# Joe Devine on his vision for Tifo_ The Halcyon Show(M4A_128K)

An episode of [Footbal Beyond the Pitch](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6821032841), 14 Oct 2026, 11 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75778676/joe_devine_on_his_vision_for_tifo_the_halcyon_show_m4a_128k.mp3

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## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: Were one of the few to make football fun again?
[0:09] Speaker 1: What I mean by that is that there was a
[0:11] Speaker 1: period of time where I think most content, it's fair
[0:14] Speaker 1: to say, was geared towards controversy and conflict. Do you
[0:17] Speaker 1: want to know why the Halcyon Show is called the
[0:18] Speaker 1: Halcyon Show? Direct protest to that. I want to go
[0:21] Speaker 1: back to a time where things have a sense of peace,
[0:25] Speaker 1: calm and serenity and are taken from a considered perspective.
[0:27] Speaker 1: That's the whole point of the name. But that was
[0:30] Speaker 1: in a time where things were just starting to get
[0:32] Speaker 1: cranked up on YouTube. A lot of university students were
[0:34] Speaker 1: watching a lot of content generated by things like FIFA
[0:37] Speaker 1: and COD and all the rest of that sort of stuff.
[0:39] Speaker 1: And then once the sort of larger companies like Sky,
[0:42] Speaker 1: like BT, like TalkSport and all of these other guys
[0:45] Speaker 1: start viewing YouTube through the prism of a younger audience,
[0:47] Speaker 1: let's try and access them. Let's get some direct engagement
[0:52] Speaker 1: with them. Then that really went past 11. And like
[0:55] Speaker 1: I say... I remember the day when I got turned
[0:57] Speaker 1: on to you guys. I was watching a Simon Jordan show.
[1:00] Speaker 1: And I went, I can't take this anymore. This is just,
[1:04] Speaker 1: it's been three days of every day. This is the
[1:07] Speaker 1: worst thing that might have ever happened ever. And I'm
[1:09] Speaker 1: including world wars in that assessment. And I need to,
[1:13] Speaker 1: so let's have a nose around. And it was, there
[1:15] Speaker 1: was a Super League video of yours that I made
[1:17] Speaker 1: a direct comparison of the day I made my Super
[1:19] Speaker 1: League video. And I remember because I stole basically all
[1:22] Speaker 1: of your guys' ideas and none of his. full disclosure
[1:26] Speaker 1: i basically stole their ideas i have no original opinions
[1:29] Speaker 1: of my own i plagiarize everything welcome to youtube anyway
[1:33] Speaker 1: point being is that like you managed to to navigate
[1:37] Speaker 1: the waters and identify that niche and you've you've you've
[1:39] Speaker 1: managed it so well to continue to grow even though
[1:42] Speaker 1: the channel's gone through a number of significant changes you've
[1:45] Speaker 1: gone through a load of significant changes so tell me
[1:48] Speaker 1: about what it's been like as sort of that independent
[1:52] Speaker 1: enterprise of, I have this idea, it's a good idea,
[1:55] Speaker 1: it's got a lot of potential, through to now, where
[1:57] Speaker 1: that potential is starting to pay off, but now you
[2:01] Speaker 1: need to start thinking about how to continue to generate momentum,
[2:04] Speaker 1: because as we all know, stagnation is not the name
[2:06] Speaker 1: of the game in YouTube. If you're not growing, the
[2:08] Speaker 1: algorithm didn't like you. So, how do you view those
[2:11] Speaker 1: two times through the prism of how you sit now?
[2:14] Speaker 1: How do you feel about how you started versus how
[2:16] Speaker 1: you are, how you're doing now?
[2:20] Speaker 2: Um.
[2:21] Speaker 3: I mean, I know a lot more now, and there's
[2:24] Speaker 3: loads more people that work here, which makes my life
[2:26] Speaker 3: a lot easier. I think, you know, the core values
[2:32] Speaker 3: of it, and you'll have to forgive me for talking
[2:33] Speaker 3: about it in that way, but like, you know, Tifo's
[2:35] Speaker 3: core values are still the same. We try to avoid,
[2:39] Speaker 3: you know, controversial and clickbait related content. We sort of
[2:44] Speaker 3: flirt with the lines of that a little bit because
[2:45] Speaker 3: we have to, but, you know, in comparison to the
[2:49] Speaker 3: majority of other things, it's You know, it's night and day.
[2:52] Speaker 1: But you never hear JJ Bull begin a video with,
[2:54] Speaker 1: so Manchester United beat Arsenal 3-1 today. But let's not
[2:57] Speaker 1: talk about that. Let's instead talk about Rashford's house that
[3:01] Speaker 1: he's bought. It's got three bedrooms and he's got a
[3:03] Speaker 1: Lamborghini and it got signposted. Have you seen his model?
