Join the writer's from National World's new Scottish Football Podcast: Fae the top o' the toon, Hibs Breakdown and Hearts Digest.
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00:00Hello and welcome to the Fae the Top of the Toon podcast by the Motherwell Times. My name
00:14is Ben Banks and I'm joined today by the Glasgow World and Edinburgh Evening News sports editor
00:20Martin Simpson. You might be wondering why somebody from Glasgow and Edinburgh Evening
00:24News is on this project with us. It's part of a new expansion we are rolling out with
00:29the Motherwell Times as part of a new Scottish football podcast that we are launching across
00:34the company at National World. If you stick around you can hear exclusively from CEO Brian
00:40Caldwell on a number of topics surrounding the club. Just generally for you Martin I
00:46know you're not from Motherwell and just for anyone wondering he did think that Jamie Langfield
00:52was fouled by John Sutton way back when. Why do you think that Motherwell is a good
01:02place to be reporting on at the minute? Right first of all if it wasn't apparent before
01:09I started speaking that I'm not from the central belt that will come up pretty quickly. First
01:13of all that absolutely was a foul on Langfield to this day. That's one of the most egregious
01:20referee indecisions I've seen in top flight Scottish football in my lifetime. Don't be
01:25barf, don't be barf, you're a Muggle fan on here. Anyway, yeah it's just obviously it
01:35goes without saying that the Scottish media landscape is dominated by two teams and then
01:40below that you kind of feel that you've got your Aberdeen, your Hearts and your Hibs as
01:44the next sort of contenders in the kind of the big three of below the top two almost.
01:52But Motherwell are just over the past 20 years where we've seen Hearts and Hibs drop out
01:59at the top flight, where we've seen lots of clubs in Scotland go through some real disasters,
02:07highs and lows. Clubs from the likes of Aberdeen that had such consistency for a long time
02:13before falling away a bit and then trying to get their way back up. Big clubs like Falkirk
02:18for example that dropped all the way down to League One, another one who are making
02:22their way back up. And in that time Motherwell have just, they've always been there, they've
02:27always been a consistent force in Scottish football. They've had their highs and lows
02:32like anyone else. Some great highs and some great lows. It just feels like in my time
02:38watching Scottish football, like the Scottish Premiership, it just wouldn't be right without
02:43Motherwell there. And yeah, it's a club I'm really fascinated to just be a small part
02:50of doing this deep dive in this podcast, finding out a lot more that maybe I didn't know myself
02:56but also just getting to contribute my memories over the past 20-25 years, my memories of
03:04Motherwell from an outside perspective. Again, lots of good memories and a few annoying ones
03:11as we spoke about earlier. But yeah, I think this podcast is going to be a great opportunity
03:16to do that and just to provide an extra layer of coverage of, in my money, just one of the
03:22clubs in Scottish football that doesn't get nearly enough credit that it deserves.
03:27Yeah, just a wee bit on me. My name's Ben Banks. I've covered the club in a working
03:33capacity since around 2019 now, I think. I think it's been the last five or six years.
03:38I've written for the club's programme as well. And a bit of a weird one in terms of how I think
03:43it's usually your mum or your dad that gets you into football. It was me that got my dad into
03:47football through the Mini Steelmen behind Fir Park and get offered free tickets to go and see
03:53Mullal versus Harch in 2006. A 2-0 defeat, Larry Kingston scored for Harch. So I don't know why
04:00I went back because we were awful that day. But I kept going back and however many years it has
04:07been, nearly 18 years down the line, still here covering the club. It's been a golden period,
04:13I would say, certainly in my time following the club. Maybe no trophies to show for it,
04:16but certainly the amount of European football third and second place finishes. I mean,
04:20I think as we record this today on the 31st of July is the 12-year anniversary of Champions
04:25League football coming to Fir Park. So it just shows you the highs that this club has had for
04:31a fairly small club, I would probably say, in the grand scheme of things in terms of the level
04:35they've played at in second and third place. As you said, Harch, Hibs, Aberdeen have had their
04:40misfortunes. Mullal have been most years in and around that top six and some years as well pushing
04:46for Europe. And as we said, this is part of the rollout of the Mullal Times. We also have written
04:51coverage coming out through the Glasgow World website and the Mullal FC section. Usually daily
04:57we have something up there of some sort, sometimes a couple of times a day, but there's regular
05:02content there. And as we said, this podcast is called Fair the Top of the Toon by the Mullal
05:07Times, but we'll keep it Fair the Tap of the Toon for short so we don't get our words in a twist
05:12like I just did there. Right, I think that's the boring stuff out the way outside the fact that
05:19with this podcast, I think mainly in the main we're aiming to upload on a Thursday
05:23and that'll probably encompass more of a news type show. We'll look at the game that's just
05:29been in any major talking points in the first half and then the second half will maybe look a bit more
05:33featurey. But for this episode, as a launch episode, I think Martin is going to take over
05:39the host chair at the minute. I'm going to go through sort of my favourite Mullal 11.
