New daily football podcast ‘First Up: Football’ launches

Just in time for the new football season, First Up: Football launches on Monday 11th August - a brand new, daily podcast delivering the biggest footballing stories from around the globe, in a short 10 minute hit.

The show is produced by Footwork Media, a small London-based production company who were behind Men In Blazers: Early Kick Off - which won Bronze for Best Sport Show at the 2025 Radio Academy ARIA Awards and was nominated for Best Daily Show at the 2024 British Podcast Awards.

Early Kick Off stopped on June 2nd, but First Up: Football aims to fill that void by covering the Premier League, Champions League, major European leagues and key international stories in one bite-sized daily update.

Episodes are released overnight UK time, every Monday to Friday, ensuring fans wake up fully informed on all the news, transfers, gossip and football’s funniest moments.

The show will be hosted primarily by Sammy James, of the aforementioned Early Kick Off. It will be available on all major podcast platforms and a fully visualised version will also be released daily on YouTube, X and TikTok, with shorter clips shared on Instagram.

Sammy James, host of First Up: Football, said: “We’re so delighted to be back making a daily football podcast. We loved the audience that we cultivated on Early Kick Off and we were hugely grateful for the hundreds of messages we received when that show ended.

We hope that First Up: Football can build up a similar community of football lovers. Currently, there is nothing in the football podcast market that succinctly breaks down all the latest news every morning and we really hope that this show keeps football fans up to speed, even if they are time-poor.”

First Up: Football is funded completely independently by Footwork Media and will be setting up a Substack for listeners to help fund the show. Subscribers will get advert-free episodes, access to an exclusive Telegram group and a twice weekly ‘write-up’ newsletter.