Hold the Back Page: Football Weekly Podcast: Guardian Sports Blog, Ireland, NUFC

Not afraid to pull any punches, it’s podcast time once again as Neil Sherwin, Ger McCarthy and Willie Gannon enter light orbit around the globe and discuss the latest news from the wonderful world of football. This week the pod cover the FAI Cup Final, Newcastle United’s stadium naming rights, Ireland’s playoff with Estonia and The Guardian’s new sports blog...

There’s conflicting opinions aplenty in this week’s Hold the Back Page...The episode starts off on a unanimous note with all three of the lads agreeing that (1.00) Shelbourne were extremely hard done by in last weekend’s FAI Cup Final defeat to Sligo Rovers although Neil’s disappointment isn’t echoed quite so strongly by Ger and Willie!

(11.00) Attention then turns to the Premier League where Neil dons his businessman’s cap to get behind Mike Ashley and the renaming of St. James’ Park to Sports Direct.com stadium or something to that nature (much to the amusement of Will and Ger who question the validity of the move and wonder aloud if Ashley has a Human Resources section in his business empire!).

There’s also mention of (21.07) Steve Kean’s fantastical new contract and (27.03) Sir Alex Ferguson’s 25 years at Manchester United.

(34.15) The second part of the pod is largely focused on Ireland’s big European Championship playoff against Estonia. Could we possibly see free flowing football? Will anyone be awake to find out? Is Trap still going to be around in six months? is Ireland still a bastard of a side to beat as well as watch? It’s all still very much up in the air but it doesn’t stop our panel of ‘experts’ sharing their thoughts.

To finish there’s a look at The Guardian’s new initiative (50.26) which sees the UK based publication collaborating with some high profile bloggers for a new section on its website. The lads discuss the merits of the idea after plenty of comments on Twitter over the past couple of days.

Don’t forget, you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or RSS!

Also if there is anything you would like to hear on the show in the future simply drop us an email, tweet or comment on Facebook.

To listen to the POD, click here.