632: Kings of Anglia: A BIG Mailbag special

30:49Ross Halls:behind us somewhere we've got like picture the backdrop is the key so probably anywhere in the caribbean probably yeah the caribbean would be my particular uh barbados maybe or maybe somewhere you just don't expect um i've always wanted to go to jamaica yeah maybe on the list um but yeah going away from barbados you know what i've weirdly i want i want to go to japan that's another one maybe we haven't cracked maybe the asian market yet so um i think that's maybe where we could take you know i remember people people just do nothing with the japan didn't didn't they for their film? That's a brilliant film, by the way.

31:31Ross Halls:Yeah. But yeah, I think maybe we need to crack that market. So yeah, maybe Japan, Tokyo, somewhere like that. Would we have to call ourselves the Bang Boys in Japan? I'm not there too. Japan would be up there for me. That's the place that I most want to go that I haven't been. I've done quite a lot of the Caribbean. So although it's nice, you know, I'm more interested in places I've not been. I was thinking the Coliseum, which again is somewhere I have been, but I think it's the best thing I've ever seen with my eyes, the Coliseum. imagine a pod in the middle of the Coliseum. That'd be great. And also because I've always been fascinated with it since I was a little boy, Everest, live pod from Everest.

32:08Again, probably logistically a bit of a challenge, I'd imagine. But if we can make it work, what a cool pod it would be. Literally AJ, I know you, you share my enthusiasm for going to Japan. Yeah. That'd be my one. Our family over in Japan. So hopefully one day soon, fingers crossed um could you imagine doing it with like mount fuji in the background i think that would be so cool it would be cool it'd be very cool off in the middle of tokyo with all that kind of activity yeah exactly so that'll be up there um and um you also know my love for spain and i i have a feeling and i hope that one might come true some point soon Well, well, well, well, well, well.

32:55Hold your horses because we have a question from Callum Brissett, friend of the show. It says Dreamtown pre-season tour location. So we may as well chuck this in while you're talking about it. On you go. Yeah, should Spain be ideal? Yeah, it's sounding like that might be the destination this summer. Nothing I don't think has been signed off officially or anything like that at this point. But the understanding that we have is that it's looking likely to be Spain. There's a lot of clubs going to Spain. Cambridge. My boys are heading to Spain for some reason to play. I think it's Preston they're playing.

33:31Cambridge, Preston, Spain? What the hell is going on? Yeah. I think Lincoln are playing late in Orient also in Murcia as well. Really bizarre. I'm hoping that if this does get signed off and town do head to Spain, they go and play a Spanish club in somewhere like Valencia or I know that you want San Sebastián or something like that. Bilbao. Yeah, Bilbao, that would be good. Somewhere that would be really cool. So we'll keep an eye out for that and what's going to happen with that. I'm really excited for it. That would be great. Dream locations, I mean, again, Asia, somewhere around, I mean, anywhere, obviously Japan, of course.

34:09And I know that, and I don't want to get too heavy on the political side, Maybe the States is not the best place to be touring at the moment for some people, they might think. But still, I think like a US preseason tour would be pretty cool still. You'd think it was going to happen at some point, wouldn't you, with the ownership and stuff. They'd be going to America at some point. If it is Spain, northern Spain, I'm afraid I'm going to have to come along on the preseason tour this time. I won't do anything, but I just want to be there. Just make sure you're doing your work properly, that's all.

34:43What should we do now? there was another question here, which was linked to Japan. I think as we talked about Japan, Mike Giametti says, any summer travel plans before preseason starts? Mike, he says, I'm currently in Japan on holiday. You lucky boy, Mike. That'd be top of my list. I'm going to Sardinia in a couple of weeks with double dipping in Italy this year, going to Puglia as well. Later on in the year, I've been learning Italian for two and a half years. I'm determined to speak proper Italian to proper Italians. At the moment, although as I know, I know a lot of Italian words when it comes to putting them in order in a conversation, I think I might bottle it and just go ciao.

