Huddersfield Town 1921–1928: England’s First Super Club?

How did Huddersfield Town become English football’s first true dynasty — and why does their story still matter today?

In this episode of By Far The Greatest Team, Graham and Jamie are joined by regular Phil Craig to explore one of the most important — yet often overlooked — eras in football history: Huddersfield Town between 1921 and 1928.

Before Arsenal’s glamour years.
Before Busby. Before Shankly.
There was Herbert Chapman in West Yorkshire.

This was the team that won three consecutive league titles (1924, 1925, 1926) — the first club in English football history to achieve the feat. But this isn’t just a story about silverware. It’s about innovation.

We dive into Huddersfield’s 1922 FA Cup triumph, the dramatic 1923–24 title race decided on goal average against Cardiff City, and the tactical revolution Chapman quietly introduced to the English game. At a time when football was chaotic and physical, Huddersfield played with structure, discipline, and clarity of roles — concepts that feel modern even now.

We explore:

• Herbert Chapman’s revolutionary approach to management
• How Huddersfield edged Cardiff City in one of the tightest title races ever
• Why having just five regular goal scorers didn’t stop them dominating
• The physicality of 1920s football and how Huddersfield rose above it
• Why this team laid the groundwork for Arsenal’s later dominance

Were Huddersfield England’s first “super club”?
Do three consecutive titles automatically place them among the All-Time Greats?
Or has history quietly forgotten just how influential they really were?

Join us as we debate, analyse, and ultimately rank the greatness of Huddersfield Town 1921–28.

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Because every great team deserves its story told properly.

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Rangers 1986–91: Souness’ Ibrox Revolution

How did Graeme Souness transform Rangers overnight — and change Scottish football’s culture, money, and power balance forever?

In this episode of By Far The Greatest Team, hosts Graham Dunn and Jamie Rooney are joined by Stuart Murray to revisit one of the most explosive turning points in British football: Rangers from 1986 to 1991, the era when Graeme Souness arrived at Ibrox and changed the direction of Scottish football in real time.

Rangers entered the mid-1980s with a sense of drift — a giant club needing a reset — and Souness arrived like a thunderclap. What followed wasn’t just a return to winning: it was a shift in recruitment, ambition, and identity. The conversation charts how Rangers used financial power and high-profile signings to tilt the league’s centre of gravity, dragging Scottish football into a more modern, media-driven, transfer-fuelled age.

Along the way, we explore the Old Firm pressure cooker, how Rangers’ resurgence intensified the rivalry with Celtic, and how this period intersected with wider cultural change — including football’s evolving relationship with race, identity, and public perception. The episode also examines the bridge from Souness into the early Walter Smith years, the domestic dominance that followed, and the lingering “what if?” of Europe — where Rangers often came close without landing the knockout blow.

And then there’s the moment that still echoes decades later: Mo Johnston’s move to Rangers — a transfer that detonated certainties, rewired Scottish football’s cultural landscape, and became one of the most controversial signings the British game has ever seen.

It’s a story of power, pressure, and transformation — and a Rangers side that didn’t just chase greatness… they changed the game around them.

Takeaways

• Souness’ arrival sparked a rapid cultural and footballing reset at Rangers.
• Big-name transfers and financial muscle shifted Scottish football’s power balance.
• The Old Firm rivalry intensified as Rangers reasserted dominance.
• Rangers’ European near-misses shaped how this era is remembered.
• Mo Johnston’s transfer remains one of British football’s most significant flashpoints.

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Was Norwich City’s early Premier League brilliance a fleeting miracle — or proof that football’s outsiders could dream big?

In this episode of By Far The Greatest Team, hosts Graham Dunn and Jamie Rooney are joined by Greek football expert Gus Krasonic to revisit one of the most captivating and unexpected stories of the early Premier League era: Norwich City from 1992 to 1994.

Fresh from the creation of the Premier League, Norwich shocked English football by refusing to play the game “as expected.” Under the quietly revolutionary Mike Walker, the Canaries blended fearless attacking football with smart recruitment, community spirit, and absolute belief. The result? A title challenge in 1992–93 that took Norwich to the top of the league for much of the season — and into the national consciousness.

The conversation explores how Norwich, long viewed as a provincial club, suddenly became standard-bearers for the league’s new era. Players like Chris Sutton, Mark Bowen, Ian Culverhouse, Bryan Gunn, and Ruel Fox formed a side greater than the sum of its parts, powered by Walker’s front-foot philosophy and a club culture that embraced freedom rather than fear.

