Episode 24: The Volleyball World Championships - Serve, Pass, Set, Spike, Defend, Rotate, Repeat

At the Sporting Almanac, more often than not we talk about sports invented in Britain and perfected elsewhere, with common threads and familiarity throughout. Not today.

We don't really do Volleyball in the UK, but we are very much the exception. This is a global sport, followed and played by nearly a billion people worldwide and can boast as being the fifth most popular sport on the planet. Its Women's and Men's World Championship's have been won by nations from four continents, and it's second only to football as the most participated in female sport.

So, whether you're British and wanting to expand your knowledge of a sport that has largely passed us by, or you're already a fan and want to know a little more about the history of the sport and competition, Ben and Jack are ready to serve up a little of their own recent learnings about another wonderful sport.

Episode 23: The World Athletics Championships - Every Second, SUGOI

"It feels good to be one of the greatest sprinters. You can’t explain what it feels like to get up in the morning knowing you’re one of the best ever."

Usain St. Leo Bolt, 11-time World Championship Gold Medallist and Men's 100m World Record Holder

It’s easy to be cynical about athletics, as you watch human beings push the boundaries of what should be possible. The World Athletics Championships have always been a stage for both the sublime and the suspect - moments of breathtaking performance, shadowed by questions of fairness, corruption, and doping. And when the organisers themselves - once the IAAF, now World Athletics - can’t always be trusted with the integrity of the sport, does the competition we lay our eyes upon truly deserve our awe and respect?

Here, enjoyment and doubt spring from the same place - sugoi, the extraordinary. When what you witness defies description, it can also defy belief. But if we allow ourselves to be lost only in doubt, we risk denying the joy of the extraordinary - the joy of watching legend unfold in front of us.

When Mike Powell broke an unbreakable record to defeat Carl Lewis in Tokyo, 1991 - that was incredible. When Jonathan Edwards hopped, stepped and jumped his way to Gothenburg glory in 1995 - that was astonishing. When Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce swept every sprint gold in 2013 - that was sensational. And when Usain Bolt shattered his own world record on the blue track of Berlin in 2009 - that was legendary.

The World Athletics Championships doesn’t do ordinary. One way or another, it always delivers. So join us for this week’s Sporting Almanac as we explore the good, the bad, and the downright beautiful, as athletics takes centre stage.

Episode 22: The NFL Regular Season - Madden's Game

"The only yardstick for success our society has is being a champion. No one remembers anything else."

John Madden, Super Bowl XI winning coach, broadcaster and Pro Football Hall of Famer

The richest sports league on the planet, the most elite group of athletic talent in any sport, anywhere, and a competition never far away from controversy or legend.

There are over a million High School football players that every season vie for one of the 50,000 Division 1 College roster spots. Each Spring, around 260 of them get drafted into the NFL. Their average career length is barely three seasons, and those who don't make it have very few alternatives to remain in professional sport. There is no pyramid, no farm leagues, few overseas options and none that even remotely stack up to it in terms of prestige or recompense. Those who make it are the best of the best, putting their bodies on their line for a shot at a starting spot, another contract, and for those lucky few maybe even a ring.

Ben and Jack talk money, scale, structure, cheerleaders and records and how much Jack hates loving the New York Jets, as well as profiling one of the most fascinating men every to have graced the sport - John Madden, a name familiar to anyone with even a passing knowledge of football, with a story and legacy like few others. There is simply no league in the world of sport quite like the NFL.

Episode 21: The US Open Tennis - Arthur Ashe, Althea Gibson and the Power of Tennis

"From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life."

Arthur Ashe, 1968 US Open Champion and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient.

The US Open can be more than just a great sporting occasion. Arthur Ashe became its first men’s champion in the Open Era as an amateur amongst professionals, using his voice and his platform to challenge injustice long beyond his career ending prematurely due to ill health. Althea Gibson broke barriers as the first Black Grand Slam winner, later forging a path in professional golf - and even recording music along the way.

This episode explores their stories alongside the wider history of the tournament: Billie Jean King’s role in reshaping the game, era defining talents like Connors and McEnroe, of Venus and Serena Williams too, and the ongoing wait for another American man to lift the trophy, 22 years after Andy Roddick in 2003.

From its venue hopping origins to its move to Flushing Meadows, onto the opening of its centrepiece at the Arthur Ashe Stadium, the US Open has grown into the sport’s biggest and richest stage - but its power has always rested with the players who used it to change the game, and sometimes the world beyond it.

Episode 20: The Rugby Championship and Women's World Cup

How did Rugby Union make its way to the southern hemisphere? How does the game down south differ from the bruising northern style? And why, exactly, are New Zealand so damn good at it?

