“Football is the most important of the unimportant things in life”
– Arrigo Sacchi –

Welcome to the home of the podcast, What Do You Care About Football? Launching in 2026. Every week I talk with a guest about something they care deeply about about in the world of football. Loves, passions, hates, frustrations or how it’s impacted their life.

Why do we care about football?

That is the question. I mean, I think I know why it matters to me…

I can barely remember my life before I loved football: huddled in front of my friend’s TV as a seven-year-old watching the 1972 FA Cup Final; playing for my my cub scout group, my secondary school, my local club, and then as an adult for anyone who would let me. I’ve played games on sloping mud pitches, in the worst rain and snow, on European beaches, in the Australian outback, and under 33 degrees and high humidity in Singapore. I’ve had bruises galore, broken my ankle, fractured my ribs (twice) and got kicked to high heaven by bad full backs. I can still remember in my mind’s eye goals I scored over forty years ago, but often I can barely remember what I ate yesterday.

My father took me to my first match when I was eight: Wealdstone away to Waterlooville (0-0, but I still loved it). In recent years, I’ve returned to watching The Stones. But I’ve supported Chelsea since Ray ‘Butch’ Wilkins was our teenage captain, when we only escaped relegation to the old third division by one point, and when Glenn Hoddle revitalised the club and somehow signed Ruud Gullit (🤯!), who in turn signed Gianfranco Zola (🙌). And of course the Abramovich era; that still seems surreal to me after the previous thirty years.

Whenever anyone has asked me what I want in life, I’ve constantly said, “I want England to win the world cup”. I never truly thought that would happen, although this year I dared to believe. Maybe next time…

But does that say why I care so much? Why I’m passionate about the game? I mean, it is just a game, right? Twenty-two players kicking a ball around. Why is that so, so important to me and billions of others? It impacts so many people, for good and for bad, within their footballing lives and outside.

And it’s because it’s so important, there are things I dislike or even hate about the sport: racism (still), homophobia (horrendous), ticket prices, non league issues, the lack of black managers, the thought of playing Premier League games abroad, Gianni Infantino (sorry, Gianni) and – Oh, God – do not get me started on V A bloody R…

I know other people feel the same. With their own loves and hates, passions and fears.

So, What do you care about football?

“I am passionately curious.” – Albert Einstein