35:22And that'll be about it. So yeah, Italy is where I'm going. I think my favourite country in the world, Scotland as well. I've only done 25, but of the ones I've been to, Italy and Scotland would be my favourites thus far. Ross, have you got any plans? You obviously normally pop over to Naples to see La Familia.

35:39Ross Halls:That's hopefully maybe happening in september but it's still ready 50 50. but as we've just bought a house um of course yeah you are poor yeah yeah so it's uh it's suffolk or i'm going to norfolk in july june june yeah june um in the middle of june so um for a nice over you know long weekend so um that'll be nice but uh yeah as you said i'm poor so yeah if anybody wants to you know give me money to go on holiday then just host you i mean we've got we've got listeners all over the world if you want to have ross in your house what an experience that would be yeah um he'd be up for it give him a holiday uh and to be fair ross even you know not taking holidays suffolk is a nice place to live you've got plenty of options and norfolk as well aj you've been all over the world um are you going anywhere for the rest of the year incredible picturesque christchurch long way not to new zealand that's Bournemouth.

36:39Yeah. Going down towards the south coast with family in, when have I got that time booked? I think it was July. Start of July. Start of July. At least you remember. That's good. And beyond that, at the moment, not a lot. Might try and do something. But obviously, I've been to New York recently, and that was very financially heavy, as you could imagine. And I know you're very aware of from having been before. And I've also been to the Netherlands recently as well. So probably a slightly quieter summer. but down towards Bournemouth and we'll probably try and do maybe something else small as well.

37:12Lovely stuff. Travel broadens the mind. One of the great joys of life. Harvey Davis, another joy of life. A friend of the show. I think number four. Sweetish to Welsh princes. Wales, by the way. Lovely place to go if you've never been. North Wales, especially. Harlech area. Fantastic. This is coming to you, AJ, because it's a football question. I think we should go all in. This is a good point from Harvey. It's interesting. I think we should go all in on investing in a left back this summer. As much as I adore Leaf, I think it's important we need proper competition there. Do you think McKenna will go down that route or more of a backup slash free agent again?

37:45I'm assuming Townsend will be released, of course. Poor old Connor Townsend with his knackered ACL. I still think it's more likely to be, not necessarily a free agent, but closer down the backup route because of what Davis can bring, because of how instrumental he is to the team, as a person, as a player, etc, etc. So I think that's the more likely route of the two. I can understand the logic behind going and really getting a stronger option, but it's quite similar. The back line is similar to the goalkeeper position. You don't just bring players on on 60 to change the game, really, do you? And you want to settle on the back line as well.

38:25So if you go into strength and get a really strong first choice option or a competition or whatever, you're then in a position where realistically whoever you've got on the bench is not going to be happy. So, yeah, I think that I would see it more as a backup in terms of the recruitment this year. I still think Leif Davis will be the starter, but of course as well, I think it'll be a slightly different role. I'm sticking to it. It's going to be a wing-back role instead of a left-back. I really hope it is, by the way. I really do. The more we talk about it, the more I want it to happen. And I know it's not the most exciting thing, but they just need to stay up, stay up and then build from there.

39:02And that would seem to give them the best option. Ross, I'm going to stick with a football question for you. This is about motion though. Chung Kan says, football is often the right place, right time. And when looking forward to the Prem next season, you've got lots of teams in Europe, loads of them, big managerial changes, some potential second season syndrome, and we are the most well-equipped of the promoted sides, is what he says. given all of this and this is early Ross this is Friday May 29th season doesn't start till August the 22nd given all of this will we stay up

39:37Ross Halls:I think we're more prepared this time around because I think we're still we're just I think even that the first few months the last time of the prem I think we're still like thinking how we got it how we still here and you know even off the pitch we're still building you know so much had to be done at Portman Road and everything like that and recruitment. We didn't really have a recruitment department. Now we've had a good two years to really improve on that. I think the recruitment will be key this summer and I hope they get it right and if they get that right then I think we can. I don't think we'll do a Sunderland but I think we can just about stay up.

