Oh What A Time... - #113 Unlikely Sports Stars (Part 2)

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed!This week we’re examining the most unlikely sport stars that history has to offer! We’ve got Pope John Paul II, the goalie. Che Guevara: the rugby years. Plus, Albert Camus, the football obsessive.And Mr Brightside would be a far better national anthem for the United Kingdom, we know that now. But do you have a better suggestion? If yes: [e-mail] you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?Up for grabs is:- two bonus episodes every month!- ad-free listening- episodes a week ahead of everyone else- And much moreSubscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.comYou can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom xSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What A Time early and ad free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. TreadExperts is always there, helping you with Kumo tires you can trust. Until June 15th, receive up to $60 on a prepaid MasterCard when you purchase Kumo RoadVenture AT52 tires. Find your pro at your local TreadExperts. TreadExperts.ca Hello and welcome to part two of Unlikely Sportstars. Let's get on with the show. So, up next, it's old Muggins here and I am going to talk to you about Albert Camus and his surprising football career.

Now before we start, I think it's probably sensible to address this, are you familiar with Albert Camus? Big time. Do you know anything about him? If so, what do you know? I know about him because of one of my favourite bands, the Manic Street Preachers, who were absolutely obsessed with him. And their records often had Camo Quotes on the inlay. They used to sell t-shirts with Camo Quotes.

Oh really? Give me an example. This one from Masses Against the Classes, which is the slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown. Great quote. So I, because they were always talking about him and Sartre, they were an amazing band, the Manics, because I learnt so much through them.

That's interesting. And I'd read so many novels that weren't on the syllabus and I probably wouldn't have read had it not been for the Manics. Okay. So they talked a lot about Le Tronjet, The Outsider, or The Stranger, depending on which publication you have. And I read The Fall, and I read The Plague. The Fall, the band are named after The Fall, which is a Camo book. Interesting. Well, all of these books will be mentioned in this summation of his love for football. So for those of you who aren't familiar with Albert Camus,

including Mr. Chris Skull, Albert Camus was born on the 7th of November, 1913. Ring any bells, Chris? Now you're familiar? Oh, that one. He was born in French Algeria, and he went on to become one of the most noted philosophers, novelists, dramatists, journalists,

just amongst many other things in the 20th century. And then at age 44, this gives you the weight of the man, Chris, he won the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature. So to surmise, he was quite a high achiever. So, El, you're 44, is that right, El? Yes. Okay, how do you think you're stacking up? Right, okay, this takes me back to when Michael Owen scored that goal against Argentina. My dad said, oh, what's up, boy? And I said, he's 18.

Oh, what are you? I'm 17. What are you doing with your life doing my A-Levels? Well, he's just scoring against Argentina in the World Cup. All right, Dad, we've made different choices. What are you doing with your life when you're doing your A-Levels as well? Let me finish up, please. You know full well I'm doing my A-levels, Dad.

I sent an email to the England football team and they pointed out I'm not English. Not even eligible. And the Welsh team are one of the greatest nadirs of all time. You know, I'm still not good enough to play. So Camus was a brilliant mind, OK. But aside from all these highbrow pursuits, this incredibly high regarded philosopher, this Nobel Prize winner also had a deep love of football. Love it.

He loved it, but so much, okay. In fact, one of his most famous sayings relates to football. It says, what I most surely know in the long run about morality and the obligations of men I owe to football. It's not as much of a thing in England, I don't think, but in Wales, because Rugby was certainly South Wales, Rugby was seen as, when I was growing up, was seen as a game for thugs played by gentlemen, and football was a game for gentlemen played by thugs and all that. You often had to sort of justify liking football to anyone who felt a little, people often felt they were slightly better than that.

