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Annie: Hi friends, welcome to another episode of That Sounds Fun. I'm your host Annie

F. Downs. I'm really happy to be here with you today, we have such a great show

in store. But before we dive into this conversation, I want to take a quick minute

to tell you about one of our amazing partners, CAP. Y'all know I love Christian

Appalachian Project, it means so much to me. We talked about them out on the

road on that That Sounds Fun Tour, you hear me talk about them a lot here. They

their table and the roof over their head that they need. And in times of

heart-breaking and life-altering disaster, they help others put the pieces of their

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CAP gives unconditional love and brings hope to children, and families, and

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by making a donation that's meaningful to you, or signing up to go volunteer, to

learn more, visit christianapp.org. Together we can help make a brighter tomorrow

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All right you guys today on the show, I am so excited about this episode. Roger

His new book, (Re)born in the USA: An Englishman's Love Letter to His Chosen

Home, is a funny and moving memoir. Where he really traces how he fell in love

with America, growing up in Liverpool. It's really interesting to hear from the

perspective of someone born in another country, who chose to move to the U.S.

about his thoughts on what America at its best can be. So here is my conversation

with host of Men in Blazers, and my new friend who I just think so highly of

Roger Bennett.

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I read the book because I wanted to, I ordered it myself, but also I watched you

and John Green, and you said, "I can tell the difference, when an interviewer has

read the book, and when they haven’t." And I was like, "Oh, Rog is going to

know. He's going to know I read the book. "

Roger: That's so cute, and so funny. You are amazing. He's a fantastic human being, John

Annie: Yeah, one of the reasons I, I'm an Arsenal fan, is that okay? Can we talk about that

Annie: Listen, Rog, what am I going to do, what's happening with Arsenal? It feels like

we're spiraling, and I love our new manager, but it still feels like we're spiraling.

Roger: You're a person of faith.

Annie: I am. I just have to keep believing?

Roger: What do we really know? What other choice do we have? What other choice do

we have, but to keep believing?

Annie: I listen, I don't trust Arsenal like I trust the Lord, it's not the same.

Roger: I think, I've been an Everton fan, I've been a Chicago Bears fan, being a fan of so

many teams that for whom winning is a fleeting emotion. I think is the greatest

way to prepare yourself for the rigors of life, where is filled with challenge, and

those challenges define you. And when you have occasional moments of joy,

fleeting moments of joy, just celebrate them, don't take them for granted, and

dance like you're at your own kid's wedding.

And it like releases something in me, is that is that a normal thing? Is that a

Roger: Yeah, I love going full Annie, and going all in, that's what I'm [Inaudible

00:04:38] that's like the whole thing. I mean, sport is many things, it allows you to

feel deep emotions in the safest possible way, no matter what happens in whatever

sport. At the end of the day, you can feel elation, you can feel devastation. But

either way you still have, you're still alive, you're still intact, you emerge from it

podcast Annie, are we in it?

Annie: Is this okay?

Roger: No I was like waiting for the introduction-

Annie: I'm so sorry. I just, we just-

Roger: ...but we don't need introduction, this is a post-introduction podcast.

Annie: ...I'm so sorry, Rog I thought-

Roger: I love it, I love it, amazing, I'm in it, go full Annie.

Roger: Something called COVID, and the pandemic-

Annie: All right. Fair.

Roger: ...has kept me in pretty much, I have not left this studio, the confines of this studio

in about 17 or 18 months, so well-

Roger: Worry not, believe me I would be down there in a heartbeat, and my lord, I would,

to have a CA, World Cup Qualifier in Nashville.

Annie: I know I can't wait.

Roger: It will be a great day for your city, a great day for America.

that. Would you explain to our Nashville friends listening, and anybody who can

get here for that U.S/Canada game. What does it matter that there's a World Cup

Qualifier in Nashville for us?

Roger: I mean, football has in USA, as you've said, a slow build, the story of my life, and

moved to America to fulfill a childhood dream. That's the dream I wrote my entire

book about, the idea of America, the promise of America, the wonder of America.

And I did move here in 1993, right before the World Cup was here in 1994.

And the World Cup was meant to make this, the last massive nation that had not fallen under

football sway. Was meant to overnight sensation it, and make it like the pogo

Blazers, that soccer, America's sport of the future as it has been since 1972. It's

things can occur.

And the popularity of the sport instead of being this overnight success, I mean, it's

been a slow and steady build while I've been here, I want to be clear, not because

of me, I'm just a tiny surfer riding a massive wave of many, many factors.

