Proper clubs & "woke pressing" with the Screen Rot Podcast

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I'm sorry, you can sit there and look and play with all your silly machines as much as you like.

Is Gascoyne gonna have a crack?

Yes, you know.

Oh, I think

brilliant!

But jeez!

He's round the goalkeeper!

He's done it!

Absolutely incredible!

He launched himself six feet into the crowd and Kung Fu kicked a supporter who was I WIP without a shadow of a doubt giving 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!

eBay emails an Ethiopia.

A search for the original commentary from the Gazetta Football Italia theme tune.

The many criteria to be a proper football club, judging anonymous fiver side teammates by the obscurity of the kit they're wearing, the level of buy-in from professional players for pre-kickoff activations, the secret PGMOL directives when a ball is trapped in the corner, the modern scourge of cross-sport tribute celebrations, and woke pressing at Power League.

Brought to your ears by Goal Hanger Podcasts.

This is Football Clichés.

Hello everyone and welcome to Football Cliches.

I'm Adam Hurry.

Alongside me for this one is David Walker.

How are you doing?

I'm very good.

How are you?

Yeah, I'm all right.

Jesus, the middlemen that were involved in securing this MHD episode, it was like a Serie A club signing a South American teenager in the 1990s.

I've never been through such sort of impressive middlemen to get this set up.

Yeah, I had to get Pinisha Harvey involved.

Yeah, Kia Drupchian owns 30% of the rights to this episode.

But yes, joining us for the 51st edition of Mezza Harlan Dicks, but as the first ever pair to do so, are the David Attenborough and and Professor Brian Cox of Screen Time, the greatest online content explorers of the 2020s, from Big John to CBS Galatho, from Top Jaw to Mark Goldbridge.

From the Screen Rot podcast, it's Jacob Hawley and Jake Farrell.

How are you doing?

Oh, what an intro that is, by the way.

I feel very welcomed.

We should steal that.

I mean, Jacob's intro to our own podcast is obviously totally insane.

He might try and do a bit of that today if we are.

I like to, at the start of our podcast, Screen Rot, I like to give a i like to out of politeness and manners offer a wink and a kiss to the ladies who listen now i don't know about the demographics i don't know the numbers on football clichés did would you feel that was necessary adam or dave i'm happy to skip it if you feel it's like i think we know all the ladies that listen to this podcast that way personally

otherwise i'd say there's some solid venn diagram going on here based on the uh reaction to the announcement of this episode so um i like to think there's a bit of crossover so yeah by all means drop in as as many many addresses to the likely audience as you like.

Congratulations, by the way, on being the only podcast that I actually listen to.

Oh, my God.

Thank you.

The thing is with your podcast is you basically have to wait for an episode of somebody that you're mildly obsessed with to get really stuck into it.

And this peaked right now, basically, with Tonic Health.

who I absolutely hate.

But I am also obsessed with him.

Every time I open my fridge, I do an impression of him now because I'm just

completely in my head.

I do it in the supermarket.

So for anyone who's not aware, there's a guy called Tonic Health.

He's actually a vitamin salesman, but his online content centers around him walking through a supermarket, sort of picking things off the shelves and going, guys, you may have thought oat milk was good for you.

Here are the reasons why, if you are drinking it, you should consider sacrificing yourself.

And I walks around the supermarket, and I now do that every time me and my missus go to the supermarket.

I now pull things off the shelves and go, Did you know that Parmigiano-Reggiano isn't actually what you think it is?

He has completely lost it.

Um, but the comments underneath his videos are great because it's just full of people going, You said I could eat that the other day.

You said I could eat dates.

What's wrong with dates?

Tonic Health is the new Daily Mail.

One week, you should all eat pot noodles to stay alive till you're 80.

The next week, they're going to immediately give you cancer.

He is, I mean, it's a tailor-like a lot of time.

These new media people just filling in old stuff.

He's Dr.

Jillian McKeith, just with a lot less production value.

Yeah, so now I'm fully on board.

So thank you.

But Dave, one of the issues we get in guests for Mezzo Harla Dicks is often the ultimate question is: do we think they'll be up for it?

And they sent over a 1,740-word Google Doc.

