can only tell you when it didn’t happen, and that’s when I recorded the game to watch on delay.

I first started recording football to watch later in blissful ignorance of the result a decade ago. Our oldest son had a birthday party scheduled at the same time as Leicester City’s trip to Arsenal. In the end Arsenal’s late win would have no impact on the outcome of the Premier League title race, but that was far from how it appeared at the time. The other parents were briefed – I was not to be told anything about the game no matter how inconsequential. They obliged the madman and his peculiar request to pretend what was unfolding elsewhere was not, in fact, happening. And it worked. I watched the match hours after it finished, then caught up with the agony. I’d controlled the experience, if not the outcome.

The success of this approach led to many more afternoons spent wondering what had happened in the latest chapter of football’s most unlikely champions. Our children were young and skipping out of parental duties for hours every weekend was not an option. I could have received goal alerts, snatched glances of the action, but I would have been snacking at the feast. Instead, many nights during Leicester City’s title winning run-in were spent watching matches on delay. Celebrations of Leo Ulloa’s winner against Norwich registered on the Richter scale near King Power Stadium. In my house they were met with silence so as not to wake any sleeping infant.

You might have quite a visceral reaction to this. An episode of ‘Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?’ in which the main characters try to avoid the score of an England match is a classic reference point. It’s burned into British culture. Even those born decades after it first aired in 1973 are conscious of its impact. Back then spoilers threatened to arrive via the radio, the evening papers or a telegram. But I’m here to tell you in that 2026, even in today’s everything everywhere all at once media environment, avoiding the score is a pretty achievable goal. iPhone and Android users can set focus modes which allow you to block notifications from people and apps. Silence the notifications likely to give the game away and you’re pretty much set.

And here’s what makes the effort worth it – eliminating your phone’s ability to spoil the result destroys almost all potential distraction. The phone becomes radioactive, unusable for all but the most serious of tasks. And so the game can be the only focus, not the group chat, or the social media debate which you can neither influence nor win. Your opinions on what you’ve seen arrive organically and, having not been released to the public, can change with events.

Watching on delay has other advantages too. Need to pause the action to get a drink? No problem. What difference is being another minute behind? Better still, having enjoyed your own hydration break, watching the game on a delay means you can fast-forward through the other one.

Distraction free football on delay is one of my favourite hacks. There’s a reason why we love this game, why these tournaments remain waypoints in our lives, why you made sure you had enough time to sit down and enjoy it. So enjoy it by being disciplined. Hit record, and let me know how you get on.