40:17Ross Halls:I think the goal is just to stay up because then we can hopefully build on that. That's all it's about, yeah. So, all they've got to do is survive. As we record right now, yeah, we can stay up, but we've got to recruit. Good. If we don't, then we're going down. I don't want to see any crazy predictions this time, by the way. Last time they went up, I had people telling me they were going to finish top half, and that was ridiculous. And now people will say, well, London did it. Why can't we? No, they just need to survive. Let's survive and then build on it, please. Let's not get too ahead of ourselves.

40:48Right, this is from Andy Mook. on Blue Sky. This is for you, AJ. It says, keep the pods coming. We certainly will try, Andy, and hopefully as things start happening next week, perhaps, with the retain list, we'll have more to talk about. How many signings, in your opinion, do you believe Town need and from what level? He says, i.e. Premier equivalent, and should we avoid the Championship Superstars route again? I would say definitely yes to the latter. They need to get more experience this time around, and certainly as we've discussed loads of times with physicality and athleticism, is the key metric, obviously on top of ability.

41:25What are you saying though, AJ? If you had to pin down a number, they did 12 last time, what would you say?

41:3510, 11. I think you're looking at adding a new body in pretty much every single position of the pitch apart from left wing. I think they would be happy to go into the season with Jadon Filagin and Jack Clark, but every other position could do with someone else. either as a starter or as a backup. So I'd be looking at having a similar approach to the last Premier League season, which was, I remember you asked me this question, I said every position they've got to try and strengthen. And Kieran McKenna going into that last Premier League season said he wanted two really strong options for every position.

42:09So that's what I'd be looking at. With regards to the recruitment itself, it's so difficult to recruit from the Premier League because of the premiums that you have to pay. because of the fact that the teams around you aren't going to want to sell players because you're coming up to the Premier League as a newly promoted side and you've already had that relegation. And players who will join you, if it's not on loan, if it is on loan, you're maybe not getting the best quality. If it's not on loan, you've got to convince players that you're going to stay up and that if the team does go down and you have to accept that's a real possibility, that this is still a project they want to be part of in the Championship to get back up again.

42:48So it's a really difficult balance to try and find, and that's where foreign recruitment comes in so much easier. And I think we're going to see a lot more of that. I think it will be – I'll put my neck on the line. I think it will be predominantly foreign recruitment here. I'm not saying it will be like 80-20 or 90-10, but I think more than half of the deals that Ipswich will do this summer will be from abroad. Championship super team, definitely avoid that. We don't want a repeat of that, but you cannot ignore the markets. You cannot ignore relegated players. You cannot ignore players who've really impressed in the championship.

43:25There are plenty of options. I will be digging into all of them over the summer, my transfer target pieces, but you cannot ignore that market. When we unleash those bits, by the way, it's going to be like the matrix. You know, just a stream of data, just AJ, just literally all the signings, all the potential targets. We'll get to that at some point. It's going to be exciting. sticking with the same subject this is from james f ross via the group chat oh it actually might be instagram is it james f the the guy who lives i hope you're enjoying your time in new york let me know you're getting on james because that's uh that would be a dream of mine uh formally a few years ago before i uh married and did boring stuff um i would love to have lived in new york um anyway he wants to know how many strikers are itfc signing this summer and how many people that started versus qpr we'll start our first game in the premiership premier league top tier land of

44:18Ross Halls:milk and honey how many people will start oh i need to double check the the lineup striker wise i think we need two i think two is needed um let me on the fly just quickly get up the team i'm do you know what i'm gonna back walton in goal i'm yeah walton to be fair that's one Furlong depends on formation I know AJ's back in the back three Furlong, O'Shea Davis, Matt Siwa yeah Filipe on the left I think maybe there'll be a new 10 I think Nunes I think there's another question we're going to be getting onto shortly I don't think he starts there'll be a new right winger maybe 4-5 I think from the current crop.

45:09Ross Halls:Yeah. From that QPR game. So two strikers and four or five who started at QPR will be on the opening day, potentially. Like it. I'm going to throw this out here now because it's a good chat. And we'll talk about strikers. I reckon three. And I reckon one of them could potentially, should potentially be Jamie Vardy. Now, look, I know you're going to go, oh, he's about 300 years old. Yes, he is. But he is in the Premier League. I think he could still do a job. He's still got, what do we need? We need pace. He's certainly still got that. And we need finishing. That's the one thing that Town really lacked this season, was kind of reliable finishing from strikers.

