John Brewin
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brewin.bsky.social
John Brewin
@brewin.bsky.social
12K followers 290 following 360 posts
Freelance journalist, semi-regular at Guardian Sport, columnist at Straits Times, from Macclesfield, Cheshire in London, England. https://www.theguardian.com/profile/john-brewin
Collected writings from the distant past at https://johnbrewin.substack.com/
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brewin.bsky.social
John Brewin @brewin.bsky.social · Nov 18
Introduce yourself with four footballers.
brewin.bsky.social
Rod or Billy up front for Scotland?
footballweekly.bsky.social The Guardian's Football Weekly podcast @footballweekly.bsky.social · 3d
‘It’s Paul McCartney or Prince William isn’t it?’

What would happen if every country had to play their most famous person up front?

The Football Weekly panel try to answer that question.

@maxrushden.bsky.social
@barneyronay.bsky.social
@jonawils.bsky.social
@brewin.bsky.social
November 18, 2025 at 10:06 PM
brewin.bsky.social
Congratulations, Scotland
November 18, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Reposted by John Brewin
footballweekly.bsky.social
‘It’s Paul McCartney or Prince William isn’t it?’

What would happen if every country had to play their most famous person up front?

The Football Weekly panel try to answer that question.

@maxrushden.bsky.social
@barneyronay.bsky.social
@jonawils.bsky.social
@brewin.bsky.social
November 18, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Reposted by John Brewin
liberopodcast.bsky.social
New Libero

The final act of Cristiano Ronaldo?

@rorysmith.bsky.social
@brewin.bsky.social
@jameshorncastle.bsky.social

pod.fo/e/354d01
Libero: Libero 071 | Cristiano Ronaldo’s Search For A Happy Ending
Cristiano Ronaldo might not have done it exactly how he would have wanted — getting sent off while losing to Ireland — but the 40-year-old Al Nassr frontman is now on his way to a sixth World C...
pod.fo
November 18, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Reposted by John Brewin
footballweekly.bsky.social
⚽ Football Weekly ⚽

🦜 Troy Parrott's hat-trick heroics sends Ireland into the World Cup playoffs.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England make it eight clean sheets out of eight.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Scotland and Wales have it all to play for.

@maxrushden.bsky.social @barneyronay.bsky.social , @jonawils.bsky.social @brewin.bsky.social
November 17, 2025 at 3:31 PM
brewin.bsky.social
“Show us yer medals.”
November 15, 2025 at 10:49 AM
brewin.bsky.social
Happy retirement, David Coverdale, one of the best frontmen and swordsmen to do it. youtu.be/GNTRgkd4gB0?...
Whitesnake - Fare Thee Well (Important Announcement) - Official 2025 Remix 'Forevermore'
YouTube video by Whitesnake TV
youtu.be
November 13, 2025 at 11:31 PM
Reposted by John Brewin
paulhayward.bsky.social
Why Ukraine, not Roman Abramovich, is the real victim of the three and half year freeze on the Chelsea sale money...
My commentary
observer.co.uk/news/sport/a...
Roman Abramovich complains about his money, but he is winning, even as a pariah | The Observer
observer.co.uk
November 12, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Reposted by John Brewin
adamserwer.bsky.social
Great piece by Zadie Smith. When the right talks about classics or "Western" culture, these works are only important to the extent that it demonstrates their superiority, they have no interest in art in and of itself beyond that www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
You know a country by its values. By what a country values. And it turns out that what a country values can change over time. Sometimes, though, there’s a sort of cognitive delay between the country you think you are in, and the country you’ve actually become. For example, you can keep selling yourself, to foreigners, as the country of William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, and luring busloads of tourists to Stratford-upon-Avon and Bath, and put a statue of George Orwell in front of the BBC, and imagine yourself a cultured and literate nation, which the rest of the world admires for its devotion to the written word – but if you then chronically underfund your cultural institutions, and treat your cultural workers with contempt, many people will suspect you of being full of it. And as the decades pass – and fewer and fewer Shakespeares and Austens and Orwells emerge from your little island – even more people will begin to suspect that in truth you do not value culture at all, and are in fact running a giant heritage museum in which the only cultural workers you respect are the dead ones.
November 12, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Reposted by John Brewin
liberopodcast.bsky.social
New Libero

What’s eating Liverpool?

@rorysmith.bsky.social
@tariqpanja.bsky.social
@brewin.bsky.social

pod.fo/e/3505f9
Libero: Libero 069 | Liverpool's Mo Salah Conundrum
Liverpool fans rejoiced when the club signed Mo Salah to a new contract. With Liverpool’s title defence in tatters, the team in chaos, have Liverpool got a Mo Salah problem? The Egyptian has lit ...
pod.fo
November 11, 2025 at 9:42 AM
brewin.bsky.social
This is sad news. His football book, The Mavericks, is a classic read - and re-read, too, which I did quite recently.
www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/n...
Rob Steen obituary
Other lives: Sports writer who authored a series of accomplished biographies and a cult football classic, The Mavericks
www.theguardian.com
November 9, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Reposted by John Brewin
liberopodcast.bsky.social
New Libero

Is it easier to be a small club or a big club?