The episode also dives into Norwich’s unforgettable UEFA Cup run, including that famous night in Munich when the Canaries stunned Bayern Munich at the Olympiastadion — a moment that still defines the club’s European legacy. But with success came consequence. As a selling club, Norwich were soon dismantled by the market, and Walker’s departure marked the end of an era almost as quickly as it had begun.

Along the way, Graham, Jamie, and Gus reflect on ownership under Robert Chase, the emotional bond between club and supporters, and why Norwich’s yellow-and-green identity still resonates so powerfully today.

Norwich City ’92–’94 may not have lifted a trophy — but they left something rarer behind: belief. A reminder that football history isn’t only written by giants, but by teams brave enough to play their way.

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Welcome back to the NASL madhouse… because for the final episode of our mid-season break, Graham and I are joined by super-guest Phil Craig to relive the glorious, chaotic magic of Vancouver Whitecaps 1979 — the year a club built on steel, structure and sheer bloody-mindedness survived North American football’s weirdest rulebook and ended up lifting the big one.

This is a league where draws don’t really exist, shootouts start 35 yards out, playoff series can be decided by a mini-game, and you can earn bonus points just for scoring goals… because obviously you can. And yet, in the middle of all that chaos, Tony Waiters’ Whitecaps basically said: fine — we’ll just defend our way through it.

We dig into the story from the Whitecaps’ roots in the NASL, the league’s star-powered boom years (hello, Cosmos), and the strange mix of glitz, instability and outright madness that defined football in North America in the late 70s. Then we get into the 1979 team itself: the spine, the characters, the British core, and the central importance of club legend Bob Lenarduzzi — with big-name flair supplied by the likes of Alan Ball, plus the kind of moments you couldn’t script if you tried (yes… we’re talking about Willie Johnston taking a sip of beer before swinging in a corner).

And of course, there’s the boss fight: the Cosmos. The glamour superpower. The brand. The villains. We walk through the playoff carnage, the controversy, the chaos of mini-games and shootouts, the sense that the match might never end… and how Vancouver somehow came out the other side.

Takeaways

• Why the NASL was both brilliant and completely unhinged — rules, points, shootouts, mini-games and all
• How Tony Waiters built a title winner in a league designed for chaos
• The key players and characters: Lenarduzzi, Ball, Parkes, Whymark, Hector, Johnston and more
• The Cosmos showdown: Chinaglia drama, playoff madness, and Vancouver refusing to blink
• The legacy of 1979 — and why this is one of football’s great “you had to be there” title runs

If you love football history, strange leagues, iconic underdogs and proper “how on earth did that happen?” stories — this one’s for you.

Subscribe for more episodes of By Far The Greatest Team and follow along as we rank the greatest sides ever — one glorious rabbit hole at a time.

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Is North Korea 1966 the most astonishing World Cup underdog run of all time?

In this Mid-Season Break Seasonal Special, super guest Phil Craig takes us down one of football history’s most improbable rabbit holes: North Korea at the 1966 World Cup. Set against the shadow of the Cold War, we unpack how politics, perception, and FIFA power dynamics shaped their path to England — and why their story deserves a place at the “Table of Greatness” conversation.

From a chaotic, obstacle-strewn qualification journey, to the shockwave win over Italy, to that jaw-dropping quarter-final with Portugal (yes, that first-half scoreline…), this is the episode where sport collides with history — and somehow ends up getting adopted by Middlesbrough along the way.

Takeaways

• How the Cold War shaped the way the world viewed North Korea’s team
• Why FIFA allowing participation wasn’t as straightforward as it sounds
• The night North Korea stunned Italy and flipped the tournament on its head
• How they used translated political ideology Chollima directly into tactical identity
• What the Portugal quarter-final revealed about their ceiling — and their tragedy
• The cultural clash (and warmth) of North Korea living in England, Boro-style

If you love World Cup lore, sports politics, and proper football-history weirdness, this one’s for you. Listen now, and then tell us: where does North Korea 1966 belong in the Table of Greatness?

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As our mid-season winter break continues, By Far The Greatest Team keeps the spotlight firmly on teams whose greatness deserves revisiting — even if they don’t always get the full episode treatment.