45:48And he, whatever you think about him, he is a brilliant finisher. And he's not going to start games realistically, but 10, 15 minutes, 20 minutes off the bench, I think he'd be a useful body to have in the Premier League still. AJ, what do you reckon? I'm not going to tell you, I reckon, because I've spoken to Ross about this, and I think there might be a little segment about this. Oh, you're doing it on Transfer. Okay, I see. Later this afternoon. So, yeah, I'll wait for that one. Can I also, on the striker chat, there's something that has really stuck in my head in the last week or so. And it's to do with my transfer target pieces.

46:26Just so you know, a bit of a tease. I think I've locked in on who my number one target's going to be for this summer, so you'll have to wait and see on that one. but last summer I did a piece on potential striker targets. I can't remember which one it was. It might have been the EFL targets. It was definitely on strikers anyway. And I picked out a player who got a lot of heat and people saying, what on earth are you thinking? Adding him in with everything that's like who he is as a person and he's not that good a player, stuff like that. This player, it's quite funny going back and looking at that piece in the comments, this player this season, now has scored 17 goals oh i see seven assists in the championship he uh scored the winner for his team in the championship playoff final in the 95th minute over the weekend and has been dubbed as one of the best free transfers in efl recent history so um yes i will take your apologies in written form for those of you who called me a lunatic for having ollie mcburney on my transfer targets list I love that you're taking the time to clap back at the haters just at this juncture I almost I almost went through and like went to all the replies was like lol but um I thought I had to I'd compose myself I couldn't couldn't uh I couldn't lose it too much but I I had to mention it in some form because um that was quite good 24 goal contributions for a free transfer but not good enough hey it's clearly not affected you AJ bothered you at all hasn't got into my head at all not at all uh Farmer J-Dog you just mentioned it Ross on Instagram can you see Nunes staying as a number 10 or dropping back

48:07Ross Halls:hmm because funny enough when he was up the road that was his role wasn't it really um and he's been he was very up and down I know we we loved the signing and stuff and he scored a few free kicks and we beat Norwich finally and you know he played in those games of course the The latter one at Carrow Road was an interesting cameo. I'm going to be very intrigued to see what his role is going to be next season. I don't know if... The thing is, though, he worked really well. When he was in the team, that's when we were clicking. And that was when he was playing in the 10. But I don't mind him dropping back down, you know, in midfield.

48:50Ross Halls:But I think he'll stay in the 10. I think McKenna will keep him there and he'll be an option in that role. Okay. Let's stick with some more transfer targets or indeed questions. How shiny my forehead is, by the way. I'll start to perspire. I'm hot. I'm hot. Alex William and Harrison, Harrison with an X, IG. He's both on Instagram. Harrison wants to know five dream brackets, semi-realistic signings. Obviously, I'm coming to you on this, AJ. And Alex says, am I the only town fan hoping we sign lots of expensive players? Pragmatism sounds very boring. Just make it rain, baby.

49:29this is tricky now because i have to do a balance of um not wanting to show my hand too much on on my uh don't give away the crown jewels yeah exactly um but also giving you a little taste into it um let's talk about the expenses so yeah of course we all want that i think the ibs which will break their transfer record again this summer um i think you're going to see a signing in the region of £30 million maybe I think breaking what we've seen before

50:04in terms of dream signings, ideal signings this is really difficult and I haven't really thought that much about dream signings because I've been very much focused on keeping things hyper-realistic which always brings me back to that one pod where I got really thrown off by like if you could sign anyone and I ended up saying Ahmad Diallo because he was in really good form at the time and then you're like oh anyone in football history choose Ahmad Diallo I was like oh maybe not just give us a couple if you can't think of five just give us a couple