Banished any lingering fears we might have had of whether or not they would get it.

And I was thinking back to like who of all the guests we've had on, who was the next best?

Because you obviously have now zoomed to the top of the charts in terms of being prepared for this.

I think actually, to be honest, Keir Starmer might actually be the second in terms of the length of list that he gave us.

Even though he didn't turn out amazingly well, he did put a bit of thought into it that's incredible i'm so oh what what esteemed company to be in yeah i did when i say over i don't if you remember that episode of peep show where mark runs to become the chair of his residence committee and he's created like a 45 slide presentation and then the other people go up and they'll go i'll do it if you want and he goes might have overcooked it and i i kind of had a similar a similar feeling as i sent the the link to the google doc but

for anyone who for anyone who's listened to much of jake on our podcast or other podcasts it will not surprise you to know that he is the chair of his residence association in

his block of flats.

I am an honourable man.

But yeah, no, I also felt like it was one of the bit of a peek behind the curtain of the comedy industry here.

But when you're invited, as I've never have been, on a panel show, it's not uncommon for people to basically sub-contract out some of the jokes and get writers in and like pay them to do half the prep in the and seeing as an investment in their future earnings, basically, so you don't actually earn any money from it.

I think I could have sub-contracted this assignment out to like seven of my mates for free.

I've been getting texts all week, like, no, the list is sent.

It's over.

It's over 2,000 words long.

I can't add any more to it.

So yeah, I just hope I do the do the community justice.

Well, the choices are broadly about eight out of ten.

The reasoning behind them, nine and a half out of ten.

I'm so excited for this.

But do you know what?

I'm a particular reason I'm glad you're both here, because I've been waiting for an even semi-appropriate moment to use this.

And I can't think of anyone better to run this past.

Please, could you rate my impression of Mike Porky Parry, which I had to briefly abandon my family on holiday to record as a WhatsApp voice note about two years ago?

People who queue in pubs should be

taken to the Tower of London and

then put on display for the rest of the country to see these wrong.

It's the cadence.

It's the cadence.

It's right, okay.

Thinking about this sentence as I formulate it in my head.

Yeah, he's never sure what he's about to say.

Anyone who does cross a Zebra crossing without waiting for someone to pass should be shot, actually.

Basically, you can do a Porky Parry mad libs, which is like kind of minor social inconvenience plus form of corporal punishment equals Porky Parry's view on something.

So like kind of listening without your headphones on the train, put to death.

Like that's the kind of thing that we're dealing with.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't don't put the salt and pepper back at a restaurant, hung in a town street.

The tick that you missed, that you missed, Adam, on that was, and Jacob, you got it straight away, is the use of okay.

He says okay after after every other way okay okay right okay yes okay i put it to you okay like a buffering human being yeah it is well they're from that era obviously so so he porky was obviously talk sport with with mike graham who's now morphed into something even more terrifying but but but they they they were from that era of radio of like there's no dead air and what was it if you go back and listen to their stuff the two mics what they don't let each other not not speak do you know what i mean what one well while the other one is speaking they fill the gaps so i mean jake and i can do this if jake starts telling you what he had for breakfast today, yes, I had some Yuesli and some granola and just got a bit of yogurt on there.

Yus!

They're not listening.

They don't listen to each other.

So just wait for any gaps to go, yes, yus, yes, yus.

We don't have that chemistry on this podcast whatsoever.

Well, you're actually paying attention to what each of you are saying rather than getting on to the next page of the Daily Mail article.

Right.

Okay.

Have you seen that in Italy?

They're living till they're 85.

They're not doing any work.

that kind of thing.

Yeah.

Right, normally we would run through some topical matters for the adjudication panel before we get stuck into the main event, but everything that we could possibly have talked about today has been completely overshadowed by the last 48 hours of my life and several other people's actually.

This is a story that will be headlined, if it ever would be an athletic article, with eBay Emails in Ethiopia, a search for the original commentary from the Gazette of Football Italia theme tune.

Right, so on Tuesday's pod, we had a message from listener CJD, who sent us this clip from an unlisted YouTube video of Clyde beating East Stirlingshire 7-1 in the Scottish 3rd Division in October 2011.