05:45Bear in mind that this will be purely for fans of the club who experienced Mullal probably during
05:50the noughties and the 2010s because anything beyond that is before my time. So Stevie Kirk
05:56and the Laken Heroes of 1991, I'm not old enough to see them play so they're not getting a space
06:02in this team. It'll be reserved for the players coming after that. So I'll kick it off in terms
06:08of goalkeeper. Martin, I think that's probably the position that Mullal, probably with Stryker,
06:14have probably had the most success in in my time and I think the one that encapsulates that is Dan
06:18Randolph. Randolph in the middle of our goals was a very well-remembered chant on the terraces at
06:25Fir Park and I think he's a good example of the business model at Mullal. He came, I think,
06:30from Charlton off the top of my head as a free agent, wanting experience, came and played a
06:36number of games for Mullal and then won himself that move down south and he's been a regular,
06:40he was a regular fixture on the championship. He's served as deputy at big clubs like West Ham
06:45and Bournemouth as well as getting sort of senior minutes. So he would be the goalkeeper. I think
06:48that's probably a fairly popular shot because in his time in Scottish football he was certainly
06:54a very quality keeper and he went on to show that and still is showing that south of the border.
06:58Hello and welcome to the Hibs Breakdown by the Edinburgh Evening News. We're joined by our Hibs
07:05correspondent, Jon Greken. My name is Ben Banks and this is our new venture here at the Edinburgh
07:11Evening News to take you through the latest and most informed news and opinion on all things
07:16Easter Road. Jon will be your usual appearing guest. I'll be your host on most weeks. This
07:24episode will take more of a featurey look. As our first episode, we thought it'd be nice to get to
07:28know Jon a wee bit better. If you don't already know him already through his extensive period in
07:33Scottish sports journalism and through his coverage of Hibs on the website to get to know
07:39some of the favourite players from his time covering Hibs from watching Hibs over the years.
07:44Just briefly to start with then, I think you're 11 if I was doing it going through and I might
07:48chime in with my own opinions throughout, but I think you're 11 might look slightly different
07:53to what mines would. Mines is pretty much exclusively players from about 2008 onwards.
08:00So I've got a feeling you're going to mention some names here, but I'm not going to be a very
08:03good host and go, who is this person you're talking about and why did they play for Hibs?
08:08So starting off with your goalkeeper. That's a nice way of saying that I'm old.
08:14I thought I would put it nicely because it's kind of like the father and son act a wee bit here.
08:18All right son, go ahead. I've restricted it to players that I saw and kind of saw more than
08:24once maybe either in the flesh or football. So kind of mid-1980s onwards, so it may lose you a
08:28little bit. In goal, this was the hardest place to start. In goal, I mean, gings, when you look
08:34at it, I had honourable mentions for Andy Gorham, Alan Ruff, John Burridge, Conrad Logan for comedy
08:42value and what he brought to the team in that one off. Even slightly before my time, a Jim McArthur,
08:48but I've gone for Jim Leighton, who you'll have heard of him at least. Decent, you know,
08:54better than decent player. An interesting time when he came back to Hibs, signed by Alec Miller,
09:01so that's early 90s, isn't it? And got himself back into the Scotland setup and was just,
09:07you know, outstanding as a goalkeeper. You could have picked any one of two or three,
09:12certainly Gorham ran him really close, but I'm just on a personal level going for Jim Leighton there.
