Viewed in 2026, Nathan Barley, Chris Morris’s 2005 sitcom, shows remarkable prescience about the last two decades of metropolitan life, from smartphone addiction and digital derangement to sheer existential vapidity. When Barley’s character referred to his occupation as “self-facilitating media node”, Morris and co-writer Charlie Brooker were way ahead on the creator economy. What the pair failed to predict was ex-footballers joining the sector in droves.
These days, if you are a former footballer without a podcast or YouTube channel, then did you ever really play the game? Setting aside the Gary Lineker Goalhanger empire, manspreading its centrist-dad agenda into issues way beyond guffaws with Micah Richards and Alan Shearer, there is Gary Neville to rule them all. Manchesterism’s second-most influential practitioner has been on heavy manoeuvres.
Unlike Lineker’s productions, the Overlap’s output continues to stick largely to football; a rugby podcast was mothballed in February, though its cricket equivalent continues. Having snatched Wayne Rooney from the BBC in the summer for a Manchester United-based two-hander with the YouTuber Mark Goldbridge, last week the Overlap went daily, extending the output to 4pm Monday to Friday. An online launch had Jamie Carragher baiting Goldbridge, real name Brent Di Cesare.
The former policeman shunned a “no comment” approach during his interrogation, biting back during an exchange that had Neville choking on his Huel in laughter. Clipped up, the send button pressed, job done. The Overlap has gained a TV family dynamic, a chorus line of familiar characters.
Neville and Carragher are mummy and daddy bear, football’s Richard and Judy. Jill Scott is the dotty aunt, Roy Keane the irascible uncle, smirking along with Ian Wright in picking over the latest gossip. It has been highly popular, occasionally agenda-setting, softening Keane’s image, even making a cultish figure of production hand Kiaran Saunders, supplier of biscuits and blueberries.
Neville’s empire-building, though, is boundless, his tanks bulldozing into the already packed football podcast space, with newsletters to follow. The family has been extended. Mondays have Steven Gerrard reviewing the weekend’s action with Becky Ives, this week offering a defence of Florian Wirtz: “Don’t give up on him.” Tuesdays have Kelly Cates and Ashley Young in tandem.
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