After the seventh goal, they played this over the PA system.

Now, as you both will recognise, that is the commentary that ended up being sampled in the title music for Gazette Football Italia.

Have you ever wondered where it came from?

Only every day of my life, regularly, before bed.

So glad you're here.

Right.

So, yes, so here is the Gazette Football Italia for anybody who is not accustomed to this sort of thing.

An iconic piece of audio, Dave.

You know, over the years, people have often pondered whether it's Go Lazio, which is an absurd thing to ponder.

Like, why was that ever encouraged?

It's what I thought it was when I first heard it as a child.

Same here.

That's what I used to run around the garden saying Golazio.

Yeah, I thought that was what I was doing.

I know, terrible stuff.

That is a shame.

Anyway, CJD said he'd been searching for the answer to this mystery for the last decade.

His mate, who had played the original audio in the stadium at Clyde Clyde that day, moved to Australia and disappeared.

This became some sort of CIA conspiracy.

So I don't want to get all who do you think you are on BBC, but we got some Brazilian Portuguese speakers on the case about this to try and find it.

Skysports Natalie Jedra thought she heard the name Muller who played up front for Brazil in the late 80s and 90s.

So I went to watch every single goal he scored for Brazil with the Brazilian commentary and I couldn't find it.

So it wasn't him.

And all of his goals were really scrappy.

So no galasos amongst them.

So I didn't know where to turn.

And then then someone else pointed out that the same commentary was sampled two years before Gazette was launched in a 1990 track called Goal by Depth Charge.

So this took me to about Tuesday, mid-Tuesday morning, Jake.

And, you know, for all the kind of information that was being kind of fired at me, I was still actually no closer to finding the origin.

But it is good fun so far, right?

May I just say,

I've said it many times.

Men are class, by the way.

The man that decided that was an appropriate sting to play in a 7-1-vit win between Clyde and Livingston, that man's class.

The man who told you about his friend going missing on Australia.

He's a class man as well.

And by extension, you, someone who's watched every goal that someone called Muller has scored for Brazil.

All good goals, by the way.

None of them entertaining goals, scrappy goals.

Quite clear on that.

All of them shite.

Pretty fun.

Yes, men are class.

That's all my interjection into the story so far.

Excited to see where it ends.

Yeah, I mean, only got to the point, Dave, where I thought, well, Muller only scored 12 goals for Brazil.

But I thought, well, maybe the commentator just mentioning his name in passing.

Do I have to look up his assists?

Like, when he's been set one up wow it's killing me I sort of drew a line under that and then quite a few people also got in touch to say they'd heard the full commentary on an obscure football music compilation tape given away free with total football magazine in 1996 this compilation was called the best of bend it the last in a series of compilations released by exotica records So I ended up ordering a copy of this cassette, audio cassette, off eBay.

It hasn't turned up yet, which is quite annoying.

I emailed the owner of Exotica Records, lives in Dulwich.

Of course he does.

All of them, all without being sure that this commentary was actually on there in full and being useful.

Meanwhile, the friend of the podcast, Jack Lang, was still on the case.

It turns out he had a number for Jose Altofini, the commentator himself, who's now 84 years old, still with us.

So he messaged him on WhatsApp.

No response.

So then a Brazilian friend of Jack Lang messaged him with a new theory.

that it's not Jose Altofini at all.

He thinks it's a guy called Osmar Santos who was kind of the big commentator in the 70s and 80s.

It could be good because this guy's got a really interesting story.

He lost his voice.

He had like a brain hemorrhage, now can't speak, and has turned into like an artist.

He's very old now, obviously, still alive.

What?

How many more angles could this story have?

This is incredible.

Yeah.

This is like one of those things from like an NPR podcast where they like spend like 45 minutes kind of fucking.

Just do this for two hours.

Yeah, I'm happy to.

So here is the aforementioned Osmar Santos commentating on a goal for Brazil against Yugoslavia in a friendly in 1986.

So Jacob, in many ways, this was encouraging because it sounds like the guy who uses this catchphrase quite a lot, but it was also quite deflating because the widely accepted theory that it was Jose Altafini was now completely open to question.

