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Can you 1.

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This is Football Cliches.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Football Clichés.

I'm Adam Hurry.

This is the adjudication panel.

Joining me is Charlie Eccleshe.

How are you doing?

Very well, thank you.

And David Walker, how you doing?

I'm good.

How are you?

Yeah, not bad.

You had the fortune of bumping into a few clichés listeners this weekend, I understand.

Yes, so I was up in Sheffield with George and Ali from the Not the Top 20 podcast.

They were doing a show at the Crossed Wires Festival, and as we do with our live shows, they went to the pub afterwards with a lot of their listeners, and there was a very healthy overlap between the two audiences.

I met quite a few listeners in the pub in Sheffield, all of whom were very nice.

Always nice to meet people who listened to the pod, gave away a few free tickets to live shows as well

as the evening went on.

Oh, is that right?

We'll see whether they actually come through.

But yeah, very, very enjoyable indeed.

Dave's gone rogue.

Yeah, I can imagine a room for wholesome ball knowledge.

The evening did spiral somewhat as well, and it ended up with karaoke, which was great fun.

And at about midnight on Saturday night, I found myself doing a duet of Natalie and Bruglia's Torn with the wife of Billy Sharp,

which was great fun.

Wow.

Get her on MHD all the way.

Right, Charlie, this is a question from Luke Anderton.

tennis related.

He said, shouldn't a tennis player hitting the net and the ball going over be congratulated for a perfect shot in the same way a post and in is a perfectly placed goal in football?

Or should a player scoring such a goal in football refrain from celebrating and go with a classic two hands-up apology?

Is it the same thing?

No, it's not.

It's hard to explain.

We were actually talking about this at the French Open as to whether players should sort of stop apologizing.

I mean, it depends because some are quite fortunate.

Others,

you've hit a good...

I mean, you're always aiming.

Like, when you watch live tennis, one of the things that strikes you is how the ball is like a fraction over the net.

It's part of what makes them so incredible.

So they're always sailing quite close to it.

It's just sort of a convention.

I think in football, but I mean in football...

I mean, obviously in tennis, you're not aiming for that.

I guess in football...

You're not really aiming for the post?

You're kind of aiming for roughly in that post codes?

I would say, Dave, that I don't mind the decorum of apologising for it in tennis.

I think that's broadly...

an okay tradition.

I do think they're roughly similar concepts, hitting the bar and in and the net, hitting the net chord and it just dribbling over in terms of flirting with the margins of precision.

But crucially, very crucially,

the difference in satisfaction of the two spectacles is enormous.

It's a chasm.

But I actually disagree.

I don't think the two are the same at all because the hitting of the bar, it doesn't really take away the opportunity for the opposition to do something about it in the same way that it does when it hits the net intensity.

Yeah, that's a good point.

And I think the equivalent in football is like a massive deflection.

Like an enormous, like you've hit the the shot, and it's like come off someone's back and it's gone completely to the other side of the goal, and the goalkeeper's got no chance.

And it's such a big deflection that you sort of can't celebrate it.

That's a good point, to be fair.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good, that's a good comparison.

I have always thought in football, it is weird that you know, you'd say, oh, he's so unlucky, he's at the bar and it's come out.

You never say about an opposition team, oh, he's so unlucky, it's just gone in.

You know, it looks like it's going wide all the way, and then just nicks the post and

goes in.

That's just like incredible accuracy.

There's no fortune doesn't come into it there, but if you hit the bar and it doesn't go in, then that's really unfortunate.

I think we got to the bottom of this.

Luke Adderton, we've drawn the parallels that you wanted.

Speaking of satisfying spectacles that no one should ever have to apologise for, a reminder that clichés is going live in 2025.

You can get your tickets at tickets.football clichés.com and join us in Brighton, Cardiff, London, Birmingham, Dublin, Manchester, not Leeds, because that's sold out, and Glasgow this October.

It's going to be brilliant.

Also, I can reveal on today's podcast, we are doing a clichés quiz live in Newcastle on Thursday, the 25th of September at Digital.

Dave, that is a nightclub.

Yeah.

We're doing the nightclubs.

They've done a peep show quiz there, apparently.

So

they are set up for quizzes.

Okay, everything is geared in that facility for top-level quizzing.

Yeah, absolutely.

