Josh Wid­di­combe and Mock The Week‘s Dara Ó Bri­ain host a six-part Glob­al Play­er pod­cast series titled ’53 min­utes’ that takes a deep dive into how Alia Dia tricked Saints into let­ting him play a Pre­mier League game.

In each episode, guests recall their mem­o­ries of Dia’s appear­ance which shocked the foot­balling world and remains a talk­ing point for Southamp­ton fans and beyond.

Guests will include for­mer Saints play­ers Matt Le Tissier, Fran­ny Benali and Ken Monk­ou, Southamp­ton’s then-man­ag­er Graeme Souness and a num­ber of reporters who cov­ered Saints at the time.

READ MORE: 20 years on since Ali Dia’s infa­mous ‘Bam­bi on ice’ appear­ance for Saints

As the sto­ry goes, the unknown Dia was rec­om­mend­ed to Saints boss Souness by some­one pos­ing as George Weah.

He joined the club on tri­al and, due to injury issues in the for­ward line, was named on the bench for their Pre­mier League game against Leeds Unit­ed in Novem­ber 1996.

An injury to Le Tissier pre­sent­ed the Sene­galese for­ward with a chance to impress his new employ­ers.

Dia, who had been turned away by sev­er­al oth­er clubs, was so bad that a red-faced Souness hauled his new num­ber 33 back off again after 53 mind-bog­gling min­utes.

READ MORE: How Saints fans man­aged to get Ali Dia’s sig­na­ture

Speak­ing in the first episode, which is avail­able on all major pod­cast plat­forms, Saints leg­end Le Tissier recounts the day he was forced off through injury and replaced by the hoax­ter Dia.

He recalled: “There it was to my sur­prise, the man replac­ing me was the one and only Ali Dia.”

Speak­ing after the launch of the pod­cast, Ó Bri­ain said: “I jumped at the chance to final­ly get the truth about the leg­end that is Ali Dia, even though that might involve ask­ing Gra­ham Souness a ques­tion and get­ting a hard stare back.”

Wid­di­combe added: “Like any foot­ball fan with their pri­or­i­ties right I see the sto­ry of Ali Dia as the sacred text of the sport and so I hope we can do it jus­tice.”