It could be anybody.

So I had to widen the net.

So I didn't know at this point whether to be encouraged or not.

This is unbelievable.

What are those like investigation podcasts called?

Like the search for the lost crypto queen.

It's like that for bald men who used to play pro-evolution soccer.

This is like serial for men with mental health problems.

I only briefly played pro-evo, actually, so take that back.

So I didn't know where to go from here.

Dave, by this time, I'd been concentrating so hard on all of this throughout Tuesday morning that I got a migraine and went half blind.

But I was still sitting in the dark listening to 12-minute compilations of Osmar Santos.

Well, we're on the case here.

Like, you've really got very close to finding it, surely.

Yeah, I thought, I had a feeling I could get this under my own steam, but I was basically, my brain was genuinely running out of CPU power.

Like, I felt my brain full up.

Until I got a message from Aitor, who's a Brazilian listener who works as a diplomat in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Good lord.

He'd gone down a few rabbit holes with this, but he knew that Brazilian radio had started that Brazil sound effect after every goal, and they'd started that in 1968.

So, logically, he turned his mind to the 1970 World Cup.

So, here on June the 3rd, my birthday, by the way, can you say that if you haven't been born?

My birth date.

Birth date.

I think birthday is possible, yep.

So, June the 3rd, 1970.

The score is Brazil 3, Czechoslovakia 1, 83rd minute.

Pele picks up the ball on the halfway line and sweeps it out to Jasinho on the right.

Q Radio Nacional commentator Georgia Curie.

So there it fucking is.

Wow.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

That is a serious piece of work you've done there for almost no reason.

But well done.

Are your family still in the house?

Are they still willing to be part of your life?

Oh, I was fully invested in this.

She keeps shouting Golasso around the house.

It's fantastic.

In fact, if I play the audio in the house one more time, the whole house turns into a big copy of Monday R magazine.

I also had a real feeling.

I've been reading a book about the Yorkshire Ripper, Berwick, and the head detective in that case, Detective Oldfield, it basically ate him alive from the inside out.

Just he couldn't, he couldn't.

Like, he was searching and searching and searching.

There was a bit of that energy to your telling of the tale there.

It was like, if we hadn't found it, I would have feared for you.

I really would.

Oh, it's Captain Ahab and the whale.

That's the story as old as time.

I felt the migraine coming and I thought, oh no, this is going to set me back hours.

But I've plowed on through it.

Is it a bit disappointing, perhaps, to find out that it's not a goal from Italian football?

No,

I kind of assumed it would be a Brazilian goal, but of course, Jose Altofini sort of was a naturalised Italian and he only ever commented on Italian football.

So I think this is where the confusion kind of must have come in.

I'm more annoyed, actually, Dave, that it wasn't something more obscure.

Like, this is one of the greatest goals ever scored at the World Cup.

Yeah, exactly.

From

the most famous World Cup of of all time.

Yeah.

Again, serial killer stuff, hiding in plain sight

right in front of our face.

Desperate to be caught.

Yeah.

Well, there you go.

But unfortunately, all this time, for the last 30 years or so, everyone's been living a lie.

James Richardson's been living a lie.

Steve Dewberry, the producer of the Gazette theme tune, who just claimed it came out of his imagination, has been living a lie.

Everyone who's ever written a piece about the Gazette Football Italia theme tune, sort of we've all been kind of led very gently down the garden path about this.

And that, as they say, is the real quiz.

Yeah.

But you know what?

The reason why this audio is even out there, Jake, brilliantly, it's because in 1970, they released the commentary for every Brazil goal at that World Cup on vinyl.

Wow.

That's where it's from.

That's class.

That's the kind of thing,

if I was about eight years old around that time, that's what my nan would get me for Christmas: a vinyl of some commentary from the most recent World Cup.

I mean, it'd have to be a bloody long vinyl to get one of Peter Drury's on there, wouldn't it?

The full name and everything.

It's available for two quid on discogs.

So

must cop.

Yes.

That's a must cop.

Record store day is coming.

Record store day is coming.

Yeah, the price of that has just gone up big time because now all of your listeners are going to be clambering to get it.