When this podcast goes out on Tuesday, we are going to email our Dreamland subscribers in the Newcastle area with a link to register for a code for their free ticket, as well as a link to buy some extra tickets for your friends if you want to form a team.

And tickets will go on general sale this Friday at quiz.footballcliches.com.

All the details will be on our socials.

But yeah, really looking forward to this, Dave.

I think Leeds was great.

This has potential Football Cliches Quiz Live 2 to be even better.

Well, we've never done any live show in the North East before.

So really looking forward to getting up to Newcastle.

I think Newcastle shares something of a spirit with Leeds as well, being a big one-club city, passionate fans.

I think it's going to be a happy hunting ground for us.

Can we call the Football Cliches Quiz Trophy a prestigious trophy now, Charlie?

I think we can.

Yeah, it's definitely made that

leap.

I mean, as well on Newcastle, you know, it felt like there was a clamour for us to go up there, judging by the one guy who messaged me on Instagram saying, Can you come to the Northeast?

Does that count as a clamour?

And the basis of that data alone, that's why we're there.

Yes, the Football Clichés Quiz Live trophy will be up for grabs, as well as several other big prizes in the evening.

It's going to be great.

We are going to have to buy a new trophy, though, aren't we?

Because I don't think we're going to get it back from the people that want it in Leeds, are we?

I think they can keep that.

I'll be honest, Dave.

It's very much off the peg, that trophy.

I think it can be replicated.

So we will order it from the same website.

And it's going to be up for grabs.

What a prize that is.

Let's adjudication panel.

only one place to start, Euro 2025.

Something about the Lionesses' failures against France, Dave, felt familiar.

I'm glad we're getting the familiar failures out of the way.

When I say familiar, I mean from an entirely English football perspective.

This is from Michael Cox on the Athletic.

There was a promising start that gave way to weariness in warm conditions as the match continued.

There was a lack of control in midfield.

There was a spirited late rally that came to nothing.

Ultimately, there was a 2-1 defeat to France, the result that knocked the men's side out of the last World Cup.

This is England.

England.

Very caffeting in a way.

Our familiar failings?

It was very familiar.

And there was also, to chuck into the mix, there was a

early goal ruled out for offside via VAR in one of the

most baffling sort of examples of the

millimeter offside situation.

You couldn't even tell on the image why it was offside.

It was that close, but that's by the by.

But

again, similar things have happened plenty of times before in major tournaments for the men in particular.

And I mean, this it's sort of it's a bit novel for this generation of England women's players because they've had they've had they've won the Euros last time.

The World Cup, they actually weren't brilliant for all throughout that tournament, but still got to the final.

But you could kind of feel a lot of the pressure sort of bubbling to the surface, I think, during this.

Yeah, I mean, I guess the only difference is that this England team is pretty good.

And like you said, you know, they're the defending champions.

It isn't it differs in the sense that it's not a kind of like this is a team that always just falls short and is is kind of heroic failure.

Like, this is a good, proper team rather than, you know, often when England have lost to France, it's been just like they're miles better and we've tried our best and we've got close, but ultimately class has told.

This is our Spain against the Netherlands in 2014, then.

Yeah, I'd rather be that in a way.

Whenever you see England struggling at a major tournament, Dave, especially after they've impressed a previous edition.

or a recent major tournament, it really does kind of expose how deceptive a time period is the two to four year tournament cycle.

Like, you think it's quite a short period of time, and teams can have that continuity, but squads and certain individual players start to look really knackered really quickly in the in this in tournament cycles.

Like, and you have it across any England team, really.

But you watch it and you just think, oh god, they're still not that, oh god, they're still there, but oh god, are they really at the peak that they were two to four years ago?

Where's the where's the refreshment coming from?

And that's obviously the age-old problem in football, isn't it?

Oh, Ferguson did it.

Ferguson did it.

He made it.

I mean, I did see

a few comments about uh lucy bronze in the in of that nature because i think she's the most senior player in the squad i think her legs have gone that is a particularly acute thing in international football isn't it as well because by and large players do stay on longer than they should i feel like in international football club football feels a bit more ruthless and a bit less sentimental somehow but you'll often get players who are like they're still playing for portugal aren't they like 37 now or whatever this is really this is really interesting because i i just think it's tantalizing that two-year tournament cycle you You must just think, one more, one more

time.