[Inaudible 00:07:49] this sport that was derided when the World Cup was

awarded to America in 1994, I mean it was awarded here in the late '80s.

the floor of Congress and said, "I think it's very important that," I'm paraphrasing,

but only a little bit. He said, "That we make a distinction for America's youth, the

football is where you pass it and rush with the ball, and not kick it only with your

socialist."

I mean, that was how far, when I arrived here football was not just not interesting

age, in the same way as the NFL took over from baseball as television. It was a

perfect televisual sport, baseball really thrived in the golden era of radio.

your team Arsenal as deeply and with as much passion, as someone who lived in

the injuries, the ins, the outs. So when I moved to America, in 1993, before the

internet, I used to have my dad hold the phone to the radio in England, that I'd

have to call him to follow along with games.

Annie: Oh, wow.

become a proper football nation. World Cup football is coming to Nashville with

will rise up, and embrace the U.S. team, and hopefully watch them on to victory.

Annie: That's wild, that you would call your dad because in your book (Re)born in The

this great port city, really had no meaning anymore in this post-industrial Britain.

And unemployment soared, there was a heroin epidemic, there was real

hopelessness took grip everywhere.

And if you've watched Billy Elliot, then you kind of get the picture. But I didn't

ballet dance, instead, I inhaled everything American. America saved me, it gave

me a sense, by watching Fantasy Island, Heart to Heart, Miami Vice, Run-D.M.C,

Tracy Chapman, I learned to look at America as a source of inspiration, a source

meaning, in glorious technicolor, whereas I was living or doomed to live in black

and white.

was not a popular sport. We watched football and English football was still a

backwater then, it was muddy soccer. It was played on muddy fields by sad men

who lived to kick each other, and a hooligan culture, where you really went to the

losing every game go and beat up the Atlanta Falcons fans, that's what you're

meant to do."

New Orleans fans." And they made a joke out of it, and kept having the time of

their lives. And I realized sport could be about something more than winning, it

could be about joy, and community bonding, and making memories across

generations. So I was fascinated by this sport, I loved it, it was only on for an hour

every Sunday. And it wasn't even that weekend's games, this is pre-internet, so the

NFL gave us the weekend before games, edited into a highlight package-

Annie: Oh just a highlight reel.

Roger: Yeah, mostly it's Bonnie Tyler's, "Holding Out for a Hero". And so once I realized

love with the Chicago Bears, they were on the Super Bowl Tier that season. And I

knowing what the heck was going on in real time.

week in, week out, and we would just, during Bears games, we would call random

And then someone would answer inevitably, and they'd be like, "Hello." And we'd

be like, "Hello, how are the Bears doing?" And got to love Chicagoans, the

kindness of strangers, they would give us personal commentary sometimes for like

45, 50 minutes. Were like, "Walter Payton's got the ball, he's at 20, he's at..." And

play-to-play down the telephone to two English strangers, America.

Annie: I just love that, I mean, the kindness of strangers is a little bit of a theme of your

through Men in Blazers, and through your work, and you're doing it for me. I

mean, we were strangers before this, and you're coming on my show, it's a

theme in your life?

Roger: Well, let me say, I mean, I did arrive in America with knowing nobody, and

journey. The one thing that really stands out for me, is I was obsessed of America.

I lived believing I was an American trapped in an English boy’s body. One slight

problem, I had never been to America, and I'd actually never met an American my

We met two wonderful, weird New Jersey people once, when we were driving

around the north of France, and the mother was about 70, she had this incredible

hair color that I've never seen before or since, it was like purple. I was like, "Oh

my God, that's a..." I remember thinking as a kid, I was like 11, "Is that natural?" I

asked my mother. She, my mom was like, "I don't know, I've never seen that

before, it must be American." And the dad had this inexhaustible supply of IZOD

or Lacoste shirts in different colors, to which I said "Oh my god, so fresh, so

happened to be one in the park, I hung out in the park in the summer, every day.

of mine. And it was just like, genuinely, it was like as if God had sent down

all, Reebok pumps sneakers do they really make you a better basketball player?" I

just unloaded every single question. "Do cool, menthol cool cigarettes really make

your breath amazing." I had like thousands of questions from just watching

American movies, getting Rolling Stone, every album I'd ever heard from. And

an entire year, and then at the end of the year, he wrote to me and said, "When you

come to Chicago, when you come spend the summer here on the northern suburbs

at the beach." And honestly, it was as far, I'd hardly been on the plane at that point

Venus or Mars?"

great Chicago Bear, but in my imagination told 15-year-old Rog to move to

America. I think he was just trying to get away from me, and just drop platitudes

and clichés, like, "Hey kid, dream big dreams kid, I did you can too." But at every

podcast.