I've claimed too much credit for this.

Cliche's listener, Eitor Figaredo Sobral Torres.

You are a legend.

Thank you.

Works for the UN.

So.

Oh, my God.

Taking time out for his busy schedule to help you.

There's not much going on internationally at the moment.

I don't think the UN are busy.

Let him carry on.

It's fine.

Just to round this point home one more time, for the avoidance of all future doubt, here they are, side by side.

Well, my life is somewhat complete, I would say.

So

we've done the Euro 96, Three Lions,

Brooking, Hanson, Hill.

We found that.

We've found Gazzetta Italia.

What's next?

What's the next frontier?

I don't know.

I mean, I suppose we've got to find the guy who goes,

I don't know, Italian.

No.

Is it James Horncastle?

I bet it is just a really young James Horncastle.

Another really easy easy one, yeah.

This is like your, like, wasn't that that kind of probably apocryphal story about like the day after they won the European Cup in Barcelona, Fergie was back at Carrington watching like old videos of their opponents and stuff.

Like, this is your moment.

You need to be back out there tomorrow looking for more stuff.

I'm not resting on these Laurels.

We'll celebrate tonight.

We'll have a beer tonight.

Absolutely.

Tomorrow.

Of course.

Then attention will turn to.

We'll go back to the training ground on Monday.

We'll just focus on the next season.

Absolutely.

Well, yeah, delighted to bring that to everybody.

This episode of Football Clichés is brought to you in association with Saley, a new e-Sim service app from the creators of NordVPN.

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We'll be back in a moment with Mezat Harland Dix with the Screen Rot Podcast.

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Oh, look at that!

That is wonderful!

Welcome back to Football Clichés.

It's time for the main event.

It's Mezza Harlan Dix with the Scream Rock podcast.

Six incredible choices, but I think the reasoning behind them, as I said, is it's going to open up so many cans of worms.

How did you divide the six between you, may I ask?

Um, we kind of, I did a first pass at them, and then Jacob did a kind of approve, disapprove on, and we honed it down through that.

So,

yeah, there are still some

bits in here where we're slightly misaligned, and I think that that will come out during it.

Um, some of it stemming from the fact that Jacob, of course, is not a football fan, he's an Arsenal fan, which is two very different things.

Yes, um, but one of the only things he doesn't like me needling needling him about, actually, is his beloved of Arsenal.

So that will probably come out.

But yeah, it's kind of a joint effort overall.

Excellent.

Right.

Your three fascinations of football begin with this.

Tell us about it.

Well, this is a big one for both of us.

And a mate of mine, Hen, as well.

We've been long debating what the classification or categorical types and thresholds are for what is a proper football club.

And I think that you'll often say to yourself, oh, there's 25,000 there on a Tuesday night, like proper football.

And it was on TV, proper football club.

And I'm really interested in what the dimensions of that are.

I think, and this is where I've got to so far.

I think the club has to be old.

Right.

How old?

Well, I've got the rough barometer of over 100 years in there, but I'd be willing to look at 85.

I'm willing to, because that really does separate the wheat from the chaff.

So when I saw this first.

criterion, I was instinctively led towards a Wikipedia page for a list of English and Welsh football clubs and their year of formation.

So I sorted it by most recent.

So I thought, how far back can we go in terms of club formation

and still be able to call a club proper?

Proper, okay.

So, Jake, I mean, it kicks off with MK Don's 2004.

I think we can safely assume they do not qualify.

Yeah, that's fair to say.

Don't worry about that.

Right then.

AFC Wimbledon, you know, with all due respect,

are too recent.

I mean,

they are too recent.

Well, this is, I was at the playoff final at the weekend.

and jake went to all of them jake jake went to every playoff final really yeah yeah your brand tie-ins are pretty good

so i'm writing a piece for the blizzard about i went to the leeds playoff final last year whole family of leeds fans the first part of the day best day of my life latter part of the day worst day of my life by considerable distance and so i i i'm interested in this like every single moment of a playoff final is freighted with this insane level of meaning and tension and i was kind of interested to see it three days in a row yeah i think it's it was meant to be about like that and about fathers and sons and about kind of connection to your hometown.

