Guardian Live has today (6 April) announced a UK and Ireland tour of the Guardian’s award-winning Football Weekly podcast during June and July 2022.
Football Weekly, presented by Max Rushden and Barry Glendenning, launched in 2006 and is one of the Guardian’s most popular and long-running podcasts.
The live tour will bring Max, Barry and a host of regular Football Weekly favourites to the stage, providing the podcast’s unique take on the world of football. There will also be special guests and opportunities for the audience to get involved in the antics.
Football Weekly has held many successful live events in the past, but this is the first time the Guardian podcast is embarking on a full nationwide live tour.
Football fans will find Max and Barry and fellow panellists in:
Leeds - Monday 13 June
Birmingham - Wednesday 15 June
Manchester - Sunday 19 June
Dublin - Tuesday 5 July
London - Friday 8 July and Saturday 9 July
Glasgow - Wednesday 13 July
Tickets for Football Weekly Live are available to buy now at Myticket.co.uk.
Max Rushden, host of Football Weekly, says: “It’s been so long I’ve forgotten what Barry looks like in the flesh. If you’d like to witness this ‘extraordinary event’, then be sure to buy a ticket. I am looking forward to playing the outtakes from adverts, not being censored by lawyers and trying to hawk the all new Football Weekly merchandise to people who are so high on life they are unable to make sensible decisions.”
Barry Glendenning, host of Football Weekly, says: “Having spent far too much time in recent years staring at Max Rushden’s stupid face on a laptop screen, I am really looking forward to getting out on the road with him in real life so that he can sit behind me on airplanes and trains repeatedly flicking my ear lobes, reminding me of that time he borrowed superstar DJ Trevor Nelson’s microwave oven and boring the arse off me with a steady stream of banal anecdotes about (and photos of) his and the current Mrs Rushden’s new baby. I am also hoping this tour will help Max, myself and other Football Weekly regulars reconnect (translation: drink beer) with a much-appreciated audience we fervently hope will come to see us during an otherwise mercifully football-free summer.”
A range of new Football Weekly merchandise will be available to purchase on the tour, including t-shirts, designed by Guardian football cartoonist David Squires and mugs referencing the best quotes from the podcast, as well as ‘half-and-half’ scarves printed with the faces of Max and Barry. Merchandise will also be available to purchase online here very soon.
Football Weekly regularly features at the top of the football and sports podcast charts in the UK and has won a number of sports industry awards, most recently at the Football Supporters’ Association Awards where it was named podcast of the year.
The Guardian has been creating podcasts for over fifteen years, with millions of listens every week. Global monthly listens to Guardian podcasts have increased by over 60% since the start of the pandemic (Feb 2020-March 2022).
The Football Weekly podcast is available to listen to from the Guardian, Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other podcast services.
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For more information please contact:
media.enquiries@theguardian.com
Notes to editors
The live tour is taking place in partnership with tour promoter Kilimanjaro Live.
About Guardian News & Media
Guardian News & Media (GNM) publishes theguardian.com, one of the world’s leading English-language news websites. Traffic from outside of the UK now represents around two-thirds of the Guardian’s total digital audience. In the UK, GNM publishes the Guardian newspaper six days a week, first published in 1821, and the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper, The Observer.