Whereas one more football season, like a 60-game season, you go, I can't be asked.

I just don't want to do it.

I don't want to.

That's a lot.

Yeah, you're like, I was hanging on by the end of last season.

I can't do another one.

No way.

I feel like, yeah, players sort of feel like they can just get away with one more tournament.

I don't think it's necessarily the case with this England squad, Dave, but it must be a sort of wide problem with players convincing national coaches that they can do one more tournament when they really can't.

Yeah, it is definitely a thing in international football.

And I think it's because there are, you know, someone like Ronaldo, I mean, even like Pepe, who played sort of to the 40 or the cusp of 40 and is still in the national team.

And it kind of, there's a bit of sentimentality in there.

There's also, I think there's also a bit of like, oh, if he just plays one more, he might get the record.

He might break the goals record or the appearances record or the record for most World Cups or Euros' appearances.

And it's sort of even national coaches somehow seem to fall into that trap of like enabling that sort of stuff rather than being completely ruthless and like, no, look, I'm sorry, Harry Kane, you can't go to the 2030 World Cup, which I reckon, I mean, he's obviously going to go to the 2026 World Cup, but probably does go to the 2030 World Cup when

I reckon he'll be in mid-30s.

I really wouldn't, wouldn't put it past

Central McChilden is spraying passes around.

I might have to do it.

It could happen when he's chasing some sort of central mid-era.

Oh, no.

But there's the thing as well, because they're such like legends that you know they're kind of put on this pedestal and they're great around the place and it's also like a bit brutal to drop them.

I don't know.

And like, and like you can, you can sort of evolve out of a club team, I feel a bit easier.

Whereas if you take them to a major tournament, if you don't play them at all, it just becomes this massive story.

Whereas, you know, it's sort of accepted at clubs, like, yeah, you know, you might not be first choice anymore, but you can still, even if you're not first choice, the whole classic like Phil Neville at United thing, you can still play like 25, 30 games or whatever.

Yes, whereas if if you're just there, it's quite brutal.

It feels a bit more binary.

Yes, you're in or you're out.

I'll tell you what, who's to blame for this, Charlie?

It's our irresistible penchant for doing future 11s at tournaments, you know, 12 years into the future and then speculating on whether players will still be around or not.

That's who's to blame.

We feel like we need to stick to it, otherwise, we've, you know, betrayed

the concept.

That VAR situation for offside, Dave, it felt like if you couldn't have actually drawn a better situation to anger people who hate VAR offsides more, it was getting shared by brothers of the players and it's like, oh God, you know it's bad.

Yeah, and there was even down to the fact that I think the confusion stemmed from the fact that the on the graphic,

not necessarily in reality, but on the graphic, the shorts of England and the shirt of France were the same colour, so you couldn't see where like the hip of one of, I think, of the England player, I think it was Russo,

you couldn't see it.

You literally couldn't see it.

And it's like, yeah, it's, I mean, yeah, it's classic stuff.

On the kit, it's a bad kit, and the bad kit means bad tournament, I'm afraid.

There's some bad vibes going on.

Not that France don't have their problems, Charlie.

Wendy Renard, who was a shocker mission from their Euro 2025 squad, said, I've always given 30,000, 40,000% for this shirt, which I hold above everything else.

That is the short, number one, I reckon the record for the amount of percent ever expressed by a player for the effort that they would give for a team, and two, an absurdly precise pair of numbers.

I think it's the precision, because I reckon there's been an a million percent said before.

But why should you go that deep?

I think people say they're a million percent sure about something.

I don't think a player has ever said they'll give a million percent for the shirt.

I'll give them, yeah.

That feels excessive.

I think that's too much.

It's clearly a lot, but yeah, the precision is what sets this apart.

There's also 10,000 percent difference between the two examples she's given.

I mean, it's funny that she stops herself, Dave and Thorpe.

No, actually, 40,000% actually.

Yeah.

Just to roam it home.

Let's delve into the transfer silly season now.

A headline from Team Talk, who remembers Team Talk, said, West Ham leads targets set to leave Southampton as Will Still plots a summer exodus.

Sam Indix says, I'm not sure you can plot an exodus, Dave.

That's absolutely right.

An exodus happens to you.

