Unwrapping 2025: Southgate, surprises & Xmas bloopers

0:02Gabby Logan:This is a Global Player original podcast.

0:05Mark Pougatch:So here we are. It's time to say goodbye to 2025. We've had some great moments on the pod, crying with Alan Shearer about Newcastle, joining the team meeting and training at a rainy sale sharks and winning bronze a few times, actually, at various awards. It's great to be the second loser.

0:23Gabby Logan:Today's all about our favourite episodes of the year, as chosen by us, slightly egotistically, but also the news agents, our production team and of course you. Our listeners.

0:35Mark Pougatch:And get ready for some embarrassing... Hang on a minute. I didn't know this bit was going to be included. Get ready for some embarrassing Christmas outtakes. How could they possibly find any of those?

0:44Gabby Logan:Cue five minutes of Gabby trying to work her phone. Welcome to The Sports Agents.

0:57Gabby Logan:The Sports Agents.

0:58Jon Sopel:with Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman.

1:03Mark Pougatch:So as we tease there, we are going to be hearing some of the best bits of the sports agents in 2025. The news agents have kindly sent us their favourites. You guys have sent them in as well. Adonis and Sophie, our producers, have contributed. And you can listen back to all the episodes we're going to talk about in full on YouTube, Global Player or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember, hit subscribe or follow as well. And you'll hear, apparently, I mean, I don't know how they found these, but some outtakes. I can't imagine, Mark, can you?

1:28Gabby Logan:The only ones I can think of will need a bleep machine, probably for me. Do they use a bleep machine? Yeah. OK, all right.

1:36Mark Pougatch:They've invested in a really good one.

1:40Gabby Logan:Do you want to go first? Because I just need to have a think about what my favourite one is. Go on then.

1:44Mark Pougatch:There's so many that I've really enjoyed. And I loved having Henry Pollock on because I felt like we were early adopters. And obviously, I had a bit of intel into Henry because he was living with Ruben for two years. And I've known him since he was 18. and I've, you know, he played with Ruben, well, Ruben played with him, let's say, at England under 18 level. And, you know, when he agreed, I think he was still 19 then, to come and sit in the studio, we had no idea that he would go on and become a British and Irish Lion, I think, that summer.

2:10Jon Sopel:I remember coming in and I was chatting to Den Hartley before kind of getting signed and coming in and he said, first day, go and sit at the back of the change rooms and if they tell you to do anything else, tell them to F off. So that was some mad advice from him. But no, yeah, I don't want to change who I am for what kind of environment I'm in. I want to be my unique self. And if that, as you said, is being annoying, then so be it. But yeah, I'm just, as I said, I'm just loving my robot at the minute. And if you're going to be cocky in training or do these big moments behind the scenes, then you've got to be able to go on the pitch and be able to do it in the big stage.

2:46Jon Sopel:So yeah, hopefully I've done that. And if not, then I am just that annoying person who can't back it up.

2:54Mark Pougatch:his rise has been meteoric and his honesty and his candidness coming and sitting in a studio with us

2:59Gabby Logan:two old people um but at the same time incredibly cool um i was i was really impressed by him and

3:07Mark Pougatch:have continued to be of how he is managing to to help move the direction of travel into what's okay as a sports person and how you can be yourself and i think that's been appreciated by a lot of other sports people around you know around his sport certainly uh so that was certainly one of

3:22Gabby Logan:my favorites it was he was he was great as well and also it was a brilliant pivot by us wasn't it because well and you in particular because we'd spent four months attaching uh our sales to the master jack draper and not getting anywhere so it wasn't once he pined us off and never came yeah who's yeah henry you're ours we're gonna we're gonna throw everything at you i think we

3:43Mark Pougatch:also loved having sheer on didn't we after we think we both enjoyed that after the carabao cup which was very emotional for him. And there were some great scenes from that. It's easy to forget, you know, football moves so quickly. That's less than a year, you know. And you loved it as well, I know.

3:57Gabby Logan:I absolutely loved it. And then I loved, I also loved, because we were talking to him, he was in Amsterdam, wasn't he? And he was about to go and see Sam Fender. Was he going to go and see Sam Fender that night? So he just had the most Newcastle of Newcastle 48 hours, really, watching them win it and then going to see Sam Fender in Amsterdam.

4:17Jon Sopel:This was the one. This is the one that ended that starvation of that trophy. Nothing will ever quite feel the same as winning this one. So it was great to be there. It was great to be partying afterwards and still partying now. And, yeah, it's just been a great few years. Do you wear?

4:35Gabby Logan:Because you're going to party. You're going to watch Sam Fender tonight. I mean, oh, my God. There are so many Shearer 9 shirts at Sam Fender gigs. Do you wear a Shearer 9 shirt at Sam Fender gigs? Well, do you think I could get away with that? Do you honestly? I would, if you could get away, if there was any night, you would get away with it. It is tonight. Perfect. There are three that I would pick. I love the behind the scenes stuff.