It's probably going to be end up being about Wembley DJ Tony Perry.

I'm not sure if you're aware of him.

No.

He's like the guy that kind of is beforehand.

They cut to him for 10 minutes and he's just like, he'll play like a dance version of Dancing in the Dark by Springsteen or whatever.

He's just like.

kind of like that, like he's on boiler room or something.

I've just, yeah, it's going to be 3,000 words about hatred for DJ Tony Perry.

But anyway,

I will just bat it out by saying I've spent my morning with an AFC Wimbledon fan who is still, despite the fact they went up raging about that DJ.

About DJ.

Yeah.

But like, so I was talking to a friend that I went with, like, because they've kind of, I don't know if they've officially claimed the club history, but like, they, they kind of own those FA Cups and those previous cups.

So does that make them count as a proper proper club?

I fear that if we get too far into this, we might not touch on any of the other fascinations or irritations.

Old clubs.

I think we're all in agreement that they've got to be old.

85 years seems a reasonable threshold to me.

It's pretty hard to find a club, you know, administration, the Barkles aside, that hasn't been around for over 100 years.

Stephen Itch, 1976.

Like, some feel modern.

Bournemouth feels like a modern club.

Do you know what I mean?

South Coast stadium named after a private health insurance company.

It's, you know, sort of woke European manager with clever ideas.

That's a modern club.

Yes.

Whereas Sunderland...

That's an, even though they've now got a European manager, that's a proper club.

Leeds, proper club.

I think the fan base needs to have a sort of working-class factory town and a real sense of misery.

Proper club.

I think Sunderland are in there because they definitely tick the box of, oh, they had 28,000 in League One.

Yes.

You know, going every week.

Proper club.

I think the documentary harms their chances a little bit, though.

Well, this is what I kind of

came to, is that you can, the being a proper club can wax and wane slightly as well.

That's true.

In the case of Brighton, of course, they are the least proper club.

It's really nice there.

They've got really good recruitment policy.

They've got kind of good managers and stuff.

Not a proper club.

Out of town stadium.

What's with the anti-South Coast bias when it comes to this particular club?

It just happens to be that.

I don't think it.

Got the landmark to be a proper club.

Are the Green Party still in power in Brighton?

Not a proper club.

Caroline Lucas, not a proper club.

I'm not having it.

Portsmouth, though.

Portsmouth, Portsmouth.

Proper club.

Proper club.

On an island.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Proper club.

And so this is, like you say, I'm a Stevenage season to get holder for my Sins, and they are not a proper club.

1976, we are not a proper club.

We are punching above our weight, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 there every week.

Not a proper club.

And you lost the borough, which I think really counts against you.

Not to me.

We didn't.

We never lost the borough to me.

That was a real sore spot

amongst the fans.

Borough, of course, when you're getting annoyed about the kind of local authority jurisdiction you use to append your football club, that's when you know you've kind of got a half-decent life, I think.

But that's, yeah, that's true.

But so I think, and this is where I'm talking about waxes and wanes, Ipswich, right?

Not a proper club, too good currently.

But if Kieran McKenna goes, they get a shit manager in and they end up kind of 17th in the championship three years from now, will be back to being a proper club.

They had Matt McCarty not that long ago.

I mean, that's the most as proper as you can get.

The thing is with Ipswich, it makes me worry, Jake, about the crossover between proper clubs and family clubs.

I mean, there's a sort of hierarchy here.

Are all family clubs proper clubs?

No, because I would say that Watford are a family club, famously.

The original family club, I'll have you know, mate, as we market ourselves.

Exactly.

The original family club.

I went there with my cousin a lot growing up.

Not a proper club.

And Jacob and I have very strong views on Brentford.

And on,

I actually called their chairman Jeremy Bentham earlier, but that's a philosopher from the age.

It's Matthew Bentham.

The gumbling thing, the money ball thing, it's very Yank.

That's not a proper club.

No, I do agree with this.

And this is where, like, Leeds, Leeds now have seemingly decent Yank-based ownership.

They could be straying into not proper club territory.

They may be too good.

At the moment, I think that the title belt of proper club is held by Bradford.