It's not something you'd, you know, you can conduct.

You can plot your own exodus, as long as you're taking people with you, yeah, but not people under your charge, basically.

I don't know.

To use your example of, you know, you mentioned before about Fergie, he was able to rebuild.

Didn't he sort of plot that Exodus in 95, 30 years ago?

Do you remember he got rid of Kanshelskis and Hughes, and it was this genius move?

And I was saying, what are you doing, can't win anything with kids?

He plots out.

That's a clear app.

That's a clear app.

That's your decision to get rid of multiple players.

An Exodus is something that's led by one player or multiple players, and they do it themselves.

They leave

or force their way out.

Your manager doesn't have any control over an Exodus whatsoever.

I wonder, wonder, though, if things hadn't gone so well for United at the start of that season, it would have been described more in those.

Like, you know, it's partly results-focused rather than process-orientated.

It's like, you know, and there was that, you know, let's say United did start terribly, you know, after losing that Villa game away.

They were awful, and in November, they were language.

He's like, you know, you can trace it back to that Exodus in the summer.

Players wanted out.

You know,

all their best players were leaving, and he couldn't keep them.

We see it as a clear out because it then, you know, it went well.

Here's a good point.

Plot an Exodus.

You can't.

Oh, what did you get up to at the weekend?

Oh, mate.

I had a real Exodus, actually.

It was great.

I've got so much space in the shed now.

It does sound better than clear-out.

Exodus.

Your clothes just walking out by themselves.

You're going to the same place.

I've got nothing to wear.

All my clothes have gone.

I need more minutes.

Will Steele's nicktable.

On a similar note, Ben Murphy writes in, Charlie, and says, the BBC reports that Arsenal have explored a swoop for Noni Medwecki.

Can you explore a swoop?

To me, a swoop is something a club does quickly, decisively, and ideally unpredictably.

The idea that a swoop has been explored prior to the swooping makes it not a swoop, in my view.

It's possible to explore a bid or explore a move, surely, but not a swoop.

I feel less strong about this.

I feel like a swoop can be pre-planned.

I don't know.

I think Ben might be on something.

A swoop should be one that kind of does take you a bit by surprise, and it's that, you know, and a club's acting quite quickly.

Yeah, this does feel a little bit too thought-out.

Could you mull over a swoop, Dave?

You know, when you see those birds that are like

they swoop down and they get the fish out of the sea, and then they do sort of circle a bit.

Yeah, they don't just suddenly decide, oh, peck is actually.

Fuck it.

They're eyeing it up and then they swoop at the right moment.

Yeah, that's their modus operandum, isn't it?

Yeah, it's great.

That's it.

I've decided I'm going to do it.

Yeah, you're absolutely right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, vultures.

Vultures wait for the moment that, you know, the defences animal is ready to be pecked at.

I think we've done it.

Yeah, there we go.

Literally, Dave, it's hard to get away from the bottom of brand eye as well.

Well, if I was talking about one modus, then

you were.

Otherwise, you'd say modi.

Oh, shut up.

Right.

Dave with his birds, you with your Latin.

Right.

Just on that transfer, I think that it's a particular kind of transfer, that one.

I think we talked about this a while back when you...

occasionally you something you see something pop up on your phone a notification or something and you think this is worth showing to someone who i'm with right and i did that with that one like it was it was weirdly for this for this sort of day of hyper transfer speculation that we're in like it come out of nowhere and it surprised me and i was like what arsenal are gonna buy non-maduake and i was like with someone i was like you've seen this i think it does meet that that bar it does feel very serious somehow doesn't it it's just like

oh really what we just the big clubs just buy each other's players all the time now is that where we are arsenal don't seem to mind buying Chelsea players, traditionally, which is quite strange.

It does feel odd when big fans

trade players.

I mean, I know there's a PSR consideration most of the time, but it does feel odd when players.

I mean, fans of the buying club must think Charlie, and they often do.

Why are we having him if they don't want him?

I mean, it's irresistible.

Yeah, it's like, hmm, that doesn't feel like they do that unless they were quite happy to get rid of them.

They're having one over on us, I think.

Yeah, how about this headline in the Chronicle, Dave?

Sunderland and Leeds United weigh up 57 goal free agent transfer move.

This is Dominic Calvert Lewin and Joe Paul says surely not having 57 goal if it's over nine seasons.