50:42I mean the ones I have jotted down that we'll touch on a bit more I still think that people are are, I'm going to mention Zian Fleming, still, my boy, my man, I think he's great, he scored 11 goals in the Premier League in his first season at the level for a terrible Burnley team, I've already written about him, and I just cannot ignore that, even though he's been relegated really, really good some of them, I'm not sure we'll make the list but are quite interesting, Sergio Arribas at Almeria, if they want the number 10 exciting Spanish number 10 in the second division yeah but his numbers are really really really good

51:24I mentioned in the piece I did yesterday which got the Deossa links that actually haven't looked at Betis and I still have I always try and keep an eye on Betis I don't know if you get this where you sometimes go on holiday and you I've you don't watch football on holiday but sometimes you go and watch a game and then you're like oh I have a thing for that team now I have that with Real Betis a bit, and I still follow their games. Sergi Altimira I think is a better option than Deosa. He's got the height. He's a proper defensive midfielder. I like a bit of him. So yeah, let's go with those ones.

51:54I just had plenty more to come. Zian Fleming. I'll back him to the ends of the earth, and I still think he's really, really good. And then there's a couple of sexy Spanish names. Sergio Arribas at Almeria. And Sergi Altimira at Real Betis. Just to give you an insight of the breadth of recruitment analysis here. I have literally got, and you won't be able to zoom in, hopefully, and see all the names, but there's like a colour-coded... I'm sorry. There's like a colour-coded list of names. Just you wait until we unleash this, friends. Pages and pages, which are being built up over and over. It's going to be good stuff.

52:30Right. DJ, friend of the show number one, all the way over in America, asks on blue sky, and it's a good question. But it's not as good as I first thought when I read it. If the Premier League teams were literally their nicknames, who would win Rossi in a battle royal? And he goes, he says, Eagles v. Seagulls, Tigers v. Black Cats, etc. And I thought, wow, what a question. But I looked at the Premier League, looked at teams in it, and most of the nicknames are really boring, aren't they? And there is an obvious winner, because they'd be armed. It'd be the Gunners. They would win. Yeah, so I don't know if you've got any other thoughts on that, Rossi?

53:05Ross Halls:Yeah, you've got like, you know, Bournemouth, the Cherries. Yeah, they're not beating anyone, are they? no but the tractors it's rich we're not got much hope have we um man city are they like citizens or something like what what is that what does that even mean means nothing it's certainly in a scrap yeah back in the citizens are you against the gunners and like seagulls you just anyone hates seagulls don't they so just they can get in the bin uh eagles oh they can yeah that'd be a good fight um newcastle what are they they're magpies they make pies magpies yeah yeah so they'd be losing i mean the tigers i would say that are the next best favorites yeah behind the gunners at least they're you know an apex predator depends where we go with this i i'm back in the cottages if i dropped a big old cottage on top of literally just a whole house yeah just drop it then hey then i'm winning so yeah i'm back in fulham for this that's an interesting take to be honest yeah battle royal you've got your guns i'm just going to drop a house on said guns exactly what are you going to do there we go i like it why not good good answer aj may may have claimed the man of the match trophy for today with that answer uh where are we let's do a few more we've got loads uh where did i see a good question

54:25um dead air is a crime let's just do this one stevie adams i think it's on instagram ross this is a good one for you if you're a dog which breed would you want to be this is actually

54:33Ross Halls:whatsapp sorry yep um breed a dog um what dog like lives the longest i don't want one of those small dogs tiny dogs smaller the dog longer it lives like little jack russell things that are annoying though do you because pedigrees don't last long do you unfortunately uh what you want to be a mongrel yeah mongrel want to be a small mongrel yeah or just a nice just good side mongrel um mixing different things so yeah i'll go for a mongrel or even though you've got a hard sort of early life greyhound you know you're working for you know for your you know for your food and yeah you'll be running around chasing that rabbit or whatever it is um and then you've got a nice just chill rest of your life haven't you also they're very lazy greyhounds yeah contrary to popular opinion um they don't need a lot of exercise they just like to sleep uh i would yeah i mean in my experience as a dog owner it's always the little dogs that cause problems it's always the jack russells the little terriers that try and start fights with benson um i would i would want to be a massive a massive dog i want to be like something that looks like it should be in game of thrones like an irish wolfhound or um uh a leonberger i met a leonberger the other day they're absolutely gigantic dogs heads like bigger than you know certainly bigger than my yeah the thing i like most about dogs is big fat brick heads do you know i mean i can really like pat them proper pat them without worrying about you know in any way bothering them solidly built dogs is what i'm after so i'd be one of them or a massive like bully dog um because i love bully breeds uh aj how about yourself i just want to be benson because you treat my royalty i've seen photos of uh you cooking steak he sent yeah just cooking this up for the b unit um you missed a game to celebrate Benson's birthday once.

