The Football Ramble are back!

Following a sell-out UK tour in 2016, critically acclaimed podcast The Football Ramble are going back on the road. They will be in Newcastle, at the Tyne Theatre & Opera House on Friday, October 25.

It means a return to the North-East for Hartlepool-born Pete Donaldson, the Absolute Radio presenter.

He said: “Visiting the North-East is always fun. We like the area but also their football teams are in a massive amount of trouble. Gateshead have had a traumatic summer. You have Sunderland languishing a little bit, Hartlepool have dropped out of the league.’’

The gang of four vow to bring their chart-topping podcast to life in a multimedia extravaganza.

The Football Ramble Podcast was founded in late 2007 around a kitchen table by friends Marcus Speller and Luke Moore. With comedian Jim Campbell and Donaldson joining them.

The podcast has established itself as the largest independent football brand in the UK, released twice weekly, and with over 65 million downloads.

So what can the Newcastle audience expect next month?

Pete: Videos, games, nuclear-level messing about and a wealth of football-related daftness sounds about right!

Marcus: We approach the live shows differently to the podcast. On the podcast we want to give our views on current footballing affairs. Whereas in the live shows, we just find the funniest things to talk about and have as much fun interacting with the audience as we can each night.

Do you know what to expect from each audience and does that change the show?

Luke: The audience has in the past reflected the reputation of the town. Newcastle - what would you expect? A party town and that’s what we got.

Jim: And that was also true of Edinburgh, Dublin and Glasgow. Really raucous, fun shows.

Luke has been quoted as saying he is happy to be a sidekick to ‘the Pete Donaldson Experience’. What can we expect from Pete on this tour?

Pete: Amazon keeps suggesting more and more powerful confetti cannons for purchase, if you want some indication as to what I'm planning. I was told last time I wasn’t allowed to bring a drone, so I’m pushing for that this time.

Luke: I’m sure the boys won’t mind me saying that Pete is the most inspirational when it comes to ideas - sometimes you think ‘we can’t do that’, and sometimes they are great. With the drone, Pete wanted to fly a Newcastle shirt over the crowd and drop it on someone who’d win something. The venue said we weren’t able to do it and now the venues are a bit bigger we’re going to try again.

Pete: I have still got props from the 2016 tour: a weird rubber wolf mask, a Sven-Goran Eriksson wig, and Sven waistcoat. This time will be multimedia too and I am probably going to have a bigger credit card bill that month!

How do you prepare before going on stage?

Luke: One of the main concerns is finding out where Pete is before we go on. In Birmingham, there was about five minutes before we were meant to go on, the videos are playing, the lights have dimmed, and Pete is on a balcony somewhere behind the stage. I’m thinking how is he going to get down here, but somehow, he always turns up.

Pete: Everyone gets quite tense, I drink one beer, and everyone starts saying ‘Pete, stop drinking’. I say, ‘I’m in a good mood’. Then we all go on.

You like to mingle with the audience after the shows and have a drink - how important is it to interact with your listeners?

Luke: Free beers are very important! Seriously, you don’t want to close yourself off to that. We are not rock stars, we’re not footballers!

Marcus: It may sound like a cheesy thing to say, but when you look at a band on stage or footballers, they obviously have a major talent and you can be in awe of them. I don’t think anyone is in awe of us and I think that is our selling point and the authenticity of the podcast. It would be ridiculous for us not to mingle with the audience and listeners and have a laugh.

Pete: One audience member kept touching my face during some post-show drinks!

When did you realise that people were listening to the podcast?

Jim: I remember we had a bottle of champagne because we had 3,000 listeners, which seems insane now.

Luke: For me, it was when we booked out a pub in the Saturday or a Sunday. We basically said we would put the football on all day in the pub and whoever wants to come can. It was absolutely rammed!

Pete: The weirdest thing for me was when I was in Los Angeles and a policeman said to me “no Geordies allowed”. This guy had a gun, was a policeman, lived in Los Angeles and knew what I looked like. It’s something that always surprises me, getting recognised for the show. There’s not a week goes by where you don’t see someone who stops you to say “Pete, love the show”.

Tickets, priced £20, are available by calling 0844 2491 000 or on line at tynetheatreandoperahouse.uk