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[00:17:55] <Music>

What did you do the morning you woke up and the book wasn't just like out in the

Roger: I am a person, Annie, and I think you probably know this from listening to my

podcast, joy is a rare emotion in my life. So I found that it has hit that position, on

the New York Times bestseller list, almost the very second an England striker

named Harry Kane had scored a goal, that put poor England, hapless England,

since 1966. The second the ball went in my phone blew up, and I thought it was

just people being excited for England, who actually to be candid, I don't support,

I'm all American now.

Annie: Aha.

Roger: But I looked down on my phone, thinking it was just people being like, "Ay

England, England, England." And instead it was like everyone in publishing,

they're like, "Holy crap." And so to be honest with you, the dominant emotion,

and I don't know how many of your listeners feel this when they have a moment

of wonder, human wonder in their life, I honestly felt then, and I've only felt since.

Number one to write a book about America, which I have, the idea of America is

the central idea around which I've organized my life. It's a beautiful idea, it's given

as a kid it was a very deep, passionate kid's love that I actually acted upon, and

humbled by the response, I have felt the ongoing response has been incredible.

And then number two, I felt no joy, I only felt relief, I felt immense, immense... To

to the book. I wrote this book in a fever dream during COVID, when the beloved

and sports stopped, I retreated into my past to happier memories, that I think is a

him, and I'm so grateful to him.

us to dream, to act, to think, the three radical ideas in our setting. And he passed

away, and I wrote her a note, and I regret because it took me a couple of months, it

was one of those jobs that I put off and put off. And then I wrote her a letter, so

she'd had some time to grieve and move on, I actually took six or seven months, if

beautiful letter. Where I detailed my whole interaction with him, which really

forms the core of the book ultimately.

And she wrote back and she said, "Thank you for sending this, it lifts my spirits,

because the more time that goes on, the more my greatest fear is that Chris never

even existed because his memory will just be forgotten in time. And fills me with

incredible happiness, that I hope that this book plays a small role in assuaging that

fear for Mrs. McNally.

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conversation.

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I was into this world. And I just thought, "Man, how many of our teachers

listening, hope that one kid remembers them the way you remember Mr.

McNally."

Roger: How incredible you said that, I have a photograph, and by the way that

photograph, I took of him it was like-

Annie: You did?

the heck away from it, yet which by the way I did, I did. I still dream of buying

the school and then just closing it. But I did want to get the heck away from it, I

you in that photo? How would you describe this human being?

looks like a burly Irish guy. This is, I probably know too much, because I've read

the book, but he looks like he's telling you to break the rules. But like not the rules

twinkle, there so much life, there's a mischief, and a human wonder, and I hope all

of your listeners' approach life with a mischief and a human wonder.

Annie: Yeah, and guys, I just think how many of our friends listening that are teachers,

will remember. I'll do something this year that's mischievous and wonderful, and I

remember, they'll remember and write it in a book someday." That's wild. How do

students? I mean, how does the school feel about all this?

Roger: I have not asked it.

Roger: I mean the school is so different now. Education is so different, and the school is

so different, it's a wholly different institution. The funny thing is someone sent me

today via Twitter, there's a Wikipedia, apparently there's a page of famous, my

Old Lerpoolians. And there's a list on Wikipedia of famous Old Lerpoolians, and I

am on it.

Annie: Of course.

Roger: And beneath a man, I can't remember his name, but his name is something like

Richard Forrester. So it says Roger Bennett, broadcaster, journalist, America. And

then underneath is someone like Richard Forrester, that's not his real name, I'm

making that one up, Richard Forrester, murderer.

Annie: Oh no. You are like "I need to be above that guy."

Annie: That's right. Rog for all of us that are listening that have only been Americans, I

that we don't know? Tell me about America, give me hope that we don't have as

people who've only ever lived here?

I have put my hand up and said the Oath of Allegiance, I fulfilled the dream I was,

I need your listeners to know, I painted the Manhattan skyline on one of my

bedroom walls, there is a picture of it in the book, it actually looks more like

Warsaw-

Annie: It's awesome.

