Bantams Banter

The podcast

How two City fans with a microphone ended up at Wembley, on Football Focus and in the iTunes top spot.

How it started

Tom and Dom had been broadcasting together for years before Bantams Banter, first on the Tom & Dom Show on local radio in Bradford, which they also put out as a podcast. In 2009 they narrowed the focus to the club they both supported and the show became Bantams Banter: an hour or so on Bradford City, recorded after the week's games and released free.

The format stayed simple. Results, the performances, the gossip, a few guests, and a lot of jokes at their own expense. That last part mattered. As QI researcher James Harkin put it, you didn't need to be a City fan, or even a football fan, to enjoy it.

Individually brilliant, put together they are inspired, passionate, authentic and very very funny.

Simon Crosse, BBC, ITV and BT Sport producer

The Wembley season

The 2012–13 season changed the show. Bradford City, then in League Two, knocked out Wigan, Arsenal and Aston Villa to reach the League Cup final against Swansea City. Tom and Dom became the first independent podcasters to record a show at a Wembley final, then did it again in May when City beat Northampton Town in the League Two play-off final.

Downloads followed the cup run. The podcast hit number one in the iTunes sports chart, released cup songs and music videos, won Fans of the Year at the BBC 606 awards and took Football Podcast of the Year at the 2013 Football Blogging Awards. By 2015 it had passed 100 episodes and four million downloads.

Spin-offs and guest spots

Brazilian Banter, ITV, 2014

During the 2014 World Cup, Tom and Dom co-hosted ITV's official World Cup podcast with comedian Alan Davies. It went straight in at number one on iTunes and stayed in the top ten for the tournament.

TV and radio, 2015

City's 2014–15 FA Cup run, including the 4–2 win at Chelsea, brought another round of appearances: a feature on BBC One's Football Focus, a slot on BT Sport's comedy panel show The Football's On, a piece for BBC Look North, and Dom talking to Ian Wright and Kelly Cates on 606.

Eat. Sleep. Football., 2016

For Euro 2016 the pair launched a separate England podcast, recorded live as the games played out on TV, with match previews from a small team of writers.

Bradford City Special, BBC Radio Leeds

By 2017–18 Tom and Dom were presenting a monthly Bradford City Special on BBC Radio Leeds, with guests from the club. The podcast carried on that season, if less regularly, because, as they put it, they were taking their kids to more games.

Charity work

The show raised money for the Bradford Burns Unit, set up after the 1985 Valley Parade fire, including a 2015 charity cover of You'll Never Walk Alone, and it backed Bradford Disability Football Club, who reached the final of the People's Disability FA Cup that year.

Press coverage

A selection of the articles written about the show that are still online.

Listen to the archive

The episodes are on Apple Podcasts and most podcast apps that index it. Video, including the cup songs, is on YouTube. For the club itself, see our Bradford City page.