09:18Yeah, I think probably of the modern ones I would have probably picked is probably,
09:22and he's not on the same level, of course, Jim Leighton, I am aware, was not too bad between the
09:27sticks back in the day, but off your Marciano is probably the one for maybe the probably after
09:32Conrad Logan, like Conrad Logan is probably the most memorable just because of what he achieved
09:38and that sort of short stint, but off your Marciano in terms of pure quality goalkeeping was
09:43was terrific for Hibs. I thought in terms of the quality, I don't, I think clubs in
09:49Scotland will struggle to get that type of quality between the sticks, sort of, even now,
09:53I know it wasn't very long ago, but he was a proper international goalkeeper and you could
09:56tell he was an international goalkeeper, the presence he brought and sort of the command
10:00of the box he had, I always was heavily impressed by and yeah, I think he would probably be the
10:06modern shout, if you want to call it that, but obviously Jim Leighton's career in Scottish
10:12football is unquestioned really. And I know he was before your time, but John Burridge, Budgie
10:19was the most entertaining goalkeeper you've ever seen in your life as well and a complete
10:24and utter crackpot in the nicest possible way, but he's a cult hero as well, so definitely right that
10:31he gets an honourable mention in there. Yeah, right back, I've got a feeling, well, I don't
10:37know really that there might be a, I've gone with a back three. Oh, you've gone with a back three,
10:44so what you should know about John as well is John is a UEFA licensed coach, so there's no
10:504-4-2 nonsense here, no 4-3-3 like basic simpletons like me would use. John uses 3-5-2 passing out
10:56from the back, straight down the wings and inverted full backs a lot. Who have you got
11:01then in your back three? Rob Jones, League Cup winning captain 2007, a towering figure in more
11:09ways than one, just a kind of a giant at a time when Hibbs really needed a player like that. I've
11:16also gone for slightly earlier Gordon Hunter, who won the League Cup in 91, was a great servant to
11:21the club. Wasn't a captain, but was a real leader at the back in a very strong team and a team full
11:29of characters, I think you would say. And then I've cheated a little bit. I know he played midfield
11:36for Hibbs and he could have played number 10 for Hibbs on the wing, but Frank Soze, I'm going to
11:40play his sweeper. Oh, that's bold. Which he did. He'd be my liberal, you know, he'd be strolling
11:47out with the ball, picking passes left, right and centre, playing in his carpet slippers. God, just
11:55there's absolutely no notes required for that one.
12:07Yeah, I think, I know you've said no notes, so this should be fairly simple, but I think when
12:13you come to a football club, the fact that you're even like, maybe I know I keep going on about sort
12:19of like that generation gap, but like, even when it came to Frank Soze coming back to Easter Road
12:24a couple of years ago, it's not just people of that era that were on their feet. It was the
12:28entire stand, the full stadium was appreciative of what that man had done for that football club.
12:34And I think that speaks to the legacy he had and the impact it made at Hibbs.
12:39Football clubs are, I mean, when you're a young fan, you learn about the history. My son's 15
12:44years old and he's a season ticket holder. He's been a fan since he was about six or something,
12:48but yeah, he's got a Frank Soze flag, you know, he's got a scarf. You learn about the heroes of
12:54your club from years gone by. And I think that's something that Hibbs do very well, actually.
13:00So yeah, he was going to get in this team regardless. I'm just, I'm trying to fit so
13:06many people in. It's utterly ridiculous. I was going to ask, what was the thinking
13:10behind 3-5-2 then? It's either 3-5-2 or 3-4-3. I'm still swithering. I just, I wanted to get
13:20Soze in, but my midfield is stacked as well. When you think, you know, I almost overlooked
13:26John McGinn. I'm jumping ahead here, but I was going through the list and I went,
13:30oh my God, I've forgotten about Johnny Meatball. How could I do that? You know?
13:33So yeah, there's too many good players, put it that way.
13:37Yeah. Right wing back then, who have you got?
13:42Stephen Whitaker.
13:45What? Surely not.
13:47Yep. He's an outstanding athlete, bombing up and down.
13:52And it's all personal. Honourable mentions, obviously for Sir David Gray.
