Well, welcome to It Was What It Was with me, Rob Draper and with Jonathan Wilson, and a very happy new year, very happy 2026 to you.

We thought it would be a good idea just to put a little bonus edition together on January the 1st because we're all waking up, maybe a little bit crocky, maybe a little bit excited about the year because if it's a World Cup year, then football people instinctively get excited at the start of the year.

I feel like you can really begin the World Cup countdown.

So Jonathan, just sort of to lift the veil a little bit,

we're not actually recording this live at 9 o'clock on New Year's Day. So what were your New Year's Eve plans? What will you have done on New Year's Eve that you can say, oh yes, I've just had a great time doing? Well, if people are listening to this at 9 a.m. on New Year's Day, then I right now

am taking off from

oh I was

about say Gatwick, but it might be Heathrow. I really should check that before I go. I'll be taking

off for Paris, or I'll be changing planes to carry on to Rabat for the Africa Cup of Nations.

So my New Year plans, we're still doing the New Year's party. We tend to go out on Christmas Day to relatives, and then we host at New Year.

So we will have people over to the flat.

I'm a big believer in New Year.

I think if you grow up as close to Scotland as I did, New Year means a lot more.

I was always slightly shocked.

I can't have stopped now because it was nearly 30 years

ago. But New Year was always massive in London. I remember you're going out in the street

and they'd sound the shipyard hooters at midnight. So you knew the New Year had begun. And then there'd be

sort of all the political negotiations who was going to

walk in first and the order you went in the house only the men of course it was it was 1980s

different times different well not that different it was northeast it was yeah and it was it was always a

big deal so i i like to try and maintain that and, yeah, we'll be first footing and we'll be having, I've got some very nice bottles of Bollinger in the, in the fridge. And, yeah, then probably on about three hours sleep, heading off to the airport to go to the Cooperation. What are your plans, Rob? Well, I was just going to say, the Bollinger's are very Ron Atkins in touch, but yeah, no, we host on New Year's Eve as well, and we'll be having families around and playing a bizarre game. We always have to play this game called Empires where it's too complicated to explain, but it's sort of, you know, everyone sits around and has a lot of fun playing games with, so teenage kids now as well. If they're not disappearing off, they might be disappearing off to their own parties. I don't know. They haven't informed me of their plans yet. So that, yeah, so I will be a little bit groggy, I imagine, at nine o'clock on New Year's day, but I will be exhilarated by the fact. You'll be exhilarated by the fact you're going to the African Cup of Nations which we can talk a little bit about but yeah a World Cup year does get me excited what what do we expect it from African Cup of Nations Jonathan

well Morocco is very different certainly to the last two hosts North African Cups of Nations always very different to West African Cups of Nations, partly in terms of climate, but just the whole feel, the whole vibe, is very different.

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