5:09Gabby Logan:Well, don't say when you come to my neck of the woods that I don't show you a good time.

5:15Mark Pougatch:We are here in Carrington. Yes. In Manchester. This is the training ground of the Sail Sharks. Your team, first sporting match you ever went to as a kid. Absolutely.

5:31Mark Pougatch:Here we are, Mark. The sports agent's on the road because a couple of weeks ago you took me up to Sail Sharks, your neck of the woods, and we immersed ourselves there. so I thought I'd bring you somewhere to get a little taste a real immersive taste of what it is like to be in a racing yard because I was going on and on about this wasn't I the first time I

5:50Gabby Logan:so when we went to sail I absolutely loved that obviously because of personal connections close to home I love close to home exactly unlike unlike the other behind the scenes one at the

6:00Mark Pougatch:stables when we went to Andrew Balding we kind of had to swap swap driving to get to those two

6:05Gabby Logan:yeah yeah and i also had terrible allergic reaction on the way home to that it was it was very uncomfortable yeah well i think well yeah not andrew i don't think i think it was to the horse

6:15Mark Pougatch:not allergic to the baldings the balding family turns out you'll never be able to do spotty or

6:20Gabby Logan:work with claire i mean anyhow so i absolutely love that because i think for both of us it was so educational and so mesmerizing and mind-blowing the skill and technique and knowledge and expertise it was i i just absolutely love that show but if i was going to sort of then just pick one more it would be the interview with cindy and gamba the olympic boxer who who competed under the refugee flag but had lived in bolton and her story and the way she recollected some of those events in her life, particularly when she was put in a van and taken to a deportation centre and so on and so forth, was an interview like no other.

7:13Jon Sopel:When I was still trying to get my papers, I had to go and sign in the Manchester Immigration Centre just to let them know that I was still in the UK, that I've not, you know, flew out in another country. Next minute I know the officer get up and opens the door of the window and then tells me to come through. And I'm like, right, okay. You know, still didn't really think much of it. Walked through. There's about three officers and I just see them, you know, fully geared up. And, you know, I think I remember that moment I just, I froze. I mean, I froze. I could still see them. But it's like I couldn't hear nothing.

7:49Jon Sopel:My brain just falls. I couldn't think of anything. What is this? they closed the door and they started reading my right again i could hear them reading my right and i could hear them hunking for me to me it didn't seem real it's side swiped us didn't it yeah i think it was a friday afternoon i was in a hotel in cardiff ahead of a six nations game and

8:10Mark Pougatch:i don't think we both realized what we were kind of entering into yeah you know in terms of this chat and where it went and how how i came away with just how powerful sport can be in terms of you know we know it we know it to be true but changing lives and giving hope and opportunity and her doing all of that with that as a backdrop you know you think you're having a tough day listen to that podcast absolutely and i have to say recent podcasts having mary erps in here when she was launching her her book and we turned out to be the first interview she'd done um ahead of her press tour and it was that moment of realization on her face that she realized okay this is going to cause some ripples this is going to be a quite interesting conversation in women's football and so it proved to be and she was quite emotional I think delivering that story

9:00Gareth Southgate:I think there was you know a misalignment of values at different points and I felt that the best decision for everyone really was the decision to step away and it was immensely difficult it was something that tortured me for a long time oh gosh oh gosh wobble um but it was it was hard and I think it was hard because I chose not to speak about it I chose to let people make their own mind up and kind of keep my bit to the side I didn't want it to become a spectacle I knew it was inevitable because respectfully like you know I'd had amazing memories with England and it was an incredible time but sometimes the right things are the hardest things and that doesn't make them

9:47Gabby Logan:wrong after the break we'll hear what the news agents have chosen and also your favorites the sports agents the sports agents with gabby logan and mark chapman

10:03Mark Pougatch:so the news agents now and john sople sent this clip in

10:11Jon Sopel:hello from john here on the news agents congratulations on a great year our favorite episode i think was gareth southgate the former england manager talking about how the government needs to help more young men with mentors of course it's easy to say this should be happening

10:28Henry Pollock:and that should be happening but we need people to grab hold of it and frankly that's not so easy for politicians and you know i know our perception would be that it should be what they're doing but the urgent takes over from the important we know there's lots of fatherless families and that's difficult so for young men i think they do look for male role models at certain times there are less male teachers at schools and there's then even if you have a supportive family unit i think as a young man there's a point you look outside the family for mentors and having the right sort of people in young people's lives the right role models are so crucial and clearly online there are great examples of the wrong sort of role models so there's definitely something in this space that i think because of the profile of the role i had i might be able to elevate some of the good work that's going on and maybe join some of the dots up um because i just feel like there's so much talent in our country and the narrative around our country is constant negativity And yet, you know, we can help young people to see a better way forward.

11:39Henry Pollock:And we've got, it's on us.

11:41Gabby Logan:So one of the revolutions on the podcast this year has been the Google form that I introduced whilst Gabby was away.