Football Daily | Mike Dean appears to blow the whistle on himself over in-match game claims

<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/info/2022/nov/14/football-daily-email-sign-up"><strong>Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now!</strong></a></p><p>While Football Daily likes to think we have our finger on the cultural pulse, before this week we were oblivious to the fact that Jamie Vardy has his own podcast. Called Jamie Vardy’s Having a Party, it is a far more sedate affair than the name suggests, given the only episode we have seen features our t1tular hero and his sidekick the comedian Josh James listening to Mike Dean reminisce about his time as a referee. While Football Daily can’t think of any social gathering that wouldn’t be enhanced by the presence of a 61-year-old former match official from the Wirral on its guest list, this isn’t so much a party as an occasionally awkward conversation. Its claim to be “a hilarious look back at Mike’s career at the heart of English football” is as bold as it is false, but what the episode lacks in laughs it has more than made up for in controversy.</p><p>Many thanks to Mike Wilner for the kind words re: my international retirement (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/sep/02/football-daily-newsletter-anatomy-of-a-deadline-day">yesterday’s Football Daily letters</a>). Per his advice, I tried Googling the Galapagos and although I couldn’t understand much on their FA website, it seemed to have a fair few mentions of the English term ‘survival of the fittest’, so obviously that’s not an option for me. And besides, the centre-half they showed training on the beach on their homepage looked slower (and even older) than Harry Maguire. As for Mauritius, I did get a <em>little</em> excited about my prospects on learning that their nickname was the Dodos, but then I saw that all-red strip and knew I could never don such a painful reminder of Bayern Munich, 1975, and well … Liverpool, 1892 onwards. So it’s