They were like, well, the other fans are all hooligans and all that kind of stuff. And I would go, I would always use Camus as my example. That's really interesting. I would always say, oh yeah, idiots like football today. Have you heard of Camus? Everybody bloody learns about morality on the bloody football pitch, played at power leagues on a Monday

night with a lot of dads from the school run. Well, Ellis, in France in the mid-20th century, people actually lapped up this saying, unlike your upbringing. They loved it. And there's a crucial reason for this. This important phrase basically shaped people's perception of Camus. And this is because it shows that this remarkable literary figure, someone who commanded a global stage was nevertheless a man of the people. He wasn't an aloof intellect of the Parisian left bank. So people loved what it represented. And to be honest, you can see how politicians and speakers caught that nowadays. Look at David Cameron with his desperate attempt to have people know he was a Villa fan and then say you should be supporting West Ham.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it Villa? Is it West Ham? Who knows? But to be honest, Keir Starmer, he constantly talking about his love of Arsenal. There is a sort of value to it in the way that people see you as one of the people. It was after Blair. Prior to Blair, you could get away with being a politician and not really offering an opinion on football. I'm talking about the UK now in British context.

Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah. And then he did the sort of the headers with Kevin Keegan and talked about supporting Newcastle. Prior to that, John Major liked cricket and he was often seen at Lords and things. And he talked a little bit about supporting Newcastle. Prior to that, John Major liked cricket and he was often seen at Lord's and things. And he talked a little bit about supporting Chelsea. But now you have to have a team. The first politician I remember liking football

was David Mellor. Remember that? Yeah, the Chelsea shirt. And it was a sense that if a politician liked football, he was a bit of a crank. But then Blair came along, did those headers with Keegan and everything changed and since then it's been fine to be a politician and like football. In fact you kind of almost have to to be honest. There's such currency now you have to have some kind of

legions like Rishi Sunak trying to claim that he cared about the international football team and he was really he'd be at the ground support it's just like it's just not... yeah yeah oh yeah in Southampton yeah. I've ever told you I asked Alistair Campbell about Tony Blair doing headers with Keegan and I said Blair must have been really good because when you watch those headers they're pinging them back and forward and Campbell said to me that what you've misunderstood is Keegan is really good at football and you can he can any ball your head to him he's able to control it in such a way that it comes back to you and it's really easy to play head tennis.

Really? Yeah. Well, Keegan won the Ballon d'Or, doesn't he? So, you know... And how many Ballon d'Ors did Tony Blair win? But if you're going to do... If you're going to do... He won it twice, actually, but if you are going to do head tennis with anyone, for God's sake...

That's the one person I would come see it. Let it be Kevin Keegan. Let it be Kevin Geegan. Because when Brown and Blair recreated it, they couldn't even do two or three, could they? What Camus was essentially saying with this quote that people loved was that football had taught him the values of fair play, courage, sticking up for your mates, being part of a team, solidarity. So the essentials of football that provide the essence of moral philosophy, essentially. And he put it a different way elsewhere. This is another quote from him.

Only in my youth, playing team sports, have I known this powerful feeling of hope and solidarity that goes with the long days of training up to the game, whether you win or lose. And I do know that. I know exactly what he means from playing more seriously when I was younger, just, you know, Saturdays or whatever it happens to be. But there was a feeling of being part of something that, that feeling before a game of what this could become, you know, it really, you felt you were part of something.

I definitely get that emotional feel. Oh yeah. There are so many benefits to it, team sports, I think, for young people. Absolutely. Also, because you learn to win properly and you learn to lose properly. Yeah, absolutely. In a way that's safe.

And being surrounded by people who sort of have your back and you're with them with the same goal. I mean, I played last night, El, I scored a great goal, just to give you an idea of the way that people have their, people have your back. This is a text I got from one of my teammates this morning. It's from Andrew Spedding, lovely man. It just says, your goal last night is living rent-free in my head. That's the sort of messages I'm getting whenever I play, Al. What's astonishing as well is you text me and Al about your goal last night. So this

is the second time we've heard about your goal in 24 hours. I've now received texts about my goal from outside from people who bore witness. I played yesterday and unfortunately blazed the ball over the bar from about three yards twice. And my phone has been a blaze for the last 24 hours. People saying, not sure if you should come back again. That was absolutely terrible. Yeah. I hate you. I hate you. I hate what you do. I hate what you've done to this club. It's once fine. You turn up next week. Ellis out.

Yeah. And I'm playing again on Thursday and I'm hoping to make amends. I'm sure you will. Or it'll go from bad to worse. If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your dread's worn down or you need a new wheel. I'm sure you will. Or it'll go from bad to worse. dollars in rebates on select toyotires. Find a Toyo Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair we're always there. TreadExperts.ca Now why did Camus keep referencing football? Okay and the reason was because he was obsessed with it. It's as simple as that. He developed a passion in early childhood which then grew when he was a student and he was made a goalkeeper, a goalkeeper again, just like our Pope friend, for the junior team of Arrasing Universitaire de Alger.

