Tom Cruise on short corners, VAR at Tesco and introducing... Dreamland

This is an ad from BetterHelp.

Here's a combined stat for you.

I think Dave and I recorded about 20 episodes of podcasts between us in a single week.

And much as I've grown to like the sound of my own voice, I'm looking forward to not staring at a screen for a week or so.

With the internet and information overload about mental health and wellness, it can be a struggle to know what's true and what actions to take.

These days, it feels like there's advice for everything: cold plunges, gratitude journals, screen detoxes.

But how do you know what actually works for you?

I'm actually going full screen detox.

I'm staying in a yurt for a week in South Wales, where the welcome pack tells me that there's very limited phone signal.

If you are online using trusted resources and talking to live therapists can get you personalised recommendations and help you break through the noise.

You don't have to have experienced major trauma to benefit from therapy.

It's helpful for learning positive coping skills and empowers you to be the best version of yourself.

With over 5,000 therapists in the UK, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform having served over 5 million people globally.

Not only does it work, with an app store rating of 4.9 out of 5 based on over 1.7 million client reviews, it's convenient too.

You can join a session with a UK therapist at the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life.

Plus, you can switch therapists at any time.

As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise.

Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/slash FC.

That's better H-E-L-P.com slash FC.

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's going to tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

AKA Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

Mint is still $15 a month for premium wireless.

And if you haven't made the switch yet, here are 15 reasons why you should.

1.

It's $15 a month.

2.

Seriously, it's $15 a month.

3.

No big contracts.

4.

I use it.

5.

My mom uses it.

Are you playing me off?

That's what's happening, right?

Okay.

Give it a try at mintmobile.com/slash switch.

Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan, $15 per month equivalent required.

New customer offer first three months only, then full price plan options available.

Taxes and fees extra.

See Mintmobile.com.

I'm sorry.

You can sit there and look and play with all your silly machines as much as

But jeez!

He's round the goal, Keymate.

Done it!

Absolutely incredible!

He launched himself six feet into the crowd and Kung Fu kicked a supporter who was eye without a shadow of a doubt getting him lip.

Oh, I say

it's amazing.

He does it, tame and tame and tame again.

Break up the music!

Charge a glass!

This nation is going to dance all night!

US advertising getting the Champions League exquisitely wrong.

The suffocating sycophancy of watching the final with David Beckham, Tom Cruise and Tom Brady.

Marco Van Basten on Linkin Park.

7 out of 10 football debates in Netflix crime dramas.

One cliché's listener's incredible invention.

The single game football DVD amnesty, Richard Keyes on Killian Mbappe's career choices, and finally, your invitation to dreamland.

Brought to your ears by Gohanger Podcasts.

This is Football Cliches.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Football Clichés.

I'm Adam Hurry.

This is the adjudication panel.

Joining me, Charlie Ecoucher, all the way from Paris.

How you doing?

Very well, thank you.

You were at the Parc de Prince on Saturday night.

Is it a beanback?

Do they call them beanbacks in France?

Why don't we use a beanback anymore?

Yeah, they didn't teach us that in GCSE French.

What's beanback?

It was very cool.

It was weird as well because it occurred to me getting there that it's basically unheard of to have everyone in a stadium, 50,000 people all supporting the same team without exception, unless you're playing a team whose fans are banned.

Or, as Michael Cox pointed out, unless it spurs against Manchester City in 2024, this just doesn't happen.

So it was

quite cool.

Yeah, cool.

The atmosphere was good.

It was honestly incredible like it was i know it's a bit of a cliche about their fans you know being lively and things but it was amazing and actually you kind of it did almost feel like you were at the game so yeah i enjoyed it they have they've been back ultras i yeah i did wonder that i mean i assume you know the big boys weren't there but maybe that allowed others to step up maybe you know the the fans who've been overshadowed for too long they really really stepped up fair enough alongside you for this one is david walker how you doing i'm very good i'm glad you're both here for this huge announcement listeners we have some massive news for you.

If the Tuesday adjudication panels are the league and the Thursday episodes, the guest MHDs, the quizzes, the 11s are the cup, well, this is Europe.

They're in dreamland here.

They're in dreamland here.

Some sort of dreamland here.

They're in dreamland.

They can't believe it.

They're in dreamland.

Absolute dreamland.

Absolute dreamland.

Absolute dreamland right now.

And they are in dreamland.

Well, they're in dreamland.

Now it's more frownland.

Wonderful.

They are in Dreamland.

They're in Dreamland.

They are in Dreamland.

They're in Dreamland.

It's not Winter Wonderland, but it's an Anfill Dreamland December Dreamland.

They're in Dreamland and Deutschland.

And they are in Dreamland.

They are in Dreamland.

They are in Dreamland.

They're just in Dreamland, Raid Noel.

How many times are we going to see it?

Dreamland.

And they're in Dreamland.

Look, they're in Dreamland right now.

They're in Dreamland.

Just enjoy it.

They are in absolute Dreamland.

And fair play to them.

Yes, in Dreamland.