[3:05] Speaker 1: Let's check out his Instagram. He's still, you know, he's still,
[3:09] Speaker 1: it's still the blokes talking about football. In essence, and
[3:14] Speaker 1: I know you've brought in other individuals and it's not
[3:17] Speaker 1: as narrow-minded as that, but there's still this it, it,
[3:20] Speaker 1: it's reminiscent of a community. It still has that feel.
[3:24] Speaker 1: It still has that very welcoming, very, um, unpretentious feel
[3:28] Speaker 1: to it.
[3:29] Speaker 2: Well, that, I mean, that's good to hear. It's difficult to,
[3:32] Speaker 2: it's difficult to have a perspective of it.
[3:34] Speaker 1: Um, it's your baby, of course. Yeah.
[3:36] Speaker 3: And, and, you know, it's like, you don't always know
[3:39] Speaker 3: what people, people think.
[3:41] Speaker 2: Um, I think, I think, you know, the unpretentiousness, uh,
[3:49] Speaker 2: I think some people would argue that the illustrated videos
[3:51] Speaker 2: are pretentious, but.
[3:52] Speaker 1: Really?
[3:53] Speaker 2: Why? Some people would, because, I don't know, I think they're... What,
[3:57] Speaker 2: because you'd be able to tease?
[3:59] Speaker 3: Maybe, yeah.
[4:00] Speaker 1: Come on, now.
[4:01] Speaker 3: But I think that all of that, like, the, you know,
[4:03] Speaker 3: the unpretentiousness of stuff is intentional, because.
[4:08] Speaker 2: It doesn't matter.
[4:09] Speaker 3: I think one of the things I think about video
[4:14] Speaker 3: on YouTube or online is that.
[4:17] Speaker 2: People think about it like TV.
[4:19] Speaker 3: Know when like creative agencies or ad agencies make video
[4:23] Speaker 3: online video content or digital video content they they structure
[4:27] Speaker 3: it and they program it and they think about it
[4:29] Speaker 3: in this in the same way as tv and it's
[4:31] Speaker 3: not like one of the most interesting things about uh
[4:35] Speaker 3: about you know modern times when everyone has a mobile
[4:39] Speaker 3: phone in their pocket i can't remember who it was
[4:40] Speaker 3: that said this but um I think it was Adam Curtis, actually,
[4:46] Speaker 3: who's a BBC sort of video essayist. And I may
[4:52] Speaker 3: have misattributed it, but we'll pretend it was him anyway.
[4:55] Speaker 3: He said that he famously makes films that are structured
[5:00] Speaker 3: in a very confusing way. And, you know, they jump
[5:03] Speaker 3: from one topic to another and back and forth. And
[5:05] Speaker 3: maybe he'll tell six different stories all interwoven, which theoretically
[5:09] Speaker 3: equals something at the end, if you're paying attention. and
[5:14] Speaker 3: an interviewer asked him about that and he said the
[5:18] Speaker 3: key is that the audience today are very used to
[5:21] Speaker 3: just flicking through stuff on their phone, they're very used
[5:24] Speaker 3: to jumping between different pieces of content and often starting
[5:29] Speaker 3: halfway through a conversation or leaving halfway through a conversation
[5:33] Speaker 3: and whilst maybe there's an argument to make that 30
[5:36] Speaker 3: years ago the audience for entertainment did not have the
[5:42] Speaker 3: necessarily the facility to be able to pick up a
[5:45] Speaker 3: conversation halfway through and understand it or um you know
[5:50] Speaker 3: instinctively understand the context of it in a way that
[5:53] Speaker 3: people do do now they do now because everyone's exposed
[5:57] Speaker 3: to the internet and lots of people you know my
[5:59] Speaker 3: age and and slightly older are um grew up with
[6:02] Speaker 3: the internet and have have a sort of instinctive understanding
[6:07] Speaker 3: of like when something is an advert when it's not
[6:11] Speaker 3: like what the context of something is like when when
[6:14] Speaker 3: something is a joke and when it's not it's what
[6:16] Speaker 3: it's always interesting to to um to read about uh
[6:20] Speaker 3: court cases related to internet jokes you know whether or
[6:23] Speaker 3: not you you agree with the telling of those jokes
[6:25] Speaker 3: it's always interesting to see the jokes then put into
[6:27] Speaker 3: a very different context and and discussed amongst a group
[6:32] Speaker 3: of people who did not grow up with the internet
[6:33] Speaker 3: and maybe don't have the and it's no fault of
[6:36] Speaker 3: their own, it's just a generational thing, don't necessarily have
[6:39] Speaker 3: the facilities to instinctively understand whether something is meant humorously
[6:44] Speaker 3: or not.
[6:44] Speaker 2: I think there's a great deal of.
