Episode Summary
Hosts
Graham Dunn, Jamie Rooney
Phil Craig
Guest(s)
Release Date
25 September 2025
Duration
65 min
In this episode of By Far The Greatest Team, Graham Dunn and Jamie Rooney and guest Phil Craig turn their attention from Derby County’s Clough-era greatness to their infamous 2007–08 Premier League season — a campaign that ended with just 11 points, the lowest total in English top-flight history.
The hosts unpack what went wrong: poor recruitment, managerial instability, and a squad simply out of its depth. They revisit the chaotic sequence of events that led from Billy Davies’ promotion to Paul Jewell’s doomed rescue mission, analysing how structural missteps and financial realities collided to produce one of football’s most unforgettable disasters.
But this episode goes deeper. Derby’s collapse becomes the lens through which Graham and Jamie explore football’s greatest failures — stories that transcend results to reveal human resilience, fan loyalty, and the absurd beauty of sport’s unpredictability. From Darwen FC (1898–99) — the early pioneers who fell apart under the pressures of professionalism — to Schalke 2020–21, a modern superclub’s implosion, and Brechin City 2017–18, whose winless campaign redefined Scottish endurance, the discussion charts the universality of failure in football.
It’s a darkly comic, oddly inspiring journey through the underbelly of the game — proving that greatness isn’t only found at the top of the table.
Takeaways
Derby County’s record-breaking Premier League disaster (2007–08)
Why managerial decisions and player investment shape survival
Darwen’s pioneering history and tragic Football League exit
Schalke’s financial and on-pitch implosion in 2021
Brechin City’s winless nightmare and what it says about football’s unpredictability
Darwen FC (1898–99) – Pioneers Who Paid the Price
Long before the Premier League, before floodlights or terraces, there was Darwen FC — one of English football’s earliest professional clubs and among the first to challenge the elite. Based in Lancashire, Darwen were trailblazers: they recruited Scottish players, reached FA Cup quarter-finals, and helped establish professionalism as the game’s foundation.
But by 1898, the professional revolution they helped inspire had consumed them. Financial strain, dwindling crowds, and rising player wages crippled small-town clubs like Darwen. Their final season in the Football League Second Division became a slow-motion collapse. They lost 18 consecutive matches, conceded 141 goals, and finished bottom with just 8 points.
The defeats were heavy and frequent — 0–9 to Glossop North End, 0–10 to Manchester City, 1–12 to Small Heath. Local newspapers called it “a tragedy of the game’s progress.” Yet in those results lay something bigger: the story of football’s industrial transformation. Clubs with money and urban crowds thrived; those built on community and craft faded.
Darwen’s demise was not just sporting but symbolic. They helped turn football into a profession — and were then priced out of the very world they’d created. The club folded in 1899, though phoenix versions would later emerge. Today, Darwen’s name endures in history books and on the opening scenes of Netflix’s The English Game, a reminder that even the game’s failures helped shape its future.
Main Topics
Iconic Moments
The decline of one of football’s first professional clubs
Financial struggles and the impact of early professionalism
Record-breaking defeats and defensive collapses
Cultural legacy and portrayal in The English Game
How Darwen’s fall symbolised football’s changing landscape
Conceded 141 goals in 34 matches, one of the worst defensive records in Football League history.
18 consecutive defeats capped their final Football League season before disbanding in 1899.
Notable Manager
Committee-run club (no formal manager structure in this era); local administrators oversaw team selection
Notable Players
Tom Marshall, James Chadwick, Joe Hogan — early professionals who played multiple positions as football evolved tactically.
Style of Play
2-3-5, attacking, open, man-marking, unstructured, early-era
Traditional 2-3-5 “Pyramid” formation; highly open, man-to-man defending; often outmatched by wealthier professional clubs. Played with attacking intent but lacked tactical discipline — a reflection of the sport’s early amateur-to-pro transition.
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