So this week, we have launched Dreamland, our football clichés membership subscribers.

We'll get two episodes of our exclusive new show, Dreamland, where we take one of our long-term footballing obsessions and go full clichés on it for a whole episode.

Charlie, the Dreamland episode long list is already looking excellent.

But we started with match of the day.

Not just a topical choice, but a logical one as well.

I think so, yeah.

It covers all sorts of areas.

Yeah, it feels weird.

We've never given it the full kind of clichés treatment.

Like, it's probably permeated lots of episodes in different ways.

But, yeah, I think we can have a really good,

a really good crack at it.

I don't think anyone's given it the full clichés treatment or the equivalent.

So, it's about time somebody did.

Dave, what else can Dreamland subscribers expect?

So, you will also get $45.99 a month, ad-free listening, not just going forward, but for the whole archive as well of the Goal Hanger era, not the other era.

That is still out there.

As well as your two episodes a month of Dreamland, you'll also get pre-sale access to all live show tickets for the upcoming tour, which will be announced soon.

They did sell out in some venues pretty quick last time.

So there is very much a benefit to being able to access the pre-sale.

You'll get free entry to all clichés quiz live events.

We've got the first one coming up in Leeds in a few weeks, which is sold out.

I'm really looking forward to that.

I think this is the start of something good, the Clichés Quiz Live.

We've got big plans, and we're going to roll that out across the the country as well.

So you'll get free entry to all future clichés quiz events and exclusive discounts on merch, of which we have got some new stuff coming soon.

We've got the cliches mugs up there.

We've got a few of the original t-shirts remaining, but we're going to have some new merch soon and you'll get discount on that.

So quite a lot of stuff, really, I think.

That is a good deal.

That is a shrewd deal, Charlie, if ever I saw one.

It is.

And I have to say, like, there are just so many ideas and different ways we can do things with it.

Like I think we're all

very excited.

Right.

I would say that's enough self-promotion but we're going to continue to do that from now on.

Right.

The adjudication panel begins.

Well where else could it begin Dave with the Champions League final?

Speaking of ad-free listening, maybe some of you out there like this sort of stuff.

It came from Trevi McQueen on Reddit.

Here is a US audio ad to get everyone in the mood for the big game on Saturday night.

A spring day is the most righteous time to invite some friends over, grab an ice-cold mountain dew with a refreshing citrus kick, and cheer on the UEFA Championship final.

Because a soccer final this big deserves a refreshment that satisfies from start to finish.

Give me a mountain with lots to do.

Charlie,

could it have been worse than to say to cheer on the UEFA Championship Final?

How could they have possibly got this more wrong?

That is all kinds of wrong.

Yeah, to stay within the bounds of recognizability, it would be harder to get it much more wrong.

Wait, say it again.

The UEFA Championship final.

I guess they got final right.

So they could have some finale or something they could have done.

Why can't people get this stuff even remotely correct?

The UEFA Championship Final.

For God's sake, someone somewhere would know the answer.

Americans are into the Champions League, as we, you know, we have been culturally made aware this season.

But, Dave, of course, beyond the details, they just can't resist the whole get your mates around to watch the big game on your sofa with a with a can of our drink scenario.

Get the lads around for a couple of mountain juice.

Citrus kick.

Refreshing mountain juice.

Oh dear.

I had a very US-centric approach to watching the Champions League final, Charlie.

For my sins, I felt myself drawn towards watching this game with David Beckerman friends on Paramount Plus.

The big friend this time, a certain Mr.

Tom Cruise.

It didn't bode well, did it?

I mean, what does he know about football?

What could I possibly want to hear about about him say about football?

Watching in the Part of France, I was thinking there are only a couple of places I'd rather be, maybe at the ground or with you

watching this, because

the updates you were giving made it sound pretty spectacular.

The thing about Tom Cruise, though, is, and I'm sure we're about to hear whether this is true or not, what he lacks in knowledge, he certainly won't lack in enthusiasm, right?

Absolutely.

Got to give him that, but it's a very controlled form of enthusiasm.

He really, really leaned on whatever parallels he could find between acting and football.

So, as we saw with Stanley Tucci in the semifinals, Dave, forcing a kind of vaguely soccer-aware American to watch a game for 90 minutes and then make it a watchable broadcast is quite a challenge.

I don't know how much thought they put into the real kind of end product of this.

They were just so happy to have the A-listers there.

I'm going to bet that Cruise is going to deliver more bang for his buck than Stanley Tucci did.

But still, it's quite an interesting mix, though, isn't it?

With Beckham.

They just, they couldn't resist.

I mean, Beckham and Cruise are good good pals by the sounds of it and and that kind of really manifested itself into a wank fest quite frankly here is Tom Cruise on David Beckham's Manchester United days talk to me a little bit about how how you guys got to know each other how you guys became friends you know what I we just I've always watched uh him play you know Manchester United when you got there in 92 I remember the kick that you made you're a Manchester United fan as well yeah yeah when he was there it's like

that kick you made yeah you know the 40 yard line, the halfway line.