I'm sure I'm probably pronouncing that wrong. And he was also a decent centre forward and would sometimes play up front too. I think if you're a goalie, you've got to choose a position, haven't you? I think goalie slash striker feels a little bit… Sounds a little bit Rushgooly, which you only play at a very low level. That's Buck Garden stuff. Pick an end of the pitch. But he played for the team from 1928, age 14, until 1930, when, aged 17, he contracted

tuberculosis and was never able to play properly again. However, his passion remained. As a university student in Algiers, where he studied philosophy, he went to watch as many football matches as he could. And later, as a journalist, he wrote glowingly about teams and players throughout Algeria. So he remained obsessed. He then moved to Paris, and he still awaited news of his old team back in Algeria, and then started to follow a team called Racine Club de Paris, simply because they wore the same blue and white hoops as his team from Algeria and then started to follow a team called Racine Club de Paris, simply because they wore the same blue and white hoops as his team from Algeria. So it's QPR. QPR, exactly, yeah, yeah, which is a huge fan of QPR. Then as a teacher in the early years of the Second World War,

he then coached a football team, a school football team, and was often seen kicking a can down the street as if to scratch the itch. I find that quite poignant in the way, that image of someone whose career as a footballer hasn't worked out because of ill health still clinging on to that involvement in the game. I completely get it. Kicking a can down the street, obviously imagining what it could have been. I totally get it. Yeah, completely. I keep, and I don't know why, on my social media, I keep being shown the same meme, which is of a very elderly man looking wistfully at a bike

saying, one day you'll have your last bike ride. Oh, jeez. Oh, jeez. Thanks. What is your algorithm that keeps coming back? It's every day I see that. I see that and I see a weightlifter for Wales talking about his gains. I don't follow either of these people.

Well you can relate to it in the way that I'm sure your minds work in a similar way. Sometimes your daydream and you imagine yourself scoring a goal for in your case Swansea and West Ham or for England whatever happens to me you'll have these nice little dreams. It does play obviously It's never gonna happen. None of us can be professional footballers I think we can probably accept that but there is still part of the mind that goes there sometimes as a place of joy and Absolutely, I Would have thought that come with other stuff. Yes. Well, he did he was writing novels and Ellis the football

The love of football keeps coming through these novels I'll give you an example. You mentioned earlier The Fall, which is a 1956 novel. In it, a character confesses that I have never been truly sincere and enthusiastic, except when I used to play sports. Sunday football matches in a crowded stadium is where I feel innocent. Oh, yes! How lovely is that?

It's where I feel innocent. And it does, it taps back into something that joy of childhood, that freedom of playing. There is something particular about sport. I play my game on Tuesday nights, which is people are similar standard. But there is something it takes you away from the worries of adult life. And there is something sort of joyous and pure about it. Yeah. It's that bit in the Maradona documentary where he says that feel when he's under all the pressure because the mafia involved in his life and yeah he's he's on the front of the tabloids every day he says the pitch playing for Napoli

is the only place where he feels free. Yeah. Yeah. I'm exactly the same. Take me down to power leagues on a Thursday night. All of my I'm exactly like Maradona nuts. In his novel, The Plague, the character Raymond Rambert, who is a former football player, sits down with someone he calls Horseface, doesn't sound particularly pleasant, to discuss the French Championship, the merits of professional English teams and the technique of passing. And the passage leads to the most unlikely of segments in a French novel. That's what it says. You see, old boy, it's the centre half that does the placing and that's the whole art of the game, isn't it? Rambert was inclined to agree, though he personally had always played centre forward. Now, in Camus'

unfinished autobiographical novel, The First Man, which lay in the boot of the car in which, sadly, he crashed and died in 1960s. Camus died in a car crash and they found this unfinished novel in the back. The narrator talks of soccer as his kingdom, which is a lovely way of describing it. We also get descriptions of playground and street games, injuries to limbs and makeshift balls, mates and rags. And from his most famous book, The Outsider, which Erle of course mentioned at the beginning of this, football features again as Mersault, who's the protagonist, encounters a group of victorious players on a tram,

all singing their club songs after a victory. And football was alive in so much of his work. And so it was incredibly fitting. It's a nice little sort of footnote. When in 1957, it was announced that Camus had won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and he chose to give his interview to French television about that in a place that kind of reflects his love of the game. Where do you think he

chose to have his interview having been given the Nobel Prize for Literature? Lequipe. Upton Park. Upton Park! It was a roundly boom for having written and read books. Wanker! Wanker! Wanker! He went to the Parc de Prince. Oh, the Parc de Prince in Paris. There we are, where he was watching a league match between Rassin Club de Paris versus Monaco. I've been to Parc de Prince.