There were 27,000 there when they came third in League Two this year.

Stevenage went up second in League Two two years ago with 5,000 there.

Full pitch invasion, borderline riot at the end of the game.

They had to delay the kickoff by six minutes.

That's proper club areas for me.

That's good stuff.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, sort of one club city.

Yes, which is shocking.

That's big.

Mark Hughes was their manager recently, which is very proper club.

Shooting call fell off that car once.

Properly.

I had that in the original 2500-word version of the notes, and I cut that down.

I thought that was too niche.

I thought that can't cap falling off the car pierced.

But also, no, semi-seriously, they've got proper club colours.

There's something really grand and old about Clara and Amber.

That's proper club.

You couldn't create a club now with Clara and Amber shirts.

It wouldn't happen.

That's absolutely true.

And I think also that being the backdrop to proper club moments.

So the famous Paul School's volley off the corner was scored kicking towards the away end at Valley Parade.

And that's proper club stuff.

And that's because that's the moments of our lives and therefore is proper.

So I think they might hold the belt at the moment, but I would be open to further bids.

Jacob and I would be open to being some kind of czar position on this.

Like we have the nightlife czar in London, which, as far as I can tell, their job is to just moan about pubs being shut.

I'm not really sure.

I would be open to some kind of like dubious goals panel.

People could submit to us that they are a proper club.

We will decide.

As Kirbishley once said, we're available.

We're available.

Do you know what?

If you'd seen the headline for this, Dave, that we were going to discuss what it means to be a proper club, I think a lot of people would fear that it's going to veer into the kind of same sort of debate as what it means to be a big club.

But no.

I mean, the nuance that's gone on here, superb.

Yeah, I think this sometimes gets confused a little bit.

And I think the EFL themselves have really traded on this idea of the entire Football League being real football for real fans, proper football.

And there is more to it than that,

as we've already discussed.

And I think increasingly as well, sort of the ongoing non-league resurgence that we've seen perhaps sort of since post-COVID, you get a lot of people going to whatever non-league ground that is near to them, going, That's proper football, that is.

That's proper football.

And I mean,

it's the same kind of deal down in non-league.

Like, is Donnych Hamlet proper football?

No, Dave, no, it's not.

It's terrible.

It's a day out for girls that live in Clapham who've got nice dogs.

And um, I live under a four-minute walk from the stadium.

I will never go there again.

The last time I went there was five years ago, and I had to um, during that, I almost shushed someone who was talking loudly about their mortgage rates whilst I was trying to watch the football, which was why we were all there.

It is not a proper club, uh, it is a vehicle for a Peter Crouch documentary that no one watches, um, and a place to buy street food and craft lager.

Uh,

what a way to wrap up fascination number one.

Let's have fascination number two, please.

So, I play a mixture of Five-Asside with a group of people that I've known for 10 years.

We play every Friday in Vauxhall.

And we somehow sometimes have interlopers, ringers come in for the week.

I also play in the kind of grinder app of

Five-Asside football known as Footy Addicts, where you turn up lurking around usually a school gate with a bunch of other 30-year-old men waiting to all play together, shall we say.

And a big part of the beginning of those games is trying to place yourself within the hierarchy of who's going to be good and who's going to be shit.

It's a massive, it's a massive thing.

And obviously, as the organizer, who's usually a teenager that's smoking spice on the side of the pitch, is setting up the game, they'll give you the bibs and you think, oh shit, I've got him, or

how are we going to get absolutely pumped here?

And I've been trying to work out what are the kind of defining features of knowing that someone's going to be good.

And then what I do is I kind of do a blink test there and then I assess them in my head.

And then afterwards, I rate them back against what I said before the game and see how well I'm able to predict it.

We've got little notes.

Yeah, I've got a spreadsheet.

No,

sorry, lads.

Can we just hold the game?

I've got that in the spreadsheet.

A few things that I've picked up.

Nice or matching kit is obviously a terrible sign.

That's really bad.

I think, particularly if it's a tasteful track suit.

There is one person I'm thinking of particularly that plays in Brixton near me who's got an amazing PSG Air Jordan track suit.

He's just a man that works in finance.

It