I was like, this guy's got some.

Awesome guy.

This guy was amazing.

I remember that.

Jolly.

Express as a percentage how much you believe that Tom Cruise remembers David Beck and Squidden halfway down against Wimbledon in 1996.

If he, like the rest of us, had been desperately waiting for the season to start, because Cruise was still buzzing from Euro 96.

Yeah.

You know, but that had felt a lifetime.

Then the Charity Shield the week before had kind of built up his excitement.

The 4-0 win against Newcastle.

You know why he was there down at Sellhurst.

Do you reckon he knows who Neil Sullivan is?

No way.

The kick.

I never forget Brian McClare celebrating with you, man.

I like the way Vex helped him out.

Like, he sort of recognised his friend was floundering and helped him out in a way that wasn't like

embarrassing him.

It was kind of as if, you know, he knew exactly what it was.

But, yeah, the kick.

That happened time and time again.

I'm telling you.

Tom Cruise would make some vague sort of clinging on on reference to david beckon's career and beckon would have to leap in and go oh yeah when i won the liga with uh with rail madrid yeah absolutely yeah um i mean i mean we should have expected this dave but it just reached surreal levels of sick of fancy you changed you changed the face of the sport in america and for the world all for the better you single-handedly changed it and enabled others the success of that league and where it is today it started when you rank it absolutely did yeah it was

amazing.

It was a special time.

It was a special time.

It was a great time.

It's a great time being at the sport and how it's evolved.

And you're taking it as an owner.

Look at that.

And you're taking it as an owner.

There's Messi playing.

And you've heard,

you know, Miami, what you've done there with you guys together, again, taking it to that next level.

It's like,

that's inspiring.

Thank you.

That is inspiring.

What you've done on the field, you're doing businesses.

They should really have got Landon Donovan on for for balance.

Yeah.

Editorial standards are Paramount Plus, aren't they?

Excuse me, Mr.

Cruise.

Yeah, there were some reservations, actually.

Now, what I really watched this for, Dave, I knew there was going to be a lot of peripheral chat about, you know, acting and what it takes and that sort of stuff.

And Kate Scott was very, Kate Scott was kind of steering all of this, and she was very happy to accommodate that sort of chat.

Like,

how do you do these stunts, Tom, and that sort of stuff.

But what I really watched it for was how Cruz himself interacted with the actual football going on in front of them.

So they were in this incredible studio that was located at the end of the Alliance Arena in Munich, staring out across the pitch.

And they were watching this game as if they were sort of stood behind the goal.

They're right at the top behind the goal as if it was some sort of like tactico's view, wasn't it?

Exactly.

Tom Cruise demanded that.

Yeah.

I'm a big fan of TFO.

Love those guys.

So he was desperately trying to sort of sort of get into the action and figure out what was going on.

So when PSG opened the scoring, and I'm annoyed I couldn't get the clip for this, he stood up and just went, wow, wow.

And he said it about seven times in a row because he just didn't know what else to say.

Ball on d'Or.

Ball on d'or.

Ball on d'or.

There is an opening, Tom.

Yeah.

Beyond everything else that happened in this game,

my favourite bit.

was when PSG got a corner.

I think it was in the second half, Charlie.

By now, Thierry Henri had joined the cast in the studio.

PSG had got a corner and they were taking it short, or at least one of the players was offering it short.

And Tom Cruise suddenly just went, hang on, why don't they just put everyone in the box?

Why are they, why is the, why is the wide player coming to sort of offer it to pass it to him?

Why don't they just put everyone in the box?

And Thierry Henry had to really sincerely, but also in a very basic way, explain why short corners would be a thing.

And it was amazing to watch because Tom Cruise was like, wow.

I mean, Henri could have referenced.

He once scored against Crystal Palace at Highbury in 2005, where he went for to, he received a short corner and then basically just scored himself.

So, you know,

there is...

That might have excited Tom Cruise.

Well, I mean,

that wouldn't have fit with the rhythm of the broadcast, Dave, because what they were big on throughout this kind of couple of hours was how humble everybody is.

David Beckham told a story about how Tom Cruise once joined him in a pub in Notting Hill to watch the Euros and how humble Tom Cruise was with everybody around them.

Humility was a big pattern about this broadcast.

Everyone massively humble, by the way.

Probably took selfies with every single person in there.

They literally called a few people's mums up and all that business.

First one in, last one out.

Oh yeah.

And you don't expect them to commentate on the game, right?

You do expect that they're going to be doing a bit of talking around, a bit of chatting.

But just from that clip there and what you've told us, some talking about the game.

Like, is it just them two chatting over the top of the game for the whole time?

Does that not defeat the point slightly?

It was a really, really tricky concept.

And I don't think they've found the balance necessarily because they've got the game going on on a split screen as well and it's it's it's just really hard to get Tom Cruise to find stuff to say for that long that doesn't sound ridiculous.

So how could we make this more ridiculous?

How could we make this more sycophantic?

Tom Brady turns up.

Tom belonged to go.

Good to meet you.

Great to meet you.

