(Picture: Football Ramble Daily)

In February 2014 Jose Mourinho described Chelsea as the ‘little horse that needs milk and needs to learn to jump’ in a title race alongside two thoroughbreds. Mourinho’s men won the Premier League by eight points that season and, in doing so, invoked the spirit of The Football Ramble.

The little horse of the sports podcast world, The Football Ramble began without the backing of a huge publication, no celebrity status and in the humble surroundings of a Harlesden kitchen.

20 people listened to those first shows in 2007, but the little horse has had its milk, learned to jump now and has leapt over much of its competition, staying the distance where others have fallen.



Now churning out six shows every week as Football Ramble Daily, the podcast sensation has racked up over 70 million downloads and more than 500,000 people listen every seven days.


It is a remarkable achievement from four men who have now made podcasting their careers from no experience in the medium, thanks to hard work, dedication and building an incredibly passionate fanbase.

Marcus Speller, Luke Moore, Jim Campbell and Pete Donaldson are now some of the most popular voices in football, which seemed very unlikely when Marcus and Luke first sat round the now famous kitchen table in 2007.

‘If I’d have known that kitchen table would get so much press I’d have framed it,’ Moore told Metro.co.uk.

Marcus takes up the story of how the Ramble came into being: ‘I was working as a youth worker for my local church back in Surrey. Luke was at XFM with Pete.

‘It wasn’t like we hated our jobs or anything like that, but there was a desire to do something else. We’d studied media and the genesis of the Ramble is in college radio. We were always interested in the broadcast world so in our extra time we thought “let’s pick up where we left off with college radio and take on a thing called a podcast.”

‘We’d been at Farnborough College. Luke and I were there, Jim was there for a year and then went off and did a course elsewhere. Pete was not there, Luke knew Pete from working at XFM.

‘Not many people had heard of podcasts back then. Ricky Gervais was doing one but that was about it. The first show we did was when England beat Andorra 3-0 in Barcelona in a Euro 2008 qualifier and David Nugent scored his only goal in his only appearance. The first Ramble happened a few days after that seismic event, which is only a coincidence of course. That’s where we began.’

As with many a great group, there were changes in membership before settling on their most successful line-up, with Luke and Marcus looking for, and finding, a touch of je ne sais quoi.

‘It was Marcus and I very early on with two other guys called Chris,’ explained Moore. ‘One left because of his job. The other Chris felt like it wasn’t really for him when it started building momentum because it was taking up too much of his time.



‘So it was me, Marcus and Jim by that point and what we needed was someone with an X Factor and technically very good because we were a very small outfit. I knew Pete’s then girlfriend through work and Pete was on the breakfast show on XFM, which for us was a big deal, so I reached out for him and he liked the show anyway so wanted to get involved.

‘Around that time we picked up our fifth member, John, who is still with us now and runs all the off-air stuff for us. We’ve been a bit of a fivesome since then. Now with Football Ramble Daily we’ve got a few other voices and people working with us but that’s the genesis of it. Started round my kitchen table in Harlseden, west London, but we’ve recorded at 15 or 16 different places over the years till we got to our studio now, so we’ve done the hard yards.

‘It was on a mini-disk at first. We used to go and do it in the evenings, up until very recently we all had full time jobs so we had to do it round that. So we’ve been here there and everywhere until we’ve settled in our studio where we’ve been for the last two-and-a-half-years now.’

(Picture: Football Ramble Daily)

The question for any aspiring podcasters is: how do four mates chatting about football turn that into a huge success, when so many similar endeavours have faltered and failed over the last 10-15 years?


Timing, luck, some well-timed coverage have all helped, but the Ramblers feel that commitment to the cause has created a dedicated set of listeners that naturally expands through their enthusiasm.

MS: ‘The first shows we did were up on our MySpace channel, that’s how long ago it was. On there you could tell how many people had listened to a little highlights package. I think our first ever show about 20 people listened to, and they would have just been friends we made listen to it.

‘Years went by and I can remember the first time we hit 100 listeners, I remember 500. You hang around these places for a little while. I remember hitting 1000 and it blowing my mind that 1000 people were listening. Then various things happened that bumped us up a little bit.

‘Luke and I got asked to go on Sky News when Cristiano Ronaldo went from Manchester United to Real Madrid, so for whatever reason they asked us.’

LM: ‘Just before that my mate ran a piece of us in the Guardian because we’d got to number one in the sports chart, and that caused a load of hassle there because of course they have their own podcast. Then there was a FourFourTwo feature round about the same time (September 2009) as the Sky News thing.