This time, Graham and Jamie hand the mic to Declan Clark, who takes on the task of making the case for one of English football’s most stylish and complete sides: Manchester City, 1968–1970.

In just three remarkable seasons, City assembled a team that could do everything. League champions, FA Cup winners, League Cup winners, and European Cup Winners’ Cup holders — all achieved with flair, intelligence, and a swagger that set them apart from their domestic rivals.

This was the City of Colin Bell’s relentless brilliance, Francis Lee’s fire, Mike Summerbee’s wing play, and Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison’s iconic management partnership — a side that married tactical innovation with attacking joy at a time when English football was evolving fast.

In this short seasonal special, Declan revisits the trophies, the personalities, and the cultural footprint of a Manchester City team that didn’t just win — they entertained, influenced, and left a lasting imprint on the English game.

🏆 Takeaways

• Why Manchester City 1968–70 may be the club’s greatest ever side
• How Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison reshaped English football thinking
• The trophies that confirmed City as a domestic and European force
• The role of flair, personality, and tactical freedom in their success
• Why this team still matters in the context of modern Manchester City

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As we head into our traditional mid-season winter break, By Far The Greatest Team is doing things a little differently.

Instead of stepping away entirely, Graham and Jamie have put together a special run of bite-sized mini-episodes, each shining a spotlight on a truly great football team that might not normally receive the full podcast treatment.

First up in the series is one of the most extraordinary FA Cup stories of the modern era.

In 1997, Chesterfield, a third-tier English side, went on an improbable FA Cup run that carried them all the way to the semi-finals — and to within a goal-line whisker of one of the greatest upsets in English football history. What followed was chaos, controversy, and one of the competition’s most enduring images: manager John Duncan losing his glasses in utterly unspectacular fashion as the drama unfolded.

This short episode revisits the magic, the madness, and the moments that made Chesterfield 1997 a team forever etched into FA Cup folklore — proof that greatness doesn’t always come with medals, but sometimes with mud, disbelief, and broken spectacles.

🏆 Takeaways

• Why Chesterfield’s 1997 FA Cup run remains one of the competition’s most romantic stories
• How a third-tier side pushed English football history to its absolute limits
• The controversial moments that still spark debate decades later
• John Duncan, touchline chaos, and the most famous lost glasses in FA Cup history
• Why some teams don’t need trophies to earn a place in football folklore

🎧 Enjoy this winter-break special — and join us as we uncover great teams, great stories, and great moments that deserve to be remembered.

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1. FC Kaiserslautern 1996–1998: The Miracle on the Betzenberg

Can a team really fall from the Bundesliga… win a cup… rebuild in the second tier… then return to win the title at the first attempt? In this episode, we dive into the extraordinary, almost impossible tale of 1. FC Kaiserslautern — the Red Devils — and their unforgettable journey from relegation heartbreak to one of the greatest miracle seasons in football history.

In this episode, Graham and Jamie are joined by special guest Benedikt Osl to unpack the full story arc of the Red Devils — a club fuelled by tradition, fearsome home support, tactical discipline under Otto Rehhagel, and a squad mixing veterans, defiant characters, and one very effective moustachioed striker.

We explore the emotional shock of 1996, the turmoil and tears around club icons like Andreas Brehme and Rudi Völler, and the surreal moment where Kaiserslautern lifted the DFB-Pokal after going down. Then comes redemption: Otto Rehhagel arrives, Bayern Munich implode into “FC Hollywood,” and a newly promoted Lautern land the most outrageous opening-day punch imaginable — beating Bayern in Munich — a result that sets the tone for the season to come.

From record-breaking promotion form to classic Betzenberg nights, high-scoring chaos, and the rivalry that shaped an era, this is a story of defiant underdogs who bent the Bundesliga to their will. We also trace what came after: European adventures, financial storm clouds, and a legacy that still echoes through German football.

Takeaways

• Kaiserslautern’s journey is one of football’s purest Cinderella stories.
• Winning the DFB-Pokal after relegation was unprecedented and surreal.
• Bayern’s FC Hollywood era created chaos and vulnerability at the top.
• Rehhagel’s leadership invites comparisons with Brian Clough.
• Early-season results — especially in Munich — shaped the title race.
• Winning the DFB Hallenmasters added to their unusual honours list.
• Their 1997–98 title remains a historic Bundesliga landmark.
• European campaigns were a mix of magic and misfortune.
• Lautern’s later decline shows how hard it is to sustain success.

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