Yeah, if it was last season, brilliant.

Get him in.

He spanged in 57.

Probably wouldn't be a free agent.

57 goal free agent.

If you'd said that to me, I would never

give 10 guesses.

I would never guess it was Dominic Calvert Lewin.

That's ludicrous.

I mean, I realise these headlines are ludicrous, Charlie, but this is mad.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, what would that define him?

57 goals?

Is that really all he scored?

That's actually.

Yeah, surprising.

Could you not go for like England ace or something?

Because

he must have England caps.

Yeah, he does.

He was in the mix for he was in the Euro score, wasn't he?

In the Euros in 2020.

20 Euro 2020.

Do you know what they've done as well, Charlie?

Quite lazily for the purposes of their headline, they've gone to the top of his Wikipedia page and only chosen his league goals.

His league goals.

Absolutely schoolboy era.

If anything, you need to be going down to his proper stats and go for 71 goal, Dominic Calvert Lewin.

And that would have changed everything.

He's only got 12 goals in the Cups.

That is rubbish.

14.

14 goals in the Cups.

That's all he's got.

That is rubbish.

Latin maths.

Calvert Lewin is such a weird example in this transfer window of like any team in the Premier League could sign him.

Do you think?

He could sort of be a backup, shrewd, canny backup signing for a top six club, a promoted team who comes in and, you know, is sort of the main man for them.

And also

any of the mid-table lot would probably have him as well interesting you say that because matt baldwin writes in charlie and says um the reports that dominic calvert lewin is is on reuben amarim's list to bring to manchester united yeah matt baldwin says this is a cast iron could do worse and does it feel like that i mean men united clearly scrabbling around so i think they're in could do worse territory no i think when like during that euro 2020 period when he was like really good but still wasn't the like biggest name then i think he could be because at that time he was he was almost operating in that kind of Mateta space.

And we talked about Mateta as being a, John, well, we could do worse than Mateta for like, but for like a big club signing in the sense that Calvert Lewin, like, yeah, he might not be the most fashionable, he's a bit of a throwback, but he's a he's a good player.

So he's now passed through that, you think?

Yeah, I mean, because he's been so injury prone.

I mean, if you're talking about like, could do worse as like what Dave's describing as like a plan B target man to chuck on for 15 minutes when we're looking for a goal, but he's gone way, if you're talking about actually as like a starting striker for a club like United, yeah i think people would be like don't think we could do that much worse i mean he barely plays the poor guy i think that he's a classic sort of player that you could you could hear let's say dean saunders on talk sport just describing him as you know you know get him playing once he gets a few goals like there's a player in there there's still a player in there yes i agree yeah

there's definitely a player in there for dominic cavalua i mean a player like that on a free i mean it's got to be worth the gamble hasn't it no risk no risk he has a great attitude we assume because he's english i think he's hungry I think that's it, he's hungry.

Point to prove.

He just wants to show he can still do it at the top level.

So yeah, there you go, mate.

I think he's still on the outskirts of could do worse territory.

And that's it for part one.

We'll be back very shortly.

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Oh, look at that!

That is wonderful!

Welcome back to football clichés.

We're recording episode three of Dreamland this week.

Very excited.

It's a very languagey one this time, Dave.

One for the purists, I imagine.

Yeah, real sort of heartland stuff, I think.

I was actually on that subject.

One of the guys I was speaking to on Saturday was telling me that he's an English teacher and he's been playing some clips via listenfairplay.com, I think,

to his students of us talking about particularly languagey bits.

So nice to think that we're having an impact out there in the world of education.

That's great.

We could get Charlie on Latin.

Yeah.

I believe some of them, teachers have gotten in touch with me before and used the book I wrote on commentary for their students as well.

So there clearly is a lot of overlap.

The language of football and just the general language.

What a legacy this podcast is going to have.

And keep that legacy going.

For just $5.99 a month, you'll get ad-free listening of all episodes, two episodes a month of Dreamland, our exclusive show.

Pre-sale access to football clichés live tickets, free entry to clichés quiz live events like the one coming up in Newcastle, and exclusive discounts on merchandise, which we are, which are in the pipeline.

Also on Saturday, with regards to Dreamland, somebody asked me what the topic was going to be for the next Dreamland whilst I was standing at the Urinal.