56:26I missed the first game in the Premier League. Yeah, which is unbelievable. Yeah, it was great. I loved it. I respect it. Yeah, so I don't want to bribe. I'm just going to be Benson. Benson does actually live better than we do. I mean, he eats healthier for a start, and he probably has as much money spent on his food than we do. Anyway, that's a good answer. Again, you're pulling away now, I'd say, in the man of the match stakes, unless Ross can pull it back. with this question, Ross. Samuel Edwards wants to know, with the hot weather recently, what is each king's ice snack of choice? What's your go-to?

57:00I like a Magnum. I cannot whack a Magnum.

57:04Ross Halls:Any particular type of Magnum? Do you know what? There's new ones they've brought out recently. Pistachio, which is a bit controversial maybe, but they're really nice. Pistachio Magnums. I've been having them a lot recently. But any sort of Magnum, I don't mind. they are delicious yeah i don't know if you had this boys um certainly it was a case for me and my wife when i was a kid and the ice cream van used to come around and uh we used to go have an ice cream we have a flake 99 this and the other and the mom would always go no there's choc ices in the fridge and the choc ices were always like the lowest quality yeah the sort of thing you take the paper off and the chocolate comes off with it you know she's got them in bulk from from a supermarket they're basic did you have that as well yes and no definitely chocolate oysters weirdly my nan um yeah she was like addicted to them for a while um addicted to chocolate yeah she was she was just oh she would just eat 10 chocolate a day habit basically i think sadly it was because i've had dementia oh oh come on but um good old doreen big town I was never just going around and she was eating the chocolate.

58:15Ross Halls:I was like, bring them back to my chocolate. I don't know where to go now. We'll just move on. We'll just move on. Oh, God. I need to find another question. I can't find another question. What's the next question? Here we go. Any chance of a KOA slash Heathie food review crossover episode where Mark takes the team for a nice lunch to discuss town? If so, where would it be? oh dear oh dear it's food again i definitely would be taking you for choc ices after that um yeah i would like the i like the idea i'm gonna have to fill here because the boys have completely gone completely gone um yeah i like the idea my favorite cheese if you're asking is stilton uh liam h on on whatsapp um that would be that would be uh my favorite cheese and in terms of a food review koa crossover where to take the team for lunch hmm good queue uh somewhere nice in suffolk put someone at todman mill perhaps lovely there um or indeed obviously the obvious place would be the the spiritual home of koa which is uh what's it i've got totally but it's name now tim hortons we we actually interviewed you aj yes and had several big meetings and since then I use it as my pit stop if I'm ever uh yeah if I'm ever solo covering a presser um I I kind of do this thing where I want to get the suffer the Ipswich drive part out of the way to get home and then I go there because it's just onto the A14 and I rattle out all the presser lines from the Tim Hortons with my little donut and my coffee lovely stuff Ross have you stopped crying yet yeah all good composed what you got for me uh where would you like to go for a koa slash food record it's got to be like a good suffolk like pub that oh i'll tell you the maybush yeah maybe looking over the estuary there'd be lovely on a nice hot day lovely stuff cool right i think we've come to the end of the questions which is as i desperately searched for question there to move us on from uh that last subject i won't i won't bring up again um bainsey has asked about transfer strategies we've done that hopefully you agree with that bainsey um have i missed any have i missed any i don't think i have oh no here we go here's a good one to finish with a little bit of light relief after a bit more light relief we just had andy mildwater wants to know aj would you rather fight a kangaroo or a badger um are badgers more dangerous than than i realized i i thought you could just they're pretty bad boy badgers i mean if it's a honey badger you're in serious trouble yeah but kangaroo you've seen the force that which they can like have you seen the picture the ripped kangaroos by the way yeah yeah yeah exactly i would back myself much more against to honey badger of course just to stress koa does not endorse animal uh violence or um what did we do previously taping them to lampposts yeah definitely don't do that we don't endorse that um but i would back myself to punter badger really hard this is a honey badger i'm sorry my honey badger is fucking you up they're doing serious damage to you you want to look them up they don't give a shit famously they take on lions tigers all sorts uh ross you once claimed that you would tape a horse to a lamppost.