‘We then got some sponsorship to go to the World Cup in South Africa in 2010, then it rumbled on from there. That’s when people really started to realise podcasts were a thing.


‘The angle in the Guardian was us getting to number one ahead of the BBC and the Guardian itself and, to most people, we had come from nowhere. No one knew how it happened, although we had been plugging away for a couple of years.

MS: ‘It caused a bit of a stir in small circles. Then Sky News would ask you back, Twitter was up and running by then so we could plug things on there, it was all about building on the little victories. We’ve always done that.

LM (tongue in cheek): ‘Then Marcus started being seen in night clubs, linked to various pop stars and so on.

‘We owe a huge amount to the listeners as well because they all seem to tell their mates. Word of mouth has been huge for us. Early on we did an evening at a pub and we told people we’d buy them a drink if they came down and about 20 people did.

MS: ‘The following year we had to have a guest-list, it was England vs USA in South Africa, we hired out a pub near Liverpool Street, it was incredible because people had come really far, trains down from Manchester, two lads had flown in from Dublin. We found that incredible. It’s been word of mouth and enthusiasm of the listeners that has made us, the other things have helped, but it’s mainly that.

‘There was so much love shown by so many people towards us, that they seemed to want to see us grow and get more listeners.

Football Ramble Live – Glasgow, 16th Oct 2016.



Pete, refusing to pick favourites pic.twitter.com/pCh6iarYjZ — Football Ramble Daily (@FootballRamble) February 27, 2018

LM: ‘I think the timing was really important. But there were a load of podcasts that cropped up at the same time as us or shortly afterwards and not many of them have stuck around. There’s definitely something in it. It’s really difficult to be objective about stuff when you’re in it, but I’ve got some theories…

‘We’re relatable to people, especially early on, we never had any agenda and we still don’t, so we can be honest. Say fun things that in a more sanitised environment we wouldn’t be able to.

‘More recently I’ve been reticent to say it’s because we’re such good friends. We are friends and have been for a long time but we weren’t like best pals, we weren’t spending every weekend together. We knew each other well enough, got on well, but the reason I say that is that I don’t think you can make a successful, long-running show just because you’re mates, you have to actually be decent.

‘It does bear repeating that we are actually good at this as well. I think if you know each other too well then it doesn’t sound great anyway.

‘Plus it helps that we’re not bigoted or sexist or homophobic so we never feel like we have to be on our best behaviour or we’ll get caught out. I think we can naturally be authentic. There can be debate or argument over a big talking point and we can be very honest about it. We don’t take a certain angle on things because it’s the “right thing to do.”

MS: ‘Of course there’s been an enormous element of luck involved as well. Our schedules were free to do this from the start. We’ve been very very fortunate and that’s a huge thing. But you can create your own luck as well, without sounding like a knob, turning up is vitally important.

‘If you ask anybody in the podcast or YouTube game, they’ll tell you that you have to have a set time and you have to deliver. We’ve always been quite passionate about that. There’s never been an option to not do one this week or do it later.

‘If you treat the listeners with the respect that they have shown you, it does create a relationship and people recognise that you do go to great lengths, you do lug equipment about, you take it over to Kiev to do the Euros. Not just doing a show in a couple of weeks later when we’re back, we’ll record from out there.

LM: ‘We did go on the piss as well. It’s an important balance.’

Football Ramble Daily now sees a range of shows coming from a range of voices from the football world, while the central four Ramblers have expanded their empire with live shows and a best-selling book.

Podcasting has created an unusual brand of fame over the last decade, allowing people to be very well known in specific circles and building fervently loyal fanbases who feel they are sat in the pub with these guys on a regular basis.

The Ramblers repeatedly say ‘it’s just a podcast’ and while it has become their livelihoods, it is the down to earth attitude that keeps this relationship alive.

MS: ‘It’s just a podcast. There’s no mystique. We’re not a massive band or footballers, people feel like they know us.

‘People have said it’s strange talking to us because they feel like they know us and say “sorry if I come across a little bit familiar” but it’s fine, we understand how it works.

LM: ‘Media is full of absolute bullshitters. So if you’re not a bullshitter and actually do what you say you’re going to do, you’re held up as some sort of media messiah.

‘We do what we say we’re going to do, deliver the shows, we’ve not missed one in 12 or 13 years.

‘It’s just a podcast, it’s not like we’re the Rolling Stones or anything, if we’re still doing this in our 70s, fucking hell…’

Football Ramble Daily is available 6 days a week on your favourite podcast streaming platform. For more information on becoming a Football Ramble Daily Patreon visit patreon.com/footballrambledaily

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