Have you? Well, you have sat where Camus sat. Wales played Northern Ireland at the Parc de Prince in that Euro 2016. And there is a lovely sort of poignant little bit on this. In quite a poignant moment to the end, there was a point in the game where the Racing goalkeeper makes a mistake, Monaco score, and the camera cuts back to Camus, who pleads down the lens, basically, don't be hard on the fella.

Almost as if Camus is saying, you know, that could have been me, you know, I've won the Nobel Prize, but really, I'd be, I'd give anything to be where that man is. Oh yeah. And I know what he's going through. So there you are, this great thinker, this fantastic mind who also had this undying love for football and really, I think we can probably say

dreamed that's what he did for a living instead. Yeah. Oh wow. Alright, time for section three. This one is on a little fella called Che Guevara. Now I want to take you back. I want to take you back before he was a beret wearing revolutionary icon. Before the beard. Before the speeches. Before the myth. Before Citizen Smith. Before Robert Lindsay. There was a period in my life where I thought...

Before the t-shirts. Exactly the t-shirts, the very popular t-shirts in Camden. The posters in dorm rooms. Grow up. There was a time where I thought I didn't know the difference between Che Guevara and Citizen Smith. Did anyone else have this? Because they look so alike. Do you know what I mean?

Did anyone else have this? When you don't know who Che Guevara is and you don't know who Robert Lindsay is As icons you think they're the same person. Yeah, I definitely mixed up Fidel Castro and Che Guevara I think I don't think I mixed up Robert Lindsay and Fidel Castro You had your red Robert Lindsay t-shirt on didn't you? Even though I did I did really like Citizen Smith, perhaps the people... That's a good ironic t-shirt, isn't it? Robert Lindsay, as sure. Yes, yeah.

Another one for the Owatata merch store. It's from Tooting, wasn't it? Something like the Tooting Revolutionary Front Door. Yeah, I can't confess to watching much of Citizen Smith Smith, but enough that I can mention Shegevarra. Oh, I loved it. I love rugby, Shegevarra once told his father, who worried that the sport would worsen his chronic asthma. Even if it kills me one day, I am happy to play it, said Shegevarra, and he did, with

fierce passion, despite wheezing, despite the risks. Rugby was Shegevar Che's first serious love. Surprising? Did he? Yeah, loved it. I am surprised by that. In 1951, aged 23, still years away from fame, Guevara founded a rugby magazine called Tackle. No.

Gotta be careful running a magazine for that title. It ran for 11 issues and it wasn't just match reports and interviews, the magazine occasionally took aim at Argentina's political elite using rugby's social elitism as a metaphor for broader inequalities and that didn't go unnoticed by the authorities. So Guevara was born in June 1928 into a middle-class anglophile family in Rosario, Argentina. Isn't that where Lionel Messi's from, Rosario, isn't he? Oh, I don't know. I know that obviously rugby is a big sport in Argentina.

Huge. Yes. Yeah. Especially among those with kind of relative English roots. And so Argentina's rugby scene at the time was closely tied to English schools and upper middle-class institutions. And Guevara sporting interests, however, were a bit wider.

He also played football and followed his local team club Atletico Rosario Central. His rugby career saw him turning out for a string of clubs, including Estudiantes of Cordoba, the rugby division of San Isidro club, where his family were members. Club Iporia, Atalia, Polo club and even club Universitario de Buenos Aires. I nailed all that pronunciation. I'm confident. Very impressive. Yeah. His playing position varied and I don't know too much about rugby outside of Six Nations, but his playing position was scrum half, wing three quarter and sometimes he played fly half. Oh so it's all the glamour position. The glamour position, that doesn't surprise me.