And you know what?

That's fine.

You're paying your $5.99 a month.

Feel free to talk to me for as long as you like.

If you see me at Urinal, I will happily converse with you.

He was pleased with the topic, though.

He was pleased with the topic, so he went home happy.

That's good.

Yeah, thanks for supporting this podcast.

We absolutely love making it, and we're glad you enjoy it as well.

Speaking of new releases, some fuss has been reported over Watford's new kit, Dave.

Now,

you've experienced it firsthand.

Is it a nice kit?

Like, do you like it?

As a Watford fan,

what's your instinctive feelings about it?

Well, there's this sort of continual push and pull with our kits over recent years between...

Because obviously you've got the yellow is our colour.

But the thing is always...

How much black or red do they put on the kit?

Is it sort of black and we've had a lot of yellow and black sort of stripes or yellow and black halves.

We've had like a yellow and black sunburst sort of thing a few years ago.

But in the last few years, we've gone back to the red, which is sort of associated with the classic Graham Taylor era in the 80s.

Now we've got red stripes, three red stripes, which we've never had before.

Never had three red stripes.

You're not revoking anything whatsoever.

No, not really.

I mean, I actually did have a look

on one of those websites which shows you the historic kits.

I think we did have a kit in 1890 which had red stripes before we were even called Watford FC.

But I don't think they were revoking that, to be honest with you.

It's either that or Catalonian Independence, which is yeah, exactly.

Um, but but the big, the big sort of hoo-ha around it all is that it's actually quite a nice kit, but the sponsor, which is a blue um, Mr.

Q casino,

I mean, it's how many casinos are there?

It's quite

incongruous, um, and even the club themselves seem to have acknowledged this by filming all the promo material for the kit launch with the shirt without the sponsor, which is also available to buy.

Oh, wow.

Oh, really?

Yeah, it is.

This seems a very

strange situation, Charlie.

Summed up here by Watford social post about this kit, which is weirdly apologetic.

Like, it has no triumphalism that you'd normally associate with a kit launch.

It says the logo on our new shirt isn't to everyone's taste.

We really like the previous black logo, and we had lots of dialogue over the summer as we wanted to keep it black to complement the new shirt.

But our sponsors were insistent on their rebrand.

Some may like it, some may not.

And for those who don't, you can join the queue and get your unbranded shirt.

I mean,

I mean, I'm all for standing up against commercialism, but this seems a little bit timid.

I don't know.

Well, I just, yeah, I feel like some of the people being hung out to dry here might not be crazy about it.

Like, there might be, it sounds like a bit of a bit of infighting at the top of Watford.

I, I mean, I don't want to say tin pot, Dave.

I don't want to say tin pot, but I just feel like a club of Watford scale shouldn't be addressing these concerns at all.

Just let it go.

It's just, it's the way the world goes.

I'll say it.

I think it is Tin Pot, to be honest with you.

I mean, and I sympathise greatly with the people who are involved in this.

I think there clearly has been a bit of a difficult situation behind the scenes, I think.

But the kit without the sponsor, which they're pushing, I actually think is very nice.

So that's kind of a good solution, really, in the end.

But yeah, Mr.

Q, not a great few days for the people at Mr.

Q, I don't think.

The beleaguered Mr.

Q.

Yeah, fair play to the piping on the sleeve and the collar.

That is nicely retro.

I will accept that.

Now, regular listeners to a Tuesday education panel must be wondering, why hasn't there been a clip yet?

Where are the clips?

Well, this came from David Pickthall.

Here is England taking the wicket of Richard Pant on day one of the second test.

Alex Hartley on TMS Co.Coms.

But England will be absolutely overjoyed because they.

You can't even say they purchased that wicket.

It was gifted, as you say, Alex, to them.

Well, what you want as a spinner, I mean, that's absolute Christmas, isn't it?

Somebody to be caught along on boundary.

That's my new favourite absolute now.

Absolute Christmas.

Looks like Christmas.

It looks looks like Christmas.

I mean, it passes the absolute test, Charlie, because you could totally imagine Andy Townsend saying this.

That ball in there.

That is absolute Christmas.

Christmas.

What would be absolute Christmas in football?

That's absolute Christmas.

