The biggest Thai League news of the season so far is Port and FA Cup winning coach Choke parting ways in unusual circumstances. I talk to Sandpit editor Tim Russell about the shock move, and analyse both Choke’s surprisingly honest interview and the club’s panicked response.
We also follow the lead of Sandpit contributor Andy Hailstone in creating our favourite all-time Port XIs. Beware, some of our picks are not for the faint-hearted.
Inspired by being cooped up all day every day, The Portcast was finally able to secure an interview with a guy we’ve been trying to get on the podcast for ever. James has played professionally and been involved with football in a few different capacities across South East Asia. This brings a very welcome perspective to the podcast, which is usually rather narrowly centred on Thailand, and more specifically Port. James is of course also a Port fan, so there’s some of the usual Port-related discussion sprinkled in with our wide-ranging conversation.
What happens when fans of Thailand’s two fiercest rivals sit down and talk football?
Well, myself and aspiring journalist Gian Chansrichawla put aside our partisan differences for an hour and took a deep dive in to the world of transfers. Gian dissects transfer strategies from Chiang Rai to Chainat, telling us what has been behind some of Thai football’s biggest success stories.
We also analyze the top transfer stories of the window so far, including of course Heberty’s much discussed loan move from Muangthong to Port, and another big name potentially heading in the same direction.
Big thanks to Gian for joining me, and if you enjoy our conversation please do favourite The Portcast on your app of choice, and share on social media. We’re now on Spotify, Stitcher, Acast, Castbox, Google Podcasts and more, and our podcast can also be downloaded on our website The Sandpit.
It’s Toby time!
In this podcast, I interview the man behind Zone B’s most unusual superstition. Toby Knight gives us some fascinating insight in to why Toby time works, why Port struggle to beat the best teams in the league, and he also gives some glowing praise to the man who masterminded Port’s first FA Cup win in 10 years.
We go on to talk at length about the fan experience of Toby’s teams in North London, Catalonia and of course Khlong Toei.
We had so much fun recording this conversation that we went for over an hour and half, so as always we hope you enjoy our musings, and tune in again next week for another Portcast!
The Portcast is back!
It’s been more than a year since our last podcast, but so excited are we with what transpired last season, and with next still season feeling an age away, here we are bringing back our long-form conversations with fans about the fan experience.
What better way to fill the hole left by the off-season than listening to two helpless obsessives talking about what makes the football experience great, whether in the suburbs of Stockholm or the slums of Bangkok?
Our first guest on our return to the airwaves is Peter Sheppard. As well as contributing to The Sandpit, Peter also writes a blog in both Swedish and English about football in Asia. You can find the excellent Far East Football here.
In this podcast, recorded in the traditionally tipsy fashion, we cover a wide range of topics, in search as always of what makes us football fans tick, and why Port is the special club we all know it to be.
Yes, it’s been a long time coming, but good things come to wait! Our interview with Sven, the creator of legendary Thai football website www.thai-fussball.com is finally here, so be prepared for some back-in-the-day stories from the Kangaroos of Prague to the Blue Marlins of Sriracha.
Part one features a lot of stadium talk, and a couple of time-honoured debates about Thai football standards vs. European football standards and the social vs. sporting aspect of watching live football.
Then there’s me giving an entirely justifiable torrent of abuse to former Port flop Sompong Soleb for those who just like a good old rant, although the fearless Sven soon turns the tables on us and gives the Sandpit a well-deserved chewing out!
We also discuss Daniel Polomski and Tobias Enkel’s project Football Fans Asia which you can find on their website or their Youtube channel. Their video about a certain Khlongtoei football club is in the making, so make sure to follow their progress.
In this fun quick-fire interview, Tom quizzes defender Elias Dolah on his Port teammates. Ever wondered who drives the fanciest car to training, who has “funny bones” and who Port’s most impressive new signing is? Elias gives us the inside scoop on all that and much more.
Thanks to Elias for being a good sport and answering all of our questions. We hope none of your teammates seek retribution on the training pitch! You can see Elias’ message to Port fans here, and the full interview will be published on The Sandpit tomorrow.
Note…Peter Hockley is lovingly referred to as Peter Hockers. I hope he doesn’t mind.
We expect that little bit of pizazz from seasoned pros like former radio DJ John Spittal, but within a few seconds of turning the mic on, we were already blown away by John’s silver-tongued introduction. Trust me, you’re going to want to hear this. The rest of the podcast wasn’t bad, either!
John talks us through how he refereed a former World Cup star, accidentally became a Ratchaburi fan for 45 minutes, and is the inaugural participant in Zone F’s new Orwellian ‘two minutes of hate’ segment. And yes, he also tells us just how many teams he supports!
He even brought his ticket collection to look over, so we have posted some pictures of the tickets we talk about in the podcast below.
Many thanks to John for his unrivaled podcast preparation. Any other Port fans who want to follow John on to the Zone F hot-seat, just let us know and we’ll make it happen.
The Portcast is back! And this week it’s another Zone F, with gamblin’ man and Gillingham fan Jim Clarke.
Jim talks us through his obsession with Carlos Valderrama’s hair, dominates my tricky Stats Quiz and still finds time to make the most concerted effort yet to secure Leo sponsorship for The Sandpit.
If you’d like to sit in the Zone F hot seat, please get in touch!