Before he became the greatest interviewer of all time, Michael Parkinson wrote about football for his local newspaper in Barnsley. He went on to become a well respected sports columnist for The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times, and was named sports writer of the year in 1998.In his early days on the beat in Yorkshire he came across Arthur Hopcraft, who wrote one of the greatest sports books of all time, The Football Man, which Parkinson wrote the foreword on. The two were friends for life, sharing a similar philosophy on the game.We talk to Michael about Hopcraft, football's relevance to English society in the 50's and 60's, why it still matters, writing about the game at a time of huge upheaval, how George Best changed everything and why the modern game holds little joy for him now.

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