Yeah, a sort of pass across the goal and it's just tees up the striker

for like a finishy cut.

You know, one of those passes where the finish looks sort of unmissable because it's that good.

That is absolute Christmas.

Yeah, lovely.

Crucially, Dave,

not like a dreadful backpass that wraps it up like a gift for a striker.

It can't be that sort of obvious.

It needs to be a delicious cross.

Yes, because the present has to be given with intent, not accidentally.

You can't accidentally give someone a lovely present at Christmas, can you?

Yeah, they're putting on a plate relation.

Vintage, literally, Dave, today, by the way.

Next one comes from Sam Turton.

He says, Having gone round for Sunday tea, I was watching A Touch of Frost with my dad this last weekend when a certain crowd noise stood out as the investigation into a missing girl moved not to a football ground but to the racetrack.

He reckons we should have a chat to a jockey who rides regularly for her father, a bloke called Paul Matthews.

I see.

Where will we find him?

Wow.

It's the LS James crowd noise again.

At the horse racing.

Does it work at the horse racing?

I feel like they've reacted too late, Dave.

They must realise a horse is about to win a race.

Well, no, I don't know.

I think the moment of the horse going over the line is.

That is not approximate to a goal being scored in football out of nowhere.

Well, I don't know.

I think it is.

If you've got a lot of money riding on it and it just gets over the line.

What you just looked up.

Oh, shit.

You are going to celebrate it.

But yeah, but the noise doesn't really fit.

It certainly doesn't fit the scene as well because it's not like they're not at the Grand National there.

That seems to be some sort of sleepy kind of afternoon race is at Windsor or something.

Yeah, I agree.

I mean, accuracy aside, Charlie, the bigger issue here, perhaps, is that this is on ITV.

This was made by Yorkshire Television.

Who gave them the rights to use BBC's sound effects?

Got into a bidding war.

I also like the sort of dummy footballers' names and things that I was anticipating.

Was it Paul Matthews, he said at the start?

You'd have a split and be like, have I missed this?

You go through the Rolodex in your brain.

Paul Matthews.

Kind of.

Like a black paw.

Yeah.

Nothing.

Just pretend you know what they're talking about and laugh.

But the makers of Touch of Frost here, Dave, have used this sound effect.

They've stolen it from the BBC, I'm just going to say, and have hoped that no one will ever notice.

But little did they realize that football podcasts, niche football podcasts, will become a thing in the 2020s.

I believe it's free to use, isn't it?

It's the national broadcaster.

We're all paying in some way for that sound effect.

That's true.

You can download it and use it to your heart's content.

But yeah, wow.

Maybe ITV at the time poached the sound engineer from the BBC responsible and he brought it with him.

His little trademark.

Yeah, that I touch off clock.

During like like the premiership match of the day era.

Yeah.

Just getting anyone they could from the beeb.

We need to get a montage of all of these.

It's fantastic.

Even though it is barely audible at the best of times.

Next up, this came from James McCann.

He says, I was listening to Chris Brookmeyer's brilliant audiobook, Country of the Blind, when I heard this in reference to a Scottish assassin.

But why would he want to kill Vos?

Jenny asked.

He's not the man with the motive, search engine.

He's just the errand boy, the hitman.

It should be hitman, right, Charlie?

I mean, I feel like we always have to clarify this.

It is hitman, not hitman.

Isn't it?

Yes, it is, but obviously, yeah, we've said it so much that it's kind of lost all meaning.

You could spook yourself.

Yeah, it's not hitman.

But, James McCann is...

Certainly not.

James McCann continues, Dave.

Surely a hitman is a foot-luck attraction engine, middle-ranking, attacking midfielder who scores only four goals in a season, but they all come from outside the box or perhaps that's hitsman but yeah hitman really takes away the grandeur of being a hitman i think yeah yeah i like hitsman actually hitsman is nice hitsman's good hitsman could really work for he doesn't get many but oh when he does he's a hitsman i mean hitsman is and if bagsman's going to catch on charlie what's wrong with hitsman i can see hitsman as well talking about like a musical artist who maybe lacks credibility but they're a proper hitsman like you can't

argue with their track record yeah sheeran's a proper hitsman Without speculating on whether he writes his own songs, I think he probably does, but they're really.

But I would think of hitsmen as

the producers or the writers of the songs rather than the performers?