[6:47] Speaker 3: One thing I really love about the internet is that
[6:50] Speaker 3: everything doesn't have to be serious or funny. Most memes
[6:54] Speaker 3: are serious and funny at the same time. And a
[6:57] Speaker 3: certain subset of people, and it's related to age, understand that,
[7:02] Speaker 3: and some people don't. And I think, you know, when
[7:09] Speaker 3: people make football YouTube videos to bring it back, a
[7:14] Speaker 3: lot of the time people think about it like TV.
[7:18] Speaker 2: Well, it doesn't need to be. It doesn't need to be.
[7:24] Speaker 3: I think having those sorts of conversations and thinking about
[7:35] Speaker 3: easier to have and it's you know the space is
[7:39] Speaker 3: like relatively empty on YouTube to be honest so it's
[7:42] Speaker 3: like it's quite easy to be different I don't obviously
[7:45] Speaker 3: like I'm proud of the work that we've done and
[7:47] Speaker 3: I think everybody that works here is amazing it's like
[7:50] Speaker 3: hopefully that would go without saying but I think all
[7:52] Speaker 3: the people that work at Tifa are incredible at their
[7:54] Speaker 3: jobs but to a certain extent it's quite easy to
[7:56] Speaker 3: stand out because there's sort of mostly one way of
[8:00] Speaker 3: doing things and then we just have a slightly different
[8:05] Speaker 3: way which is it's not to say that it's like
[8:08] Speaker 3: better than other channels it's just different and it is
[8:13] Speaker 3: honest to the people that work here none of us
[8:16] Speaker 3: would work in football video content if we had to
[8:20] Speaker 3: do the thing that you know lots of the other
[8:22] Speaker 3: mainstream media organisations have to do because it doesn't suit
[8:25] Speaker 3: our personalities it's not how we would authentically engage with
[8:28] Speaker 3: stuff um But because we have been able to make.
[8:32] Speaker 2: A success out of this, it's natural. Like I say,
[8:36] Speaker 2: it's not better or worse than anything else. It's just different.
[8:40] Speaker 1: You say that it's not better or worse, but I
[8:42] Speaker 1: think the better or worse argument is subjective only when
[8:46] Speaker 1: it's not evident on the faces and in the performances
[8:48] Speaker 1: of the people in the videos that they are loving
[8:51] Speaker 1: every second of it. Now, I have a joke question here,
[8:54] Speaker 1: which is, what is it like to be one of
[8:56] Speaker 1: the only three people to have fun in Milton Keynes
[8:58] Speaker 1: in the whole of history? And that's because, again, while
[9:01] Speaker 1: you're making that video, it looked like you guys were
[9:04] Speaker 1: having a ball. Now, whether or not you were actually
[9:06] Speaker 1: enjoying racing a professional esports driver, or whether or not
[9:12] Speaker 1: you liked being in Milton Keynes, for the record, I don't.
[9:16] Speaker 1: But the fact that you guys have such a wonderful
[9:19] Speaker 1: dynamic between you all, and there's such a lovely sense
[9:21] Speaker 1: of fun about what you're doing, even when the time
[9:24] Speaker 1: comes to sit down and have difficult conversations like you
[9:28] Speaker 1: know the super league videos weren't easy uh easy for
[9:30] Speaker 1: you guys to navigate originally um you know some of
[9:33] Speaker 1: the heaviest stories that you have to navigate within the
[9:35] Speaker 1: podcasts aren't that easy and i'm sure some of the
[9:37] Speaker 1: games that you have to cover that you don't end
[9:40] Speaker 1: up then putting uh into the podcast you know oh
[9:42] Speaker 1: bugger that's nil nil i was really rather hoping there'd
[9:45] Speaker 1: be some something but you know that must be frustrating
[9:49] Speaker 1: at times but There's a wonderful sense of fun that
[9:53] Speaker 1: comes from your channel. And the fact that you've been
[9:55] Speaker 1: able to channel that into a lot of different avenues,
[9:57] Speaker 1: like the video series that you've produced, the Football Manager
[10:00] Speaker 1: series with Ian was fantastic. I watched those videos millions
[10:03] Speaker 1: of times. The Super League video with... I'm Evan Leventhal!
[10:07] Speaker 1: You know, I've watched those a million times. Even some
[10:10] Speaker 1: of the old podcasts, the Sensible Transfers, because they're not evergreen,
[10:14] Speaker 1: but they serve as wonderful little time capsules of here's
[10:17] Speaker 1: who was... potential at this point it's like going back
[10:21] Speaker 1: and playing an old FIFA and going oh wow Zachary
[10:24] Speaker 1: Bacali was supposed to be a big deal by now
[10:27] Speaker 1: oh no um and then you go like Erling Haaland
[10:30] Speaker 1: rated 65 potential of 69 well you kind of you
[10:34] Speaker 1: might have gotten that one a bit wrong haven't you
[10:36] Speaker 1: so

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