Good to see you.

What's up, man?

Sorry.

Long time.

I'll see you.

Oh, how you doing?

Great to see you.

Congrats on the movie.

Chilling it like always.

Thank you.

What's up, my man?

How How are you doing?

Cheer, what's up?

I'm all in.

You're right.

I'm doing good.

Good to see you.

Good to see you, too.

Thanks for having me on.

Great.

Congrats on the movie.

At this point, Charlie, I'd watched David Beckham just utter the most inane stuff to Tom Cruise for about 45 minutes to an hour.

I just thought to myself, do these people now have any point in their life where they can just talk freely and sincerely in a normal way?

I guess only with their families can they just sort of kick back and not have to just basically talk about how great great somebody else is in really vague terms.

Yeah, they are amazing at just turning it on.

It's pure autopilot.

How did I not get bored?

But they didn't get bored, Dave, because it just turned into basically the high-performance podcast.

You know,

I've loved Tom and everything that he's achieved throughout his career.

You know, for someone to be at the top of his game for the amount of time that he was and then continue to do what he's doing, you know, it's incredibly good.

I got a few people that I really admire and look up to, and they've done it at the highest level, and always figuring out what's next.

You know, what

I think, like Tom said, you know, I think that you know, when you look at like these two individuals as humans, as

athletes,

there's a reason why they're at the top of their game for the amount of time that they are.

And it's like what Tieri said about lessons to kids.

You know, they work at it.

It's hard work.

It's hard work.

It's preparation.

It's dedication.

And when you look at these two, there's no one bigger.

I've never been so sick of the word athlete in my life.

Beckham having to use the word athlete.

That's another big thing.

All of those quality, the sort of durability and hard work and kind of staying at the top of your game for so long and

evolving and reinventing yourself,

they're huge amongst those kind of elite people.

To answer the question, Dave, of just how long Tom Cruise could sustain this across a 90-minute game, he left after an hour.

He left literally on the hour mark.

Wow.

Come at the hour, gone off the mouth.

He had to go and catch a flight.

So they were like, oh, I'll see you later.

So he just walked out behind them.

Busy guy.

Clearly.

He just missed the third goal.

It wasn't like it's 3-0, game over.

I've had enough.

I've seen enough.

Sassy is all over that.

No, to be fair, I think he's jetting into Wembley to do the National League player final, actually, on Sunday.

Big on Oldham and Southend.

Yeah, yeah.

One of these two giants have got to come back to where they belong.

Just to round off a very surreal evening, Marco Van Basten offered this on the pre-match entertainment.

The Linking Park performance was garbage.

Absolutely garbage.

It's a disgrace that UEFA allows this.

When I saw this quote, Charlie, I thought it was one of those made-up showbiz Twitter accounts, but no, this actually happened.

He laid into it on Ziggot.

I've got the clip, but it's all in Dutch, so there's no point in playing it.

The Dutch pundits are the most reliable for just absolutely sticking the boot in.

Like, Rafael van der Waart's always at it.

Van Basten's good for it.

They are, yeah, they just don't give a shit.

This is tremendous, Dave, that we haven't mentioned this game once.

There's nothing for us to say, isn't it?

PSG just absolutely smashed it.

And, you know, it's been a seismic moment for European football, really, isn't it?

It certainly is.

Their time has come.

All those academy kids, hard workers.

I did enjoy my Ulo's celebration, the young kid who came on and scored the fifth goal.

Like, that was a nice moment.

Like, we were talking with the Scream boys last week about rehearsed celebrations, lack of spontaneity.

He was just going mental, just sort of running on the spot, like, eyes everywhere.

Great.

Yeah, real touching moment for the PSU project.

Glad you were.

Glad you were entranced by it.

That's the Champions League final taken care of.

It's time for the real event.

It's footballers' names in things.

A little trio for you.

This one came from Tom Lockrey.

It's from the audiobook of After Hitler, The Last Days of the Second World War in Europe.

Holt Line.

The British gained possession of the dockyards and vital Walter Werke factory with its technology for submarine propulsion systems.

Relations with Russia deteriorated further.

At the beginning of May, Major Tony Hibbert had been put in command of a T-force, target force, instructed to seize the dockyards and factories of Kiel ahead of the Russians.

I'd trust him.

Yeah.

I wouldn't put him in charge, but I'd trust him to get the job done alongside somebody more stellar.

A really reliable foot soldier, yeah.

Long servant.

He's not dying, is he?

He's sticking around.

For the whole lot.

Next up, listener Tom Gellertly is reading The Sidekick by Benjamin Markovitz, Kind of a basketball-themed story.

Here's a passage for you, Dave.

He held out anyway.

Marcus in the timeout said, Come on, coach, let me take him.

I got him.

But Marcus already had two fouls.

He picked up one climbing the back of the 6-8 Reagan power forward, Sean Deich, to tip in a rebound, which made everyone stand up in their seats until the ref blew the whistle.

Sean Deich?

Daishy in the NBA.

Could this be deliberate?