13:58See, I was saying that half sarcastically, thinking David Gray was going to follow up,
14:03but no, you're going with Stephen Whitaker.
14:05I'm going for Stephen Whitaker and honourable mentions for David Gray and Didier Agassi,
14:09actually, who went from Reith to Hibs and then Celtic and did very well. But yeah,
14:16I'm going for Whitaker. I just think Whitaker was,
14:19when he came through as a young player in a very exciting team, he had the lot.
14:25He had everything, could bomb forward, score goals, defend, everything.
14:29So in my team here, he's going to be high and wide on the touchline, destroying people.
14:35Great. See, with that team at that time, do you think, how hard is it now for
14:41teams like Hibs to replicate what they had at that time in terms of
14:45just the sheer amount of talent that was coming through their own sort of system?
14:50It's so hard to retain the talent now. So you could retain the talent for 18 months
14:57to two years, you know, you get two seasons out of players and they were allowed to be in there
15:02and grow and learn. Scott Brown developed so much developing in that time, you know,
15:06Kevin Thompson, these guys, whereas now you like four games for the first team and you're getting
15:12nicked. Even before that, because of the changes in visa as well, English clubs are rating academies
15:20more. So it's really hard to get anyone into a Hibs and then keep them for any length of time
15:29without them getting an offer. We saw Josh Doig was the last example, wasn't he? As soon as the
15:34offer comes in, yeah, of course the club's going to take that. It's just a brilliant offer.
15:39Hello and welcome to National World's newest football podcast, the Edinburgh Evening News'
15:43Hearts Digest. Brought to you by the team at the Edinburgh Evening News, this show will be a weekly
15:49rundown of all the latest news, results, transfer gossip and behind-the-scenes rumours at heart of
15:54middle of the NFC. My name is Martin Simpson, digital sport editor for the news and I will be
16:01your host. More importantly though, the man will be relying on to tell you the stuff you really want
16:06to hear and that's our Hearts writer Barry Anderson. Many of you will be aware that Barry
16:12is widely regarded as the preeminent journalistic voice on the Jambos in Scottish media and it's our
16:17pleasure to bring you now the very first episode of this show. This will be a special format episode
16:24for Barry who has covered Hearts for the past 20 years, picks his favourite Jambos 11 not just from
16:29his time following the club as a reporter but throughout his lifetime. Future episodes of the
16:34show will be presented in a more news-based format as we aim to fill you in on the goings-on
16:39and gorgy but for now we invite you to sit back relax and enjoy this the soft launch of the Hearts
16:44Digest. So Barry, thanks very much for joining me today. Really excited to get into this with you.
16:54First of all we need to ask without giving too much away, let me know what your sort of formation
17:00for these players we're looking at? Are we looking at a back four, two up front? What are we talking
17:04about here? Yeah, back four and two up front. 4-1-3-2 system I've gone for. Slightly unconventional
17:15but something that I think fits all the players and all the players that I wanted in the one team.
17:23I really enjoyed doing this to be honest. It was quite an unusual thing to do on a day-to-day
17:29basis. Obviously you spend a lot of time writing but I've enjoyed just trying to come up with this
17:34team and trying to recall some of the players that I'd seen when I was younger playing in
17:39different Hearts teams. So yeah it's been interesting. So let's start off with the
17:45goalkeeper then. Plenty to choose from here. Obviously Hearts have had more than a few
17:51duds in goal over recent years shall we say. Although recently as to be fair Craig Gordon
17:56and Xander Clarke are two fantastic options. But who are you picking as your goalkeeper for this XI and why?
18:05Yeah, fairly straightforward choice. I've gone for Craig. Just an outstanding goalkeeper
18:12at club level. Both spells at Hearts. Scotland as well you have to say. Some of the saves that
18:18he's made over the years I've been lucky enough to be in the stadium and watching. I've luckily
18:21taken your breath away. His reactions are terrific. You can see as well that even at 41 now
18:28he's still physically in terrific shape. One of the things I think that's helped him over
18:35the years not just as well as his fitness, his agility. He's one of these people who's
18:40blessed with very long limbs and for a goalkeeper that's obviously a key attribute. He's able to
18:46get fingertips to things that other goalkeepers simply wouldn't get to and make some really
18:50important saves. Obviously he's won honours with Hearts, won the Scottish Cup in his first
18:56spell there. Played in Europe, went away, played in England, Celtic, all the rest of it, come back
19:03and helped Hearts get back into the Premiership. So yeah, I've gone for him as a goalkeeper.