@rorysmith.bsky.social
@jonawils.bsky.social
@brewin.bsky.social

pod.fo/e/34d3cf
Libero: Libero 068 | The Premier League’s Goldilocks Clubs
There is one big question that today's Libero is seeking to answer and that is: is it fundamentally easier to change the fortunes of a club with less historical baggage? Are the likes of Bournemout...
pod.fo
November 7, 2025 at 10:46 AM
brewin.bsky.social
Das Toot
November 4, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Reposted by John Brewin
liberopodcast.bsky.social
New Libero

Is the Premier League boring now?

@jonawils.bsky.social
@brewin.bsky.social
@jackpittbrooke.bsky.social

pod.fo/e/34a63b
Libero: Libero 067 | Is The Premier League Boring?
A quarter of the way through this Premier League season, people are starting to ask: is the football we are watching this year any good? Or has the rise of set pieces turned it into a different gam...
pod.fo
November 4, 2025 at 9:42 AM
brewin.bsky.social
Now, Willie was a jockey but he’s also Willie Mullins, the master jumps trainer of the 21st century. From the BBC’s Melbourne Cup report.
November 4, 2025 at 5:52 AM
Reposted by John Brewin
liberopodcast.bsky.social
New Libero

Is this the end of the Old Firm? Are Hearts perfectly placed to exploit it?

@rorysmith.bsky.social
@brewin.bsky.social
@jackpittbrooke.bsky.social

pod.fo/e/347e61
Libero: Libero 066 | Celtic And Rangers On The Brink... Is The Old Firm Dying?
The rule of thumb in Scottish football is that if one Old Firm club is doing badly, then the other is doing well. So what happens when both Celtic and Rangers are both in troubled times concurrentl...
pod.fo
October 31, 2025 at 7:29 AM
Reposted by John Brewin
jackpittbrooke.bsky.social
Have Rangers and Celtic ever been in simultaneous crises before like they are now? What has happened to two huge clubs over the last 20 years? And can Hearts make the most of their opportunity?

Today's @liberopodcast.bsky.social with @rorysmith.bsky.social and @brewin.bsky.social

pod.fo/e/347e61
Libero: Libero 066 | Celtic And Rangers On The Brink... Is The Old Firm Dying?
The rule of thumb in Scottish football is that if one Old Firm club is doing badly, then the other is doing well. So what happens when both Celtic and Rangers are both in troubled times concurrentl...
pod.fo
October 31, 2025 at 7:31 AM
Reposted by John Brewin
samindrakunti.bsky.social
Great podcast, including a mention of that Rivaldo bicycle kick.

Hosted by @brewin.bsky.social, with @tariqpanja.bsky.social and @jonawils.bsky.social.

pod.fo/e/343860
Libero: Libero 064 | Real Madrid v Barcelona: A Health Check On El Clasico
John Brewin, Jonathan Wilson and Tariq Panja are here to talk about the world’s biggest domestic fixture - self-styled, perhaps, but deservedly so - it's 'El Clasico'. Real Madrid v Barcelona, as...
pod.fo
October 26, 2025 at 7:55 AM
brewin.bsky.social
In which I mistakenly call Barcelona’s franchise player “Limahl”.
October 24, 2025 at 5:11 PM
Reposted by John Brewin
sachinnakrani.bsky.social
Danny Welbeck for England? Yeah, maybe.

@brewin.bsky.social for @sport.theguardian.com on the Manchester boy who appears to be getting better with age as he prepares to return to Old Trafford.

www.theguardian.com/football/202...
Welbeck’s career revival can put him back on England’s World Cup radar
Brighton’s Danny Welbeck is playing the best football of his career at 34 and Thomas Tuchel could have a vacancy for an intelligent, hard-working goal-scorer
www.theguardian.com
October 24, 2025 at 8:02 AM
Reposted by John Brewin
liberopodcast.bsky.social
New Libero

El Clasico: still the biggest game in the world?

@brewin.bsky.social
@jonawils.bsky.social
@tariqpanja.bsky.social

pod.fo/e/343860
Libero: Libero 064 | Real Madrid v Barcelona: A Health Check On El Clasico
John Brewin, Jonathan Wilson and Tariq Panja are here to talk about the world’s biggest domestic fixture - self-styled, perhaps, but deservedly so - it's 'El Clasico'. Real Madrid v Barcelona, as...
pod.fo
October 24, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Reposted by John Brewin
footballweekly.bsky.social
😱 Manchester United won at Anfield for the first time since 2016.

😬 Nottingham Forest sacked Ange Postecoglou just 18 minutes after their 3-0 defeat to Chelsea.

🫡 Arsenal and Manchester City kept up their imperious form.

@maxrushden.bsky.social @barryglendenning.bsky.social , @brewin.bsky.social
October 20, 2025 at 1:15 PM
brewin.bsky.social
Watching Sinead O’Connor’s brilliant Letterman performance of Mandinka and Coogan’s Paul Calf is on bass.
October 12, 2025 at 9:31 AM
Reposted by John Brewin
jackpittbrooke.bsky.social
What are the politics underpinning the Premier League? Is it part of a Thatcherite legacy?

On today's @liberopodcast.bsky.social with @brewin.bsky.social and @rorysmith.bsky.social

pod.fo/e/33ad00
Libero: Libero 060: The Premier League: Thatcher’s Greatest Triumph
Hated, adored, never ignored, Margaret Thatcher is one of the most important figures in the history of the country that is home to the world's wealthiest domestic league – this cannot be a coinci...
pod.fo
October 10, 2025 at 11:53 AM