This week, we’re serving up a double helping of rugby. With the Rugby Championship kicking off this weekend and the Red Roses gearing up for their date with destiny next Friday, Ben dives headfirst into the pinnacle of southern hemisphere rugby, while Jack takes a quick look at the rise of the women’s game and the teams to watch at this year's World Cup.

There’s an unexpected shortage of English bias… swiftly undone by some unprovoked Jonny Wilkinson fawning. But Ben also waxes lyrical about the only man he rates higher than Wilko - one Daniel Carter - while both of us get misty eyed over the unstoppable force, icon and legend that was Jonah Lomu.

For newcomers, Jack crams everything you need to know about Rugby Union into a breathless three-minute bit for no reason whatsoever. For the seasoned fans, there’s plenty too - from Kiwis looking to snatch their crown back from South Africa, to Wallabies just praying to finish above Argentina, and England’s burning quest for revenge against the Black Ferns… with Canada waiting in the wings.

The Rugby autumn starts here - buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Episode 19: The Premier League - The Greatest Show on Earth

What made the Premier League the biggest and best football league in the world? Why did English football's top clubs break away in 1992 - and what happened to the teams they left behind? And how on earth did Leicester City go from relegation certainties to champions of England?

In this episode of The Sporting Almanac, we chart the story of the Premier League - from its murky beginnings in boardrooms and backrooms to the global spectacle we know today. We look at how the breakaway changed football forever, how BSkyB staked its future on a gamble that paid off beyond anyone’s imagination, and how this diversion in the flow of money transformed both the top and bottom ends of English football.

We relive the league’s most unbelievable fairytale - Leicester’s 5000-1 title win - before debating the best players, the most dominant teams, and the greatest managers to grace the Premier League. Henry, Keane, Salah, Shearer. Fergie, Wenger, Pep, Klopp. Invincibles, dynasties, icons, miracles - it’s all here.

Whether you remember that first Super Sunday at the City Ground in Nottingham, you fell in love with the game during the Premier League era or you're just getting started - this episode's for you.

Dilly ding, dilly dong.

Episode 18: The EFL and Football Pyramid - "You don't love the game as much as us".

Football in England runs deep. It lives in the streets where we were raised, in overused but much beloved grassroots pitches, in the terrace chants passed down like heirlooms. It’s stitched into the fabric of families, of towns, of working weeks and weekend rituals.

Before the season begins, there’s always hope - fragile, stubborn, beautiful hope. Some hope for glory. Others just of survival. Some just want to avoid shame. But everyone dares to dream.

There’s always a route to the top - if you build, if you dream, if you refuse to let go. But blink, and you can tumble. Because the pyramid gives, and the pyramid takes away.

This is the story of a game that belongs to everyone. Of Billy Meredith fighting for players’ rights before the game had even found its footing. Of Arthur Wharton sprinting past prejudice in the 19th century. Of Bradford, where lives were lost, and lives rebuilt after tragedy. Of Wrexham and Wimbledon, where community spirit helped build back what seemed lost forever - optimism, pride, hope.

The legends our grandfathers told us about weren’t always paid well in days gone past, they weren't protected or even free to move on should they have wished to. But they played on. Because they wanted to, because they needed to. Because football was, and is, everything to so many people.

This isn’t just sport. It’s who we are, who we were, and who we will always be. This is where football began and where its spirit still burns brightest, even if we can have a funny way of showing it sometimes. Here, it means more.

Episode 17: The All-Ireland Senior Football Championship - "Where We All Belong"

From the muddy fields of Meath to Croke Park's sacred sod, this episode dives into one of the most fiercely loved and proudly Irish sports: Gaelic football. We explore what makes the game so unique - its rules, its roots, and the deep ties it holds to community and identity.

We trace the story back through time: to the birth of the GAA and its fight to preserve native games; to a tragic Sunday in 1920 when a football match became an unforgivable massacre, and another Bloody Sunday played out in blood, grief and inevitable whitewash. Not Ireland’s first such Sunday, and sadly not it's last.

And finally, on lighter grounds, we look at the long-suffering tale of County Mayo. A famed curse that no Mayo team would lift the Sam Maguire again while even one member of their victorious 1951 side still lived - seventy-five years, eleven finals, and a whole lot of heartbreak and ill-luck later... you can be forgiven for thinking there's something to it.

We’ve come away from this one with nothing but admiration for the sport, its history and its heart. Gaelic football is a living thread of Irish identity, with the All-Ireland final it's crowning moment. A sport and a history well worth learning about, wherever you're from.