19:08A little bit spoiled for choice really when you think about it. You've got
19:11Anthony Nehemi and Gilles Rousset and going back to Henry Smith in the 80s.
19:15But I would put Craig above all of them to be honest.
19:20Yeah, Craig Gordon of course a man who won every honour in Scotland with Celtic but also had a
19:26Scottish Cup winner in 2006 with Hearts. Won so many individual awards as well and of course was
19:33at one point the record holder as the highest he paid for a British goalkeeper when he made his
19:40move to Sunderland. What do you think the future holds for Craig Gordon who is now obviously
19:47winding down his career still at Hearts? Do you think when his playing time is up we might see
19:54him remaining at Tyne Castle in any other capacity? Yeah, absolutely. Obviously they
20:02have a goalkeeping coach there, Paul Gallagher at the moment. But I think a goalkeeping coach
20:06in role, whether it's first team or B team initially or something like that, youths,
20:10I think you could see Craig slotting into that perfectly right away. And I think that's something
20:17that he'll look to do. I don't know if he wants to be a manager in his own right or if he wants
20:20to try a bit of coaching first and try and work his way up the ladder. But yeah, I wouldn't expect
20:25him to venture too far from Tyne Castle honestly. That's his club, that's the team he's supported
20:30since he was a kid and he's clearly in with the bricks there so you'd be surprised if he
20:36didn't get some kind of role there one way or another. Yeah, I mean, obviously if he wanted
20:40to go into coaching, I'm sure that's something he could do. I do believe he had a bit of experience
20:44during his sort of the kind of peak of his injury troubles when he was a goalkeeping coach at
20:50Dumbarton a good few years ago now. But even if he didn't, I'd like to say I think there will
20:55always be a place for him at Tyne Castle. You look at, for example, I believe what Gary Locke does
21:02as a sort of ambassador for the club and a representative. Even something like that is a
21:08kind of role you could see the big man filling in. Yeah, obviously you've had the pleasure of
21:15covering him for two spells over his Hearts career and just an absolutely sensational goalkeeper for
21:22both Scotland and the Jambos. So let's move on to our next position. Let's go to right back.
21:30Who have you got here, Barry, and why? I've gone for Callum Patterson here and I'm aware that some
21:39people might think, oh, there should be other contenders. But for me, and I thought long and
21:44hard about Walter Kidd, I'll be honest, for this role. The reason I went for Callum is you could
21:50argue Walter Kidd be a better defender than Callum. But I think Callum with his athleticism and his
21:56pace would be a real asset up and down that right side if you were putting this team out on the
22:01pitch. I think he would, in the modern game anyway, he's so quick. He showed in his Hearts
22:08career that he had that ability to create goals, score goals. He was winning headers from corners.
22:14He was back defending. He's just one of these guys who's all over the place and a huge asset to any
22:21team. I think, you know, at one point he was top scorer at Hearts from right back. That tells you
22:29all you need to know about his intention to get forward. Obviously, he went down to England,
22:34followed his career down there. Might he come back to Tyne Castle one day? You wouldn't put it,
22:40you know, it's not out of the question. But one of the things that I liked about him
22:45was just that hunger and desire from right from a young age at Hearts. I remember watching him
22:50at 17, I think his first game was pre-season friendly at Ruth Rovers. He scored that day
22:55and right away you thought, you know, this as well as this boy being a good player and having
22:58pace, he's got a hunger about him. He's got a desire just to be the best and be in there and
23:03make an impact in games and very difficult to impact games from, you know, in an attacking
23:07sense as a right back, you know, particularly in terms of goal scoring. You don't see too many
23:11goal scoring right backs. So, yeah, that was the reason I went for him. I think he's a decent
23:16defender without being just an out and out, you know, right back in a back four,
23:20but he also brings that attacking threat and goals.
23:46So, yeah, that was the reason I went for him.