Phrases You Learned From Football Commentaries

[Satchmo Distel]

Giving someone "the bird" - derisive whistling by a crowd: 1978 World Cup opening game, ITV.

[imp]

I'm pretty sure that my mates and I, aged 9, started to excessively use the verb 'to penalise' during the 1974 World Cup.

[Felicity, I guess so]

early doors
cultivated left foot
bread 'n butter mop-up
tackled and beaten

[loosehandlebars]

"He'll be disappointed with that" to describe any action that is particularly inept.

[Mr Cogito]

Tyldesley - that's Clive to some, Ally - came out with "cool as the other side of the pillow" today. He sounded so pleased with himself when he said it that I thought he'd had it written for him specially by an underling and chosen it as a show stopper, and was giving it its world debut. But, apparently, it's a thing.

[Felicity, I guess so]

I remember Merson saying it on a Sky saturday show

[Jah Womble]

Giving someone "the bird" - derisive whistling by a crowd: 1978 World Cup opening game, ITV.

See also ‘stick’ - in the sense of giving someone a hard time.

I’ve never heard of anyone giving anyone else ‘stick’ other than in a football context, but it stands to reason that it exists elsewhere.

[Nefertiti2]

early doors
cultivated left foot
bread 'n butter mop-up
tackled and beaten

Figs got early doors in early doors.

maybe i can pull something back in those killer minutes before half time

[Satchmo Distel]

"Purchase" is used in a way that seems unique to football. The closest I can find in a dictionary is when you have a foothold on a rock (which is "a purchase" rather than just "purchase"), but in football it seems to mean the "power and acceleration" a shot acquires when the player has managed to really "wrap hit/her foot around" the ball.

[Felicity, I guess so]

handbags

[Sporting]

Put it into the mixer.

[Auntie Beryl]

"Foot race".

The first word in that phrase is surely redundant - as it is in other similar contexts, including actual track and field events.

[ursus arctos]

I always heard it as an Edwardianism (real or imagined) with the first word to distinguish the contest from one involving horses or bicycles.

[Nesta]

But surely redundant- absurdly so- in football, pending the much to be desired introduction of Rollerball style armoured motorbikes into the game

[DCI Harry Batt]

I don't recall ever having heard "foot race". I guess I don't watch enough telly.

[fospheny]

ajudged

[Guy Profumo]

Purchase


As in "grip", rather than "buy"


Edit:

(And as in SD)

But.

While we're on the subject of ITV commentaries, casual and overt racism from co-commentators / live action summarises.


(Something to do with relatives being "up trees" wasn't it, IIRC?)

[Satchmo Distel]

I might have learned "naive" from racist pundits.

[Guy Profumo]

I might have learned "naive" from racist pundits.

"Happy-go-lucky"

[pat51]

'Pockets of space' as in 'De Bruyne, looking to exploit pockets of space in front of the back line'.... 'Channels' as in ' Teemu Pukki runs the channels tirelessly'

[Auntie Beryl]

"Touch tight" - close by.

Perhaps unfairly, I lay the blame for many of these at Andy Townsend's feet.

[Satchmo Distel]

"Happy-go-lucky."

Different sport but same principle: Calypso cricketers. Make 'em grovel.

[elguapo4]

" He really has " which has just taken over from " take a bow son" in manufactured Sky awfulness.

[Mr Delicieux]

'In and around' including when used to refer to one player, which conjures all manner of images
word, not a phrase, but 'aplomb' as in 'he's taken that chance with aplomb'. Never heard that word anywhere else.

The one I'm not a fan of is 'it's a big ask'
If I never heard that again I'd be happy. Well, slightly less miserable.

[Various Artist]

Right, here we go lads, fill yer boots:

The OTF Football Dictionary thread

e.g.

'Channels' as in ' Teemu Pukki runs the channels tirelessly'

OTF Football Dictionary

Channels

The parts of the pitch towards the outer edges (viewed end on), which are not actually channels.