I think it can be both.

There are some artists who can just turn something into a hit.

That famous sort of, was it Norwegian songwriting factory that did all of Britney Spears's ones?

They're hitsmen, right?

Well, Pete Waterman.

Yes, he's a hitsman.

Absolutely.

Simon Cowell.

Tremendous.

Right, the last item for the adjudication panel today, this came from listener Michael Cox,

who directed me towards the contact details page of the FA's website.

Do you know what the FA's postal address is?

It's Wembley?

Wembley Stadium?

Yes, it's Wembley Stadium, P.O.

Box 1966.

How class

is that?

Fair play.

Yeah, it is.

It is fair play.

That is similar to when you

occasionally,

if you're in the game like us and you come across a

phone number of a former player, sometimes they've paid to get like specific numbers at the end that might relate to the number of goals they've scored or their numbers they had on the shirts or something like that.

I realise it's part of their brand sometimes, Charlie, but I think it's slightly sad that sort of very much retired players cling on to their sort of famous squad numbers well into retirement and they'll sort of keep their signatures.

You don't need it anymore, mate.

You're all right.

Yeah, maybe you're number nine, maybe.

I can just about accept it.

If you were like number 14, let it go.

You don't play for them anymore.

I sort of like the subtlety of it, though.

It's like it's, it's, it's not as sort of ostentatious as the personalized number plate on your motor.

It's, you know,

it's sort of such a

clobber.

Only some people are going to recognize it.

Speaking of people who almost certainly have or have had a personalized number plate in their lifetimes, it's time for Keys and Grey Corner.

First up today, you'll love this, Charlie.

A tweet from Richard Keys.

These D-list celebs lining up to be seen at Wimbledon make me laugh.

Most of them couldn't score a match.

Shrug emoji.

What a little target.

Score a match.

What a flourish as well.

And to sort of reveal your own sort of lack of comfort with a sport to use some quite weird language.

Are they D-list?

No, I mean...

He's talking about the Royal Box, presumably.

The Royal Box.

Yeah.

I mean, I guess he might be like John Cena.

Like, what is a wrestler doing in the Royal Box?

Polly, we're A-list these days Richard.

Yeah, and a lot of them are like Olympic gold medalists.

This is the thing though, interesting example that Charlie's used there, Dave, because I don't think Keese's inspiration here is just who is this guy?

It's

someone he's got a beef with who's turned up in the Royal Box.

Like, who is it?

I mean, he had a pop at Beckham the other day.

I was going to say with Beckham.

Yeah.

I'm trying to think of other sort of...

I mean,

he wasn't in the Royal Box, was he?

But James Madison was there yesterday.

But Keesy must love James Madison because of the whole Cov thing.

Or maybe he thinks he got too big for his boots.

Hard to say with Keesey.

Also, with him saying most of them couldn't score a match.

I mean, it's not cricket.

You've not got people

in the crowd doing the scorecard at the tennis, have you?

That's the point.

You don't, you know, you really don't need it done.

You have it done for you, is quite the crucial point of it.

Yeah, back in the day, they did use to have the manual scoreboards.

Maybe he still thinks Wimbledon's done like that.

Excited to know, Charlie, what Richard Keys thinks of the AI line judge system not working momentarily on Sunday.

It turns out someone just has to literally just flick a switch all the time.

He'll hate that.

Yeah, it's again, we'd love to get his take on it.

Yeah,

he definitely bemoans the absence of those smartly dressed line judges to leave.

And I think I do too, you know?

I always felt for them just because it just felt like an arduous job to just stand there all the time.

I mean, I get it because of progress.

And it's obviously when you think about it, it's like, why, actually, why didn't they do this years ago?

Because they clearly had the technology for so long with the challenges and stuff, but whatever.

But I just think, from a visual perspective,

the mise-on-sen has been ruined by not having those people on their haunches at the back of the back of the court.

It does look a bit sparse now.

It does.

Yeah, it looks like a tennis match or something.

Yeah, I know what you mean.

It's a shame.

Well, yeah, we started with tennis and we ended with it.

How strange.

Thanks to you, David Walker.

Thank you.

Thanks to you, Charlie Equilier.

Thank you.

Thanks to everyone for listening.

The clichés pod will be back on Thursday.

See you then.

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