It's spelled S-H-A-W-N, which I think is designed to throw us, isn't it?

I like that, yeah.

Yeah, otherwise, it's bang on.

Benjamin Markovitz is a British-American author.

Yeah, it's possible.

And this is actually a good point, actually, Charlie.

Like, for all his recent sort of anti-modern football bluster, I can still see Sean Dice using his time out for management to go over to the NBA to see how they do things.

Yeah.

Yeah, whenever.

I see how that because it's different, isn't it?

But, you know.

Yeah,

would it be NBA?

I guess so.

Which I think what would be like the most him sport?

I think he's more NBA than NFL.

Yeah, maybe.

Just about.

Would he do rugby?

Is rugby a bit too posh for him?

Rugby league.

Yeah, maybe, yeah, league.

Great stuff.

In Australia.

Like, yeah, okay, yeah.

See how they really do things.

State of origin.

Yeah.

Bit of Aussie rules as well.

Yeah, it's good.

Finally, this came from Dan Stableton and several others.

It's from the Darts.

He just cannot get the better of Wessel Nyman.

He has outperformed him in every stat.

But the one that matters...

Look, you can sit and play with all these cinnamon machines as much as you like.

There's only one stat that matters, and that's the legs.

And Wessel Diamond's got six of them, and he's beaten Gary Anderson again.

We didn't need any more evidence today that Dan Dawson is a cliché's listener, did we?

Oh, big time.

That's lovely.

Really good delivery, Charlie.

I mean, I'd give it an 8 out of 10 for the emphasis.

Yeah.

Maybe the U isn't quite perfect, but I think that's the bit of the connoisseurs bit.

You need to really roll out.

It must be not bad.

Yeah, it must have been not bad.

Right, next up, we were talking with the screen rot lads on last week's MHD about what it's like to have people watch you play five aside at Power League through the fence.

Danny Stilwell writes in, Dave, and says, On the subject of players stood outside watching as they're on next after you at six aside, a few weeks ago I overheard some lad say, he's the best of the worst players up here.

I'm 80% sure it was about me, and I'm really unsure whether it was a compliment or not.

That would fuck with your mind.

He's the best of the worst players.

That's just so we're all the worst players, but but I'm the best.

Well, I mean, you know, you can take something from it.

I mean, you can.

Better than being the worst of the worst.

Yeah, it would really distract you, Charlie, if you ever heard that.

Yeah,

that's a real headfuck.

I mean, if you got some criticism, at least you'd be like, I can prove you wrong.

My next touch is going to be great.

But this one'd be like, I don't know what to do now.

Right.

Finally, for part one, it's time for you to rate the football chat in a Netflix drama script.

This came from Joey Medrington, who was watching Department Q.

Okay, so?

So it never crossed the line?

The referee gave it?

No, the linesman gave it.

Huh?

So that was a goal?

No, the linesman gave it because he was Russian.

Why the fuck would he?

It was the Cold War.

The fucking Russians hated us.

Ah, but they hated the Germans more.

I mean, we're talking 1966.

It was 20 years after the war.

Also.

Also, what?

Also,

the Germans beat the Soviets in the semi-final.

So the linesman had a score to settle, didn't they?

Look, even if any of this Tartan Army conspiracy bullshit was actually true, which is fucking not, it's irrelevant because England scored again, we won 4-2, but.

But that's because the Germans were pressing for an equaliser, which they shouldn't have been, because your third goal was never a goal in the first place.

What the fuck do you think of that?

I say, fucking get over it.

We won.

Why can't I just let it go?

Good morning, sir.

Hang on, mate.

It's the fucking attitude we hate.

Commentators banging on about 1966.

What you hate is the fact that England won and you lot never will, because you're fucking shit.

You can't even qualify for the finals alone win the final.

Fucking Uruguay won it twice before you lot did.

You don't see them acting all billy big balls about it 60 years later.

D.I.

Hardy, DCI mock.

How do we feel about this?

I mean, Charlie, let's deal with it in the bigger picture of this first.

I mean, how likely is it that two grizzled sort of detectives in their late 40s or so will be just suddenly discussing the 1966 World Cup final?

Yeah, not Hugeie, but I don't feel it stretches the bounds of credibility too much.

I think that was actually quite good.

The only misstep, and I don't know why this happened, because whoever wrote it seems to know his stuff, but he said you never qualify for the finals.

I would

even get to the finals.

I'm not sure if he said finals or final.

Either way, I don't like it.

I think he said finals.

He said finals, yeah.

Yeah, which is just such an unnatural.

Like, no one would say that in conversation.

No one says the World Cup finals.

That's commentator speak.

That is.

Yeah, yeah.

If that, or if it's more like FIFA executive speak.

I mean, it was very surface-level 1966 World Cup final chat.

I mean, the kind of more advanced it got was when they started talking about the Germans chasing an equaliser.

That's why England got their fourth, which I suppose is a relatively accurate representation of what went on.

I was more convinced by the Scottish half of the conversation than I was the English guy.

You know, we've definitely seen worse.

Yes.

