E51: Inside Football with Adrian Bevington

Today we go behind the scenes in football with Adrian Bevington. There are very few people better qualified to talk about what’s really happening in the corridors of power at a national level and within the club game. Adrian is best known for his work at The FA over nearly two decades, first as the go-to comms guy and then as managing director of Club England, a role he held for five years till 2015. During his period at the FA he worked with seven England managers Howard Wilkinson, Peter Taylor, Kevin Keegan, Sven-Göran Eriksson, Steve McClaren, Fabio Capello and Roy Hodgson. and worked with several chief executives, including Brian Barwick, Adam Crozier and Ian Watmore. Adrian was born in Middlesbrough and started his career at ICI as a trainee reporter on the company newspaper C&P News in 1987. He is a lifelong fan of his hometown football team Middlesbrough Football Club, whose media team he later joined. He has also written books on the club, one with fellow press officer Dave Allen, "From Doom to Boom: The Most Dramatic Decade in the Life of Middlesbrough FC" published in 1996), about the dramatic rebirth of the club following their financial woes in mid 80s. In 2018 Bevington moved back to his hometown and became Middlesbrough’s Head of Recruitment Operations a role he left at the end of last year.Unofficial Partner is the leading podcast for the business of sport. A mix of entertaining and thought provoking conversations with a who's who of the global industry. To join our community of listeners, sign up to the weekly UP Newsletter and follow us on Twitter and TikTok at @UnofficialPartnerWe publish two podcasts each week, on Tuesday and Friday. These are deep conversations with smart people from inside and outside sport. Our entire back catalogue of 500 sports business conversations are available free of charge here. Each pod is available by searching for ‘Unofficial Partner’ on Apple, Spotify and every podcast app. If you’re interested in collaborating with Unofficial Partner to create one-off podcasts or series and live events, you can reach us via the website.