The Sporting Almanac Podcast

The Six Nations - Ireland

In 52 completed Five Nations tournaments between the competition's resumption in 1947 and Italy's introduction in the year 2000, Ireland won six outright titles, four Triple Crowns and a lone Grand Slam in 1948. In the 26 seasons of the Six Nations they have won six outright titles, eight Triple Crowns and three Grand Slams, in 2009, 2018 and 2023. They beat New Zealand home, away and in the USA, topped the...

The Six Nations - Scotland

Scotland have never won the Six Nations. 26 seasons of unpredictability and occasional, unquestionable brilliance along the way, but their last tournament victory - a memorable, unforgettable one at that - lies all the way back in 1999 in the final edition of the old Five Nations Championship.

There have been forgettable seasons along the way, for sure. Four wooden spoons and some heavy defeats too, but in ...

The Six Nations - Italy

16 wins in 130 games in the Six Nations paints a picture of Italy as perennial whipping boys, fodder for the more established nations, perhaps even unworthy of their place at the top table of European and Northern Hemisphere Rugby Union. But it does not tell the full story of Italy's continuous and steady rise and genuine improvement since they first joined the competition in the year 2000.

Playing catch up to...

The Six Nations - Wales

It's only been five years since Wales last won the Six Nations, and only two more beyond that since their last Grand Slam in 2019. But for Welsh fans it probably seems a lifetime ago with the current team struggling for wins against even mid-ranked nations and threatening to be perpetual wooden spoonists in the Northern Hemisphere's premier Rugby Union competition.

To say the fortunes of Welsh rugby can ebb an...

Super Bowl LX - Seattle Seahawks vs. New England Patriots

The Super Bowl simply needs no introduction. It is, one way or another, the biggest event on the annual sporting calendar. Multi-million dollar advertisements, tickets in the tens of thousands of dollars and more, a half time show some people look forward to more than the football... and behind it all, you have two conference champions vying for the only things that universal...

The Six Nations Series - Introduction

The Northern Hemisphere's biggest rugby competition is back. France, England, Ireland, Scotland, Italy and Wales will renew their decades long fight for European supremacy, starting with France vs. Ireland in Paris.

In this series we will dive into each of the nations histories in the competition, but for this episode we set the scene, talk about why we love the Six Nations, its past and what its...

Winter Olympics Series Episode X - Alpine Skiing and its Superwomen

We bring our Winter Olympics series to a close just in time for the opening ceremony, and finish with the true blue ribbon events of the games - Alpine Skiing, consisting of the Slalom, Giant Slalom, Super-G, Team Combined and, the crème de la crème of the winter games, the Downhill events.

The latter is designed to test the six core components of technique, courage,...

Winter Olympics Series Episode IX - Lindsey Jacobellis and Snowboard Cross

Snowboard Cross is fun, that much is certain. But what happens when a competitor chooses the wrong moment to have fun, with the eyes of the world upon her and the finish line in sight? In 2006, Lindsey Jacobellis had one of the winter games most memorable and infamous moments, and despite dominating her sport in every other competition, then spent 16 years se...

Winter Olympics Series Episode VIII - Bobsleigh: Jamaica and Billy Fiske

There's probably few Winter Olympic sports that have penetrated the general consciousness and culture than bobsleigh, thanks mostly to the wonderful 1993 film Cool Runnings, based on the true story of the Jamaican bobsleigh team at the 1988 games in Calgary. While the story is, obviously, dusted generously with Disney magic, at its core are true events that gen...

Winter Olympics Series Episode VII - Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan

From the dawn of sport, competitors have bent, stretched and downright circumvented the rules in order to gain an advantage over their opposition. Usually, this is in the form of gamesmanship and rule breaking on the field or drug taking and bribing off it. Rarely in sport are there occasions where one competitor is accused of orchestrating violence against anothe...

Winter Olympics Series Episode VI - Eddie the Eagle

Michael David Edwards was an unlikely Olympic Ski Jumper, to say the least. Extremely far-sighted, a little on the heavy side and, most devastating of all to his chances in the event, British.

But Eddie, as he was dubbed by school friends, was not a man to take no for an answer. His story is not one of success, no podium, no records (British ones aside) - but he became as famous an ...

Winter Olympics Series Episode V - Steven Bradbury

For almost his entire career, it felt like if Steven Bradbury didn't have bad luck, he'd have no luck at all.

Collisions, crashes, missed opportunities and truly horrific injuries, if there was any athlete at the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics who had earned a bit of good fortune, it was Bradbury. And after fate had beaten him down time and time again, it took an extraordinary s...

Winter Olympics Series Episode IV - Shaun White and Halfpipe Snowboarding

In the fourth episode of our ten-part Winter Olympics series we take a look at an Olympic and X-Games legend, Shaun White. Three Olympic gold medals in snowboarding alongside fifteen X-Games golds across snowboarding and skateboarding tell their own story, but White’s impact on the halfpipe goes beyond medal counts.

From a childhood spent chasing winter in Cali...

Winter Olympics Series Episode III - The Miracle on Ice

As hard as it might be for British ice hockey fans to grasp, there actually is a more famous ice hockey shock than the Brits upsetting the dominant Canadians in 1936 (twice).

At Lake Placid in 1980, a team of amateur college players with an average age of just 21 took on the juggernaut that was the Soviet Union national team, ostensibly amateurs too but in reality full-time play...

Winter Olympics Series Episode II - Rudi Ball, Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936

The IOC have made a lot of questionable decisions through the years, and continue to do so to this very day, but few stand out more sharply than the awarding of both the 1936 Winter and Summer Olympics to Nazi Germany.

While the 1936 Summer games are very fairly given their spot in history thanks to Jesse Owens four gold medals righteously spitting into the fa...

Winter Olympic Series Episode I - Chamonix 1924

The first of our ten part Winter Olympic Series starts where it all began - in the shadow of Mont Blanc, where the French, Swiss and Italian borders meet, in Chamonix, 1924. These weren't called the Winter Olympics at the time - the French Olympic committee organised the "International Winter Sports Week" and the IOC co-opted it as the first Winter Games a year later.

The series will ta...

Season 2, Episode 2: The Australian Open

They call it the Happy Slam, and there's probably nowhere in the world of sport where so many people could turn up and still maintain that well earned moniker than Melbourne. That almost unparalleled sporting city is now the permanent host of the once nomadic Australian Open, played in grand arenas named for legends of the sport in front of more spectators than anywhere else tennis goes.

We de...

Season 2, Episode 1: The NFL Playoffs

Jack and Ben kick off 2026 with a preview and history of of the road to the Super Bowl, the NFL Playoffs. Fourteen teams, twelve matches across two conferences with the two conference champions meeting in Santa Clara next month - this is do or die football.

For anyone who watches the Super Bowl every year and wants to know how the teams get there, we have an explanation of that. For anyone who wa...

Episode 38: The 2025 Sporting Almanac Awards and End-of-Year Review

After eight months, 37 and a half episodes and a surprising number of listeners (we cannot thank you enough), we bring the first season of the Sporting Almanac Podcast to a close in the most fun way we could think of - with an award show, nominees chosen by us, winners voted for by friends of the show and completely unknown to us until revealed during recording.

We d...