Like, I think whoever's written this has got some footballing sensibilities about them.

Threw some Uruguay chat in, which was quite good, I guess.

Must confess, well, I wasn't actually aware that Germany had beaten the Soviet Union in the semis, so.

Wow.

That's some fair play.

Okay, you've learned something.

Okay, well, that's a bonus point for it.

Anyway, we'll be back very shortly with part two, and you do not want to miss what is at the top of part two.

If you thought goldenly breaded McDonald's chicken couldn't get more golden, think golder, because new sweet and smoky special edition gold sauce is here.

Made for your chicken favorites at Participate in McDonald's for limited time.

Hello, Nigel here.

As an owl, I love to be awake all night, but allergy sufferers like you probably don't feel the same.

So take Zyzole at night to relieve allergies while you sleep.

Then wake up fully refreshed for a more productive day.

Zizole works fast and offers 24-hour continuous relief from sneezing, runny nose, itchy watery eyes, and itchy nose and throat.

So you can enjoy doing the things you love all day long.

Be wise all.

Take Zyzol at night.

Users Directed starts working in 45 minutes.

Tires matter.

They're the only part of your vehicle that touches the road.

Tread confidently with new tires from Tire Rack.

Whether you're looking for expert recommendations or know exactly what you want, Tire Rack makes it easy.

Fast, free shipping, free road hazard protection, convenient installation options, and the best selection of Bridgestone tires.

Go to tire rack.com to see their Bridgestone test results, tire ratings, and reviews and be sure to check out all the special offers.

TireAct.com, the way tire buying should be.

Oh, look at that!

That is wonderful!

Welcome back to Football Clichés.

Some astonishing scenes to bring you now.

Dave, this week I got an email from a guy called Jack Copper.

He's a software developer in Washington, D.C.

I squirreled this email away to read it closer to the time.

I wish I'd read it at the time, but anyway, I opened it up and it began with this.

He says, I've often found myself wanting to find when you first covered a topic or how regularly something has come up.

It felt like a solvable problem.

He says, I assume you already have a way to find moments from previous shows.

No, not really.

I just have to keep going back through episodes manually to find stuff when people ask me for it.

Anyway, he has created listenfairplay.com.

Now, I'm tempted to just leave the URL there and let people discover how incredible it it is for themselves.

But no, what it is, he's created a searchable database of every football clichés podcast there has ever been.

And then once you find the bit you want, if you click on it, it will play the audio instantly.

What an incredible thing someone has created, Dave.

Amazing.

And genuinely, it's going to be really helpful for us.

So many times I sit there and go, God, I'm sure we talked about this on like episode 46 or something five years ago.

I now be able to find it straight away.

I did also have a look.

You know, when you get this thing, it'd be interesting to see what words and phrases people go for initially.

After I'd looked at Segway/slash/C,

I typed in Watford.

There are 494 occurrences of the word Watford in the history and football clichés pod.

1.15 mentions per episode.

What a ratio.

You want it to be better than one and one, don't you, really?

Charlie, I've dug into this in all sorts of ways.

i'm really excited to see what our listeners search for um but you've mentioned morton gamps pedderson 12 separate times on this podcast which i think is about right you're obsessed with the man yeah i really wouldn't have thought i was but i guess the evidence is overwhelming and are none of them henrik pedderson a lot of henrik pedderson but it all obviously came in one episode where we just got really deep into henrik pedderson's makeshift right back uh stint for bolton but yeah morton gamps pedderson otherwise but yeah it's um it's an incredible piece of work i'm so excited that this has happened And

just

a little window into how dedicated some of our listeners are.

Incredible.

Yeah.

Jack Copper, if you've got $5.99 a month to spare, put your money where your mouth is.

Just how dedicated you are.

But no, seriously, thank you for this.

Please, everyone, enjoy listenfairplay.com.

It's an astonishing piece of work.

Now, what we were also talking about on the podcast last week was what games lend themselves to being released on DVD.

And the consensus was, Charlie, that Liverpool's 2005 Champions League final triumph was the was the absolute quintessential on DVD game it was big enough it was in the right era just towards the tail end of the DVD era so it would make sense that that would be the one right yeah yeah yeah I mean would their FA Cup one as well the the West Ham one or is that a bit well maybe but I mean that's maybe a bit small time that it's only the FA Cup but it was also a pretty incredible game I think they would have it would have done yeah it's not like they were winning loads of stuff no

don't need much of an excuse as it turns out um we asked our listeners for their single game dvd amnesty let's run through some of these michael brockman says uh i own a dvd copy of crystal palace 5 bright and nil from the 2002-03 season not a match that had any significance at all with regards to the table but was the first meeting of the two sides since 1991 and reignited the rivalry rivalries are ripe for this stuff i think definitely yeah because wasn't that sort of um a bit of a stick to beat teams with that they would yeah beat a big rival and they'd make it and are you gonna make a DVD out of it sort of thing so it just goes to show like joking aside how low the threshold can be uh listener Charlie writes in Charlie and says uh he's got um he got a copy for Christmas in 2007 of Everton 7 Sunderland 1 as soon as you beat anyone by 7 that's going on D V D in the mid-2000s right definitely wow yeah an in-house job as well I think when the club releases it does that take the shine off it a bit more because I feel like that that lowers the threshold they'll chuck any old shit out right but when was wasn't that unless there was another one wasn't that in like 96 that Everton beat Sunderland?