1:01:48And we didn't get cancelled for that, pleasingly. That was only a joke. Kangaroos or badgers. Have you seen that clip, by the way, of the guy fighting a kangaroo? The kangaroo's got his dog in a headlock and he runs over and kind of frees the dog. And then the kangaroo squares up to him and he just clocks it with the right hand. And the kangaroo is suddenly so shocked he just manages to run off. So you've got the element of surprise. A kangaroo, you might be able to take it out. That's what I'm saying.

1:02:15Ross Halls:I don't know I think their kicks are going to be deadly I think they are definitely going to be a problem yeah I think they'll give you a massive fight but I don't know I think you can somewhat get on top of it and just yeah so yeah I want to go beat it okay you're both going badger over kangaroo that's where we're going to end the podcast today friends it's been it's been all over the shop today hasn't it we've done a lot of serious questions we've had quite a lot of mirth and hilarity as well Ross is still wiping the tears from his eyes friends if you've got anything else to mention i know we've got to mention ross and i'm going to come back to you now because we've got a koa special going out sunday morning 6am you've already probably seen a few words from it uh an interview with a legend of town and i think from my experience of seeing him interviewed and listening to him talk one of the nicest men ever and you can confirm this having spoken to tony mowbray yeah what a what a man what a gentleman um has such a great conversation with him i didn't really need to speak much really he just went and went and then i was like well just gonna take that out my notes gonna take that on my notes because he's really covered it but um a really good chat about his whole career really about his sort of early days in football to you know playing for his boyhood club borough then going to celtic not really working out there you know sadly he lost his wife burned it to cancer when he was there and he sort of was able to come to town and sort of brought him back to life, really, in terms of his footballing.

1:03:42Ross Halls:And, of course, he famously scored at Wembley in his final ever game, although he did say that wasn't supposed to be his final game. He was going to continue, but apparently he had a training session and he was rubbish and he was like, yeah, what career is done. And, of course, went into coaching at town. And then he's gone on this amazing management journey with so many different clubs and so many great stories. He mentioned memories. I did ask him, has he ever been close to becoming town manager? Unfortunately not, but some really good comments from that. And the teaser we're going to be playing is going to be actually talking about his Wembley goal, because I love the story, which you're going to hear now.

1:04:22Here we go.

1:04:23Ross Halls:Right at the start there, my dad had worked in the steel industry all his life. In my back garden at home where we lived, he'd got a scaffolding tube and bent it in the heat of the ironworks and we ran a football through it and put it in a net and I had it hanging off the washing line very high up and then I could drop the ball to whatever height I wanted it. So I practised heading all my life from the age of maybe 10 where that contraption was put onto the washing line and if you can picture it, it bends up and then bends around and the wire was put in and the ball was dropped and we could adjust the height of the ball.

1:05:03And so from the age of 10, I felt heading was something I was good at and could do. And I think back to the last ever game of my football career and think all of that work I put in from the age of 10, every day going home, even when I was a professional, I would still go round my mum's and head that ball. It all paid off on that last day for me. that ball coming in again, Magilton put it in, I think, didn't he, Jim? And, yeah, and it was all there for me to tie into my jump, tie into my run. You use a bit of leverage off a defender and I bullied it into the corner and all of that practice, all of that work paid off.

1:05:46What a lovely man and what lovely insight, Ross, and how ridiculous it is that we get paid to do this. And he's the first in the summer series, Ross, isn't he? I don't know if you can drop some other names out that you've confirmed that may be coming soon?