It's like playing at centre forward in rugby or something. Yeah Rosario is where Messi's from. So Messi and Che Guevara, interesting. Friend and future travel companion Alberto Granado remembered Che for his ferocious tackling and physical courage and they played together first when they were 14. It was on the rugby field that Che earned his early nickname El Fusa, which is a contraction of Furioso Cerna, meaning furious Cerna, Cerna being his mother's surname. Others called him El Loco. Wow. Anyone want to have a go on that translation, Tom? Yeah.

Bonkers. The mad one. And nods to his often fearless and reckless play. But we mentioned his asthma. He had a bad asthma. During games, he would use rugby's stop start nature, like scrum resets and line outs, as opportunities to sprint to the side line and puff on his inhaler But rather than like being a weakness he actually earned the respect of his teammates doing that

So he'd puff on the inhaler throughout the match? Yeah, he'd be running off to the sidelines puffing on the mat and and people didn't see this as a weakness They thought he was like a daring rugby player. In fact, his friend Granado wrote he was a daring rugby player, wrote Granado and his Intrepid nature and absolute lack of fear were renowned. I suppose you can see that, isn't it, if he is throwing himself into this.

He is, I can say, in terms of my relationship with rugby when I played in secondary school, the opposite to me. Yeah, yeah. The polar opposite. He's Scott Gibbs, and you were Scott from Neiburs. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah, the asthma and him puffing on his inhaler on the sidelines actually contributes to this romantic myth of Che as fearless in the face of hardship. But it was really literal. Every match wasn't just a battle against the opposition, it was a battle against his own body too. His own lungs. Wow. Yeah, his own lungs. So that's rugby. But Che's other great sporting love was football, the people's game, as we've established.

Yeah. And it took- Now we're talking. Now we're talking. So it took centre stage during the most formative experience of his early life, the famous motorcycle journey he undertook across South America with Granado in the early 1950s. These travels were later published as the Motorcycle Diaries and it revealed a young

man waking up politically, but also kicking a ball around whenever he could. Everywhere he went from Argentina to Chile, Peru to Colombia, they saw football being played and they joined pick-up games, they chatted about famous players like Adolfo Perdonera, Alfredo de Stefano and Angel Lubruna and used football as a social lubricant with strangers and Granado wrote in his diary, I was daft with happiness recalling a street match they played in the middle of the jungle. You've got to question the surface, the playing surface. Alex, this is a bit mad.

Do you want to drive across Argentina on a motorbike? Play pick-up football? That sounds fantastic. But you'd be going up to Villagers and stuff and you'd say, right, any of you in your 40s though, we are going to be shown up a bit by the younger players. Chris could come behind us in quite a sensible car with like supplies, so nice stuff, lots of water and food and kind of, you know, a place to sleep. Chay's obviously in his early twenties, he's relatively fit, he's got youth behind him,

so when he mucks it in these games, he's competitive. When you turn up Tom, they are running rings around you. How dare you? No, I play some pretty sort of competitive dance football every Tuesday night. And they'd also be like, he keeps making these jokes. He is the funniest footballer in history. If only I spoke English, but I can tell rhythmically how funny it is. This is the bit where I want to see a movie of just the football aspects of the motorcycle diaries. In Colombia, the pair were roped into coaching a struggling local team.

Wow. Che Lota wrote, we were only meant to coach them so they didn't make fools of themselves, but they were so bad, we decided to play too. And this team they were coaching got to the final of a cup competition and lost the final on penalties. It's like Mighty Ducks with Shea Guevara. That's so exciting, I love that.

How good is that? Let me guess, they decided to make play a very team-orientated kind of passing and possession-based football. And he learned, just like Bill Shank Shankly he learned the merits of socialism through football. With ten left-wingers. The motorcycle diaries that journey ended at a leprosy colony in San Pablo Peru where Guevara then a medical student and Granado a biochemist,

volunteered their services. And football there became central, not just for recreation, but for building solidarity between patients and staff. And Shea often played as goalkeeper in these matches. He wrote candidly about his skills. I was a bit better, but they put a sneaky goal past me. But his commitment was never in doubt. So there he's admitting people with leprosy

were banging in the goal past him as goalkeeper. Fair enough. Fair enough. This is an interesting meeting in history. But Che wasn't just a player, he was a fan too. And he saw a really famous game in July 1952 while he was in Bogota. He made time to attend a match

between a local Colombian side who played Real Madrid. He sat in the cheapest stand watching as Miliunarius beat Real Madrid 2-1 and Alfredo de Stefano scored the winner. Che cheered the victory loudly, not just as a football fan, but as someone increasingly attuned to the political symbolism of sport. So why did it matter so much? Football fans who are aware of a little bit of history will know this, but Real Madrid at the time, early 50s, was no ordinary football team.