November 2007.

That's when they so they did it again.

Wow, they've that was a real unhappy hunting ground for

Sunderland.

Spurs nine wig and one.

Is that DVD worthy?

I don't know.

I think it may have been.

Alexander Edwards writes in, Dave, says, During Blackpool's lone Premier League season, we released several DVDs, including wins both home and away against Liverpool, a win over Spurs, and most incredibly, a 2-2 draw against Fulham, because because it was our first home game.

Ridiculous.

What is disappointing is I'm struggling to find any evidence of this online, but I'm certain my father bought it.

So I'll absolutely be searching for it the next time I'm back there.

A 2-2 draw, a DVD.

But the first home game, I think, I mean, that's just about acceptable, isn't it?

It was a big deal for them.

The promise of them.

As they went along, just that DVD burner in the club shop really working overtime.

Can I just offer as well a sub-genre of this was when you'd get briefly into another sport and there'd be a big moment and they'd release a DVD and lots of people would buy it over Christmas.

And there's a holy trinity of these in my mind, which I think these live in so many people's houses up and down the country.

I've never been watched.

Rugby World Cup 2003, Ashes 05, London 2012.

These three just like, oh yeah, I love that.

Yeah, and I'm still into it now, I think.

And never going to watch it.

Oh, I bet the, especially because the Rugby World Cup 03 was that in like November or something.

Yeah, and that's really front of mind.

I bet they rushed that out for Christmas, like a load of Christmas.

Ashes 05, I think, was like a box set.

And I remember we got it, and I was like, yeah, I think we're over that already.

DVDs is very rugby, isn't it?

I can see that.

I mean, sitting down again and watching.

I've got one.

Someone sent me this.

Brian Andrew McGuigan got in touch and said that him and his pals were in La Paz the day after Bolivia beat Argentina 6-1 in 2009.

There were loads of bootleg DVDs flying around.

Wow.

Well, that's a good turnaround, isn't it?

Wow, fair play.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, Bolivia winning 6-1.

Yeah, that's DVD Central.

Cryoto says, these are the only two single-game DVDs my dad and I own.

The second legs of the quarter-final and semi-finals for Middlesbrough against Basel and Stour in the UEFA Cup 2006, was it?

Fair play.

Those were amazing.

Stourbo Crest 1 was a huge game, and the commentary for that is pretty.

So I can kind of see how that happened.

They were both mad comebacks, weren't they?

Yeah.

I mean, with these as well, they've got to be bloody good games because to actually sit through a whole game

is pretty bored.

Like, a game where you know what's happening.

Like, you need a hell of a lot of action to not get quite bored quite quickly.

I wonder if the Fulham...

I mean, there's probably one of the whole UEFA Cup run with Fulham,

but specifically that game against Juventus at Craven Cottage, that feels quite DVD.

I think if you're going to run in a competition, I mean...

It's prudent to do the whole thing as a kind of road two, isn't it?

There's no, you can't release them as individual games.

You'll probably get more sales if you do it as a road two.

So

that's my advice anyway for the mid-2000s.

And I do miss, I think that there was a lot of value in those, like, Rode 2s or Run.

You know, they were properly curated.

Much more watchable, re-watchable.

Yeah.

Yeah, those were really good.

And I think there isn't really an equivalent now.

I'm glad all Rodes led to this, though.

Matthew Durant and Parso, both on Blue Sky, said that they own England 3 Argentina 2 in Geneva in 2005 on DVD.

I'm so glad it exists on DVD.

And it should only exist on DVD.

Like, that's where it should live.

What a moment in time that was.

The tagline for the DVD cover, Charlie, is an all-time classic match full of pride, passion, and unbelievable tension.

Yeah, I suppose it was admittedly only a friendly, but still,

time for one of my classic neocouple moments.

I need to re-emphasize that I do know it was Michael Owen who scored the winner and not Peter Krez.

Peter Kratz went up for the header.

It's very distracting sometimes.

Right, the news has dropped in the last couple of weeks, Dave, that Tesco are rolling out VAR at their self-checkouts.

Our Reddit users got very fascinated by this concept.

OKBox says it's the problem is a lot of these incorrectly selected pastry incidents look so much worse when slowed down.

The Sky News report of this, Charlie, said some customers were unimpressed by the news, with one posting on Reddit, if they can't trust me to scan my shopping properly, perhaps they should employ staff to scan it for me.

Perhaps at a larger checkout.

Oh, wait.

Another said, can't wait to hang around for four minutes while the ref camera decides my carrots are two milligrams too heavy.

This is Keysy doing a big say-nos.

It really.

My toenail overstepped the market.

It is the toenail of checkout VAR.

It's superb.