1:06:00Ross Halls:Yeah, I'm happy to. I spoke to Jack Colback, another sort of Northeastern lad. He recently announced his retirement, so he had two loan spells at town, but his first loan spell was pretty successful in terms of him being named sort of players, player of the year and stuff like that. Really good chat with him. It'd be interesting to see what he's got up his sleeve, you know, after playing, after finishing football. Spoke to a good old Clack, Frank Nubal. Frank Nubal. and one thing I loved about that interview he was wearing an Itchristown training kit because he back in I think 2023 I think it was he was invited to go and train with John McGrill he's form manager at Colchester he was just to keep fit and stuff and he was training with the under-21s at the training ground and he was gifted the training kit and they said oh yeah you can keep it and he said he still sort of wears it now and really good shout out of him also David Lowe who sort of got connections to Tony Mowbray managing at Blackburn and caretaker manager and stuff, but really good player back in the 80s and 90s.

1:06:59Ross Halls:I was actually surprised the amount of questions I got from fans just saying he was their hero back then. It was a big response to that, wasn't it? Really good chat with David. Really enjoyed chatting with him even though it was before my time. So many great memories and stories. Many more other pods to come. I've got a few other lined up. Hopefully I'm going to be able to record them shortly. and then yeah all summer Sunday 6am they're going to drop on your feeds so yeah look forward to them yeah audio feed obviously free but if you want to watch them as well which I think always just adds a little bit more when you're watching something you can see the kind of interaction and the way they kind of react to your questions and their expressions and animation while they're talking about it I think it's just an extra level of an interview and that obviously is for subscribers and at the moment we have a offer for subscribers four pound for four months so if you subscribe now that'll take you through the summer and into the Premier League season obviously lots to come over the summer big summer ahead four pound four months anything from you before we take our leave age anything to mention yeah firstly pardon me I'm switching from Sweden it's Japan is the answer for my the dark horse you've been we've been researching have you yeah yeah I know that Matoma is going to miss out through injury but they've beaten Brazil and England in their last few friendlies so well I'm going to go with that until I change my mind in about half an hour's time.

1:08:20But yeah, Japan locked in for now. And also, every time I look at you, Mark, I've been thinking of something from The Simpsons, and it's finally dawned on me. Is anyone here a big Simpsons watcher? Has anyone remembered when Homer shines his head in the Shino Bolo like that when he worked at the bowling alley? Finally, I've figured out, yeah, that's what I'm doing. Look how shiny it is. Good lord. I need to go and stand in a pond to cool down after this uh i also laughed quite a lot which has not helped my um help with the sweating the perspiration friends uh let's bring this to an end shall we i've very much enjoyed today's pod i hope you have to uh mailbag's always good to hear from you and answer questions of course all sorts of things uh just to remind spot our sponsors use the code koa10 at molecular-uk.com for 10 % off all that excellent car cleaning products obviously it's the time of year when you want your car to be looking spick and span uh and they their products are excellent I can say that because I've used them, Banana Dime particularly, the interior of the car.

1:09:21You use it once and your car is spotless. It looks like one of them kind of chauffeur-driven sort of cars for a good month or so. Very, very good product. And we'll also use their wheel cleaner, which is fantastic. It gets dirt off incredibly well. And also, if you could leave us a five-star review on iTunes. We've not had one of those in a while. It just helps lift us visibility-wise in the charts, helps more people find us as we head into the Premier League, Premier League podcast once again. And also follow us across social media, Kings of Angle on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. I missed one.

1:09:51I can't remember what it is. What have I missed? X, Twitter. X, Twitter, yeah. Blue Sky. We're on there. We're also, the three of us are also on Blue Sky. If you want to follow us on there individually. Watson refuses because he hates social media and already reckons he's got enough of it in his life. He'll be back next week, by the way, friends, when we convene again for this very podcast. Anything else to mention, boys?

1:10:17no thanks excellent friends have a great weekend and we'll be back next week to speak to you all over again

1:10:52Thank you.

1:11:24Thank you.

1:12:00Oh, I have had no luck lately. Wait, lady luck?

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