Like pretty much everyone else in the world, everyone at Wise Men Say found themselves with a whole load of time on their hands in March 2020 as the Coronavirus pandemic took hold.
Some of us here were furloughed, some were made redundant on the spot, and those who still had a job to go to were working from home – so with this extra time, we ordered some USB microphones, set up a Zoom account and adapted the Wise Men Say Podcast to be a virtual affair. It was either that or bake banana bread or do a workout with Joe Fucking Wicks.
With the pandemic bringing our 2019-20 season to a crushing halt, we didn’t have anything current to talk about – so we did episodes on stuff we’ve always wanted to talk about but the football had always got in the way.
So there were season reviews with the likes of Kevin Phillips and Lee Howey, a deep dive into both series of Sunderland Til’ I Die AND Premier Passions, a look back to the six victories over Newcastle, then some deep dives into some non-Sunderland stuff like Danny Dyer’s Football Factories and Green Street. We talked about music, away days, memories of good times with good people. We found it therapeutic in what was an uncertain and anxious time for many. And probably the most rewarding thing about it was the feedback we got from listeners who appreciated what we did at the time. We’re really proud of these shows.
We’ve brought all of that content – some of our best and silliest stuff – together on this page for you to enjoy all over again, or even enjoy for the first time. Or not enjoy at all. It’s fine.
So here it is, the Pandemic Podcasts.
Six In A Row
Our incredible dominance over Newcastle during the 2010s will never be forgotten and probably won’t be bettered for another generation, so it’s only right we’ve immortalised those games here for us all to listen back to:
The Wise Men Say AV Club
Football Factory, the offshoot Danny Dyer’s Football Factories, Green Street and its terrible sequel – we covered the lot here in our fond look back at when football and film clashed terribly:
Season Reviews
We had the likes of Kevin Phillips on to talk about those classic Division One seasons in 1997-1999, while Lee Howey took us through the early Peter Reid days at Roker Park. We also looked at the 2013-14 great escape season where Gus Poyet guided us to safety. Lots of nostalgia here:
Premier Passions
The BBC documentary on Sunderland’s travails in 1996-7 has rarely been repeated on TV, but grainy footage still exists on YouTube, so we watched them all over again and then talked about it:
Sunderland Til I Die
The second series of STID dropped in April 2020, around the same time as Tiger King. So much like Joe Exotic was the clearly incompetent, eccentric owner with a ragtag bunch of employees running the risk of being eaten every day by, erm, tigers, we watched STID where Charlie Methven and Stewart Donald were the clearly incompetent, eccentric owners with a ragtag bunch etc, etc. The pair were exposed for being the absolute berks we’d been saying they were for months. We did a brief deep dive on the second series but spent a load of time on the first, better, more enjoyable series here:
The Wise Men Say Pub Quiz
The knockout trivia tournament to end all knockout trivia tournaments. Some incredible Sunderland knowledge on display, yet some incredibly daft answers when put under pressure. Such as Chris Weatherspoon incorrectly saying that Ally McCoist managed Scotland at France ’98, something which he will never, ever live down.