Do P128 Dave says, the problem is these Buffins have never shopped at Tesco.

Funny that I should mention Richard Keys actually because it's time for Keys and Grey Corner.

First up, Richard Keyes' little warning for anyone who dares to turn their back on Qatar.

Been an interesting one in the Ballard Go this year.

Yeah, interesting.

I think it will be because

this

wonderful

He won the Euro.

I don't know.

No.

And I hope he's somewhere watching tonight thinking, do you know what?

I could have been part of this.

But he probably wouldn't have been.

Have you seen his statistics?

Have you seen his stats?

No, no, no.

I'm saying if he'd stayed at Paris, he would be in the final.

So there you go.

Incredible tone, telling Killian Mbappe what to do with his career.

He's so

pro-Qatar.

It's incredible.

But I mean, you know, but obviously completely explicable at the same time, Charlie.

And also, Mbappe is so in there, kind of crosshairs.

Yeah.

He's so the sort of player they would hate.

It is so easy to fall into the narrative trap of player left club, they go on to win something.

It's like Harry Kane and Spurs.

And I just think, I think Harry Kane's all right about it.

I think he's, you know, players are allowed to move on and then look back with fondness at their previous club winning something.

You know, it's it's it's the uh butterfly effect.

Like if they'd stayed, it wouldn't have happened.

Don't worry about it.

Don't worry.

Just don't worry about the narrative.

Next up, this came from Febbington, who for some reason was watching Daddy's Deadly Secret on Amazon Prime.

We're turning over the whole house.

It's a simple one.

I'm not going to lie.

There's no depth to it whatsoever.

That's good.

This is what we want our listeners to be spotting.

Speaking of keys, comma Richard.

Yeah, that's great.

As he would be in the phone book.

You'd be so happy, wouldn't you?

You're just watching that.

Oh, dear.

Pausing it.

Yeah.

Right, last week, after the Premier League finally concluded, Keesy released his final blog of the season and signed off Charlie with, That's It.

Unless something spectacular happens now, you won't hear from me until August.

Thanks for reading these musings.

I look forward to going again.

Baleric Priest says, what do we think would have to happen for Keesy to break his emergency summer blog?

Yeah, that's a good question.

What's the the kind of emergency pod equivalent for the Keesy blog?

I mean, he'll do it during the Club World Cup, probably, won't he?

There'll be some issue that will rile him in some way.

I'm trying to think who's a player that would really trigger him.

I don't think the Man City news will break over the summer, will it?

Yeah, 15 charges.

Ruben Amarim staying in his job, so that'll be fine.

I think it would have to be something around Man United.

So, as you say, Amarim's not going to be sacked, but the Jim Reaper

could do something mental.

Something could happen around him that will force Keesy to pass comment.

Or if there was some sort of refereeing edict and Howard Webb did a big explanation of what's going to happen next year, I don't know.

Something like that could get his goat as well.

Yeah, they'll introduce some new thing, won't they?

You know, about time wasting or some little new rule from next year that will really wind him up.

I mean, I love the blog, but just

bring back the podcast, Keesy.

Just bring back the podcast.

Everybody wants it.

So just do that, please.

Finally, for Keys and Grey Corner, Snoo Chipmunks on Reddit says, following on from the hunt for the Gazette Football Italia commentary, I was reminded of another obsession of mine from circa 1992-93, and that was the Amiga 500 game Premier Manager.

There are snippets of commentary used in the theme music, and well, I believe they are provided by one Richard Keys.

Charlie, that really sounds like Keese's commentary-era voice as well.

So I think it could be.

It's not really up there with Josinho, is it?

Unless it's Gary Bloom who did the Dream Team commentary, who I think sounds a bit like Keese's commentary voice.

But yeah, that may well be.

I can see.

No, I think it is a good spot.

It's definitely a good shout.

Whether it was taken, it doesn't sound necessarily like they've done a whole bank and Keese has sat down in the booth with the courts of it, they've just taken it, haven't they?

They've taken it off a clip.

Snoochip Monks says it begs the question: which 1990-91 Division I club VHS review of the season is this from, and which match is it taken from?

I'm not doing it.

I don't know.

I know what to do.

Hey, Tor, if you're listening, please get in touch and figure it out.

Thanks to you, Charlie Eccleshare.

Thank you.

Thanks to you, Dave Walker.

Thank you.

Thanks to everyone for listening.

And do sign up at dreamland.football clichés.com.

It's a whole new ball game.

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

That's the sound of the fully electric Audi Q6 e-tron and the quiet confidence of ultra-smooth handling.

The elevated interior reminds you this is more than an EV.

This is electric performance redefined.

For quality window treatments, trust Rebart's Blind Shades and Shutters.

Specializing in Hunter Douglas custom blinds and smart shades, Rebarts combines style, comfort, and automation to enhance any space.

The blinds and shades solution for your home is just a free consultation away.

Visit REBARTS.com to schedule your free in-home consultation today.

Mention Spotify for 25% off.

That's 25% off mentioning Spotify at Rebart's.