Our inaugural guest on Behind The Lines is Malachy Clerkin of the Irish Times.

We talk about he got he broke into journalism, what makes a great intro, the “insane discipline” of live reporting, the best piece of advice he has been given and the cliché he avoids like the, er, plague.

The pieces Malachy brought along were: an interview with Daniel Timofte by Paul Howard of The Sunday Tribune that, sadly, is not available online; Rick Reilly’s 1994 piece for Sports Illustrated called When Your Dream Dies; and Denis Walsh’s report of the 2018 All-Ireland hurling championship final for The Sunday Times.

If you’d like to get in touch with the show, email behindthelines@the42.ie.

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Our second guest is Rory Smith, soccer correspondent for the New York Times.

We talk about what readers want from good sportswriting, profile writing, chasing Pete Doherty through London on a moped, Djibril Cisse and finding a zombie in Russia.

The pieces Rory brought along were: Robert Andrew Powell’s book, This Love is Not For Cowards; Ken Early’s Irish Times column on how quickly football has changed; and the broader notion of ‘David Remnick on Boxing’, with reference to his 1997 profile of Mike Tyson.

If you’d like to get in touch with the show, email behindthelines@the42.ie.

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The Sunday Times’ award-winning journalist and author Michael Foley is our latest guest, and we spoke, among other things, about poetry written by Kieran McGeeney’s Da, his favourite interviewee, and how he became the second-most famous Mick Foley on Twitter.

His nominated pieces were: Hugh McIlvanney’s iconic report from the Rumble in the Jungle; a remarkable 1997 All-Ireland hurling final preview by Denis Walsh for The Sunday Times; David Halberstam’s short piece on the traditions of baseball’s opening night; and Jimmy Breslin’s famous column about the death of John Lennon.

If you’d like to get in touch with the show, or want help in sourcing the pieces we spoke about, email behindthelines@the42.ie.

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This week’s guest is former Sunday Times sports editor, Alan English.

Alan’s is an amazing career, and he delves into what it was like working with Hugh McIlvanney, and his experience at the centre of the Sunday Times’ pursuit of Lance Armstrong.

Alan has also written a series of books, and he talks of working with Brian O’Driscoll and Paul O’Connell on their respective autobiographies.

His nominated pieces include: Hugh McIlvanney’s tribute to the late Matt Busby; an amazing 17,000-word epic in Playboy about the saga of getting Bobby Fischer on a plane for his chess world championship clash with Boris Spassky in Iceland; Paul Kimmage’s multi-part oral history of Ireland’s 2001 win over Holland for the Sunday Independent, The Team That Mick Built; and Jonathan Liew’s live report of Liverpool 4-0 Barcelona for the Independent.

Get in touch with the show: email behindthelines@the42.ie, or tweet @gcooney93.

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This week’s guest is Glenn Stout, who you’ll know best as the series editor of the annual Best American Sportswriting anthology.

Glenn tells us his simple principle for putting pieces forward for inclusion in the anthology, along with giving plenty of nuts-and-bolts advice for writers and editors, be they aspiring or established.

Given his role with the anthology, there’s few better on the planet to recommend some great pieces - and he didn’t disappoint.

The stand-out is a piece by JR Moehringer called Resurrecting The Champ. It’s quite the journey, so we recommend reading it before listening to a spoiler-heavy chat.

There’s also a lovely column by LA Times’ Bill Plaschke about a meeting with a remarkable reader; the 19th-century baseball poem which Glenn says set the template for the modern match report; and William Nack’s ode to Secretariat, called Pure Heart, which appeared in a 1990 edition of Sports Illustrated.

Get in touch with the show - behindthelines@the42.ie.

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This week's guest is Tommy Conlon. You’ll likely know Tommy best from his long-running column in the Sunday Independent, where he has built a reputation as one of the most lyrical and evocative sportswriters around, while maintaining a healthy intolerance for bullshit.

His picks were really interesting, all by writers we haven’t heard of yet. We drilled down into what makes great writing, heard of Tommy's writing process and also talked about sport generally. As exhilarating as watching the likes of Leo Messi and Roger Federer is - how much excellence do we actually need?

Or is sport better for its flawed heroes?

Enjoy it, and if you want to get in touch with the show, email behindthelines@the42.ie.

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This week’s guest is Jonathan Liew, Chief Sports Writer with the Independent in London.

Many of you will know Jonathan’s work - and he has been frequently cited on this podcast to date. Here he tells us how he became so good at what he does, along with telling us that Liverpool/Barcelona report wasn’t even that good.

He also tells of his spat with BBC Cricket commentator Jonathan Agnew, how he sees writing as a science, and how he came to write a conversation between Alexis Sanchez’ dogs.

His picks are: Ed Smith’s deep dive on cricket batsmanship for The Cricket Monthly; Brian Phillips’ imagined email conversation between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic; Wright Thompson’s famed profile of Tiger Woods for ESPN.

Get in touch with the show - email behindthelines@the42.ie, or find Gavin on Twitter @gcooney93.

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This week’s guest is author and Irish Examiner columnist Michael Moynihan. Michael is one of the most literate and innovative columnists working in Ireland, and he brings all you might expect to a terrific conversation.

Hear Michael talk of his former life listening to people argue about “the width of a drain in Mayo” as a Dáil stenographer; how to write a great column; and a revealing conversation with Gay Talese.

Talese’s iconic piece on Joe DiMaggio - The Silent Season of a Hero - features among his picks, along with WC Heinz’ short 1949 column, Death of a Racehorse; Brendán O’hEithir’s book Over The Bar: A Personal Relationship with the GAA; and Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch.

There’s also a very special spin-off pod adventure involving Gay Talese that we need your help with, so listen in for that.

Get in touch - email behindthelines@the42.ie, or tweet @gcooney93.

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