It was associated with Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. Oh yes. And anyone who's been to the Barcelona Museum will be aware of this history between the Catalans of Barca and Real Madrid. This rivalry is really born out of the fact that Spain's authoritarian ruler Franco, he saw sport as a tool for political messaging and Real Madrid came to embody his vision of Spain, centralized, traditional, Catholic and imperial. Whether Franco even liked football is debatable, although he certainly knew how to exploit his power.

So for the increasingly left-wing Shea Guevara, Real Madrid's success was a symbol of repression, conservatism, authoritarian control, and when a team like Milenarius beat Franco's darlings, and with a South American star like Di Stefano leading the way, this felt like a small, satisfying rebellion. But later on, Di Stefano, he's not playing for Milenarios, he signs for Real Madrid. Of course. He goes to Real Madrid, didn't he? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. He's like, they're great,

isn't he? Like, all-time great, basically. Which would, in time, add to Shea's bitterness in terms of the memory of that match. So Shea may have loved rugby, the camaraderie, the structure, the culture of challenge and pain, but he understood football's deeper power. Rugby was elite, but he thought football belongs to the masses. It was accessible, it crossed borders and languages, and it provided a connection from the streets of Buenos Aires to the fields of Colombia, the leper colony in Peru, and the streets and terraces of Bogota.

For Guevara, football wasn't just a game, it was an expression of solidarity, identity and resistance. And that's what made it, in the end, the true sport of revolutionaries. Really, really interesting. You can see there's a link, you know, a parallel there with Camus and his relationship with it, isn't it? And the way that he was seeing it being, you know, the sport of the people and how, you know, there's, you can see how it and the way that he was seeing it being you know the sport of the people and how yeah you know there's you can see how it offers the same thing there there's also a trend there for people who've played in goal going on to do incredible things what is that philosophers tend to go in great philosophers tend to go in gold don't they yeah camu peter shilton maybe i think there probably is an element that it does attract a different mindset of

being a goalie. Goalies are weird. Have you ever heard what Danny Baker says about goalies? He says like growing up, everyone goes in goal and then you eventually become older and you come out of goal and you play outfield and it's only the true nutters that remain in goal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, the strange thing with being in goal,

you are playing effectively a different sport because you're allowed to use your hands. Yeah, absolutely. It's a really odd thing about football that there is one person, there is one position where you are able to do something that no one else is allowed to do. It's quite a curious...

Yeah, completely. ...quirk of football in that regard. Although I think when I scored my goal last night that was something that other people weren't able to do. Just to remind you of the sentence your goal last night is living rent-free in my head. Not my words, the words of André Spebbinger too. Well that's it for this week's Oh What A Time. Thank you very much for listening. If you'd like to become an Oh What A Time full-timer subscriber, you get both episodes in one go. And ad-free of course. Ad-free. That's massive. And also you get all of the bonus episodes.

We love recording the bonus episodes. They're a lot of fun to research and an awful lot of fun to record. We're very proud proud of them so we think you should become an Oh What A Time full-timer subscriber where can they find out this information Christopher? Go to owhatatime.com where you can sign up via Wondery Plus and another slice and I will add this I'm reading a book on the Norman Conquest and wait till you hear about English slavery it is mind-boggling so you've got that coming up in a future book. Wait till you hear what Norman's been up to. I had no idea about the English slave scene both like slaves in England but

also people being captured around captured by the Vikings and sold into slavery it's I had no idea about any this, but it's coming in a forthcoming book review. Is there some light stuff that we can riff around in it? Mate, this is 1000 AD. Absolutely not. OK. Whatever way you support the show, it means the world. Thank you for listening and we will see you very, very soon. Bye. Bye bye. Follow Oh What A Time on the Wondry app, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts and

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