A PODCAST featuring a West Cork resident focuses on the autobiographies of famous soccer players, and bridges the gap across the Atlantic for two friends.
On each episode of The Ademola Bookmen Podcast – a pun on Atalanta forward Ademola Lookman's name – hosts John Coughlan and Al Bond read and review a famous footballer's autobiography.
Books covered in episodes so far include How To Be A Footballer by Peter Crouch, Back From the Brink by Paul McGrath and a two-part special on Arsenal legend Ian Wright's book Ian Wright – A Life in Football.
'The podcast started out of my co-host Al and my shared interest in football and books,' says John Coughlan.
'We met years ago while working in Cambodia. I was working with the United Nations there and Al was teaching English. He lives in Florida and I live in West Cork.
'We have been in touch in the years since but we started swapping book recommendations and the idea for the podcast came from there. Football podcasts – sports podcasts in general – tend to follow day-to-day events as they happen. There aren't many that are not tied to the sporting calendar.
'It's an independent enterprise - we record it, edit, etc ourselves. The creation of the content is the easy part. The part that's challenging is getting it on people's radars. We are tipping away and gaining some traction, learning a lot as we go.'
The pair's latest episode focuses on El Diego, by Diego Maradona.
'I enjoyed this book the most of the ones we have done to date - Maradona's story is really quite amazing and he himself is such a compelling character,' says John.
Listen to episodes of The Ademola Bookmen Podcast via Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or by searching Ademola Bookmen wherever you get your podcasts.
