Welcome to the TFO Football Podcast. I'm Josh Schneiderweiler and I'll be guest hosting this episode.

Today I'm chatting with author Tony Evans about his new book, Two Tribes, Liverpool, Everton, and a city on the brink, which comes out March 22nd.

A little bit about Tony. He has written several books about Liverpool and was previously the

football editor of the Times. He now is a regular contributor to ESPNFC and the Evening Standard.

In this episode, he examines the dark days of the 1980s through the lands of Heisel and the

1985-1986 season. So we're talking hooliganism, TV blackouts, and how football reflected the political

culture of the time.

That and so much more.

But before I play the interview, don't forget to check out this football life, the show I

normally host for.

Last week's interview was with Kieran Dyer, and here at Tifa, we're

giving away 10 of his books away for free. So listen to that episode and hop on the Tifa website to

see how you can win one of those books. So without further ado, enjoy my conversation with writer

Tony Evans. I'm here in Pimlico in London with Tony Evans,

author of the new book, Two Tribes, which is coming out in a couple weeks. Tony, how are you doing

today? Oh, great. Thank you. Snowy London. It's a fantastic place to be this time of year.

Yeah, you must be, you feel right at home, you know, with all the Liverpool weather coming, coming with you here to London. Well, the funny thing is Liverpool doesn't get that much snow. Liverpool's a very windy city because, you know, you're on the sea and the, um, and the big weather patterns kick over the Welsh mountains and dump on Manchester, which, you know, it works for me. but, like, Liverpool's not a cold city, and it's not really, it's not a snowy city. So London's a much colder place, believe it than that, even though it's in the south, in the winter. It gets warmer in the summer. Yeah, well, let's get to your book, Two Tribes, which I just finished reading yesterday. Really, really nice read. Tell me,

tell the audience, what's your book about? Oh, thank you. It's about, it's about, well,

it's sort of about football. Football is, football is involved in it. What it's about is the political

situation in the mid-80s in Margaret Thatcher's Britain,

and the way football was used as a weapon in the class war,

and how Liverpool in particular became a city which was under pressure politically, socially and economically.

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