Roger: ...upon further reflection. But to me, it was Manhattan, The Statue of Liberty was

shone perfectly on Lady Liberty's face, and a dream of going to America. Which I

think is a very common dream, I hear a lot of people dream of being somewhere

that they're not, one of the things that's interesting about the book is how many

Americans have said to me, "Oh my god, I dreamt about growing up in L.A., and

I think that, I was like, "Oh, my Lord, you dodged the bullet." But that's hit me

that this impulse as a teen and adolescence, to wish yourself to be a different

person, living in a different place. Where people laughed at your jokes and

your real life, I think that's very common. But the thing that is not common is I

acted upon it, and I moved to the city that is painted, was painted on my bedroom

wall. And then I became that, I became an American, the greatest day of my life

July 2018.

And so to answer your question, to stand in that courtroom, to put my hand up to

say the oath, with 162 individuals, from 42 different nations. Many of whom, you

know I survived a couple of beatings in school and Liverpool tomfoolery

darkness. But many of these people that survived civil war, and conflict, and

into is the power of the American idea, is the idea that saved my life.

is a different conversation, but the idea of America gave them confidence, gave

optimism, I tap into that human goodness, I tap into that sense of wonder. And

that's the spirit that I hope, in which I offer up this book to America.

Roger: Thank you.

Annie: Let's talk one second about Premier League, get everybody ready for the season

Roger: ...it must come. I mean it's like oh my Lord, I mean, just the breakneck pace

post-COVID of sports, just trying to jam everything in a-

Roger: A couple of them yeah.

Annie: Okay.

Roger: I mean, the sports has just become an incessant carousel of human wonder. And if

you want to watch a telenovela, is really what the Premier League is, is the

greatest telenovela acted out live, but they say it's written without a script.

Annie: Right.

Roger: But don't believe them.

Annie: Men in Blazers, are, the GFOPs like me, we believe they're script writers.

Roger: I'm pretty sure there is a script writer. I mean, what we, what I realized is, in

watching the Olympics, watching this, the moments take place before our eyes,

stakes, the money, the global integration of everything, it's just the greatest set of

human storylines in every way.

when we watch sports across generations. To me, the Premier League is the

greatest single way to do that, and I cannot wait for it to happen, I'm genuinely

counting down the days so that it's back in our loving arms.

what's a fun one to start with? I mean, you and I both have personal answers, but

Club is a remarkable starter club, that's a club, that I am third-generation, Everton

fan. And you know faith, and about having your faith tested constantly, but

making sure that you choose-

Roger: Yes, theologically it is just a wonderful leap into the darkness. A leap of just

belief, and passion, and most of all, a club of deep community. You know, I shot a

film of Everton Football Club with an incredible human being called Speedo

clubs all over Britain to watch Everton, and goes only in a speedo. He's a former

addict-turned charity figure, who's raised a fortune from opposing fans, as he

walks around every stadium in just his speedos.

And as he pointed to me when we made the film, he said, "We're not always very

good on the field, but off it where it matters in the terms of the community we

build, in terms of the work the club does for the community that surrounds it, in

terms of education, caring for the elderly, caring for the sick, and less privileged."

He said, "We always win off the field where it matters." And I believe that deeply,

for Everton Football Club, Annie Downs.

Blazers, I just I do care, I do care. Okay, Rog, is there anything we didn't talk

about the you want to make sure we cover today?

why we watch sports, and pretty well everything in between, Annie.

Annie: We did it. Well, I'm very thankful that you're here, and you're welcome back

anytime, Rog. Let's do the last question, because the show is called That Sounds

Fun, tell me what you do for fun?

short. I'm very aware that it was in the Euros, the football contest this summer,

who collapsed while playing very early on in the game. And actually had a heart

them on the field." They brought him back, he is alive and well.

And that moment, it was a moment of horror, that forced us all, who watch sports

to escape life, it actually forced us all to confront the truth of life which is life is

fragile, life is utterly fragile, life is short, nothing should be taken for granted. You

have things and then you don't have things. And I believe deeply and try to make

consciously make memories, that will last for you and those that you love. And so

experienced through family.

Annie: Yeah, that's beautiful, thank you. Well, I am really, really thankful for you for

today, you brought me that kind of joy, what a treat, I'm really appreciative.

Roger: I wish you joy, I wish your city joy, I wish your football club joy. And next time

[00:50:31] <Music>

it in the show, it is just an opportunity to talk about life, and to learn more about

enjoyed this conversation grab a copy of Rogers book, (Re)born in The USA.

Now I'll give you a heads up all this conversation was clearly like good for all of

really interesting read a beautiful memoir. You also should be listening to Men in

Instagram, wherever you want to find him, and tell him thanks so much for being

on the show, it really meant a ton to me, and I learned a lot in this conversation.

If you need anything else for me, you know, I'm embarrassingly easy to find

couple of days and we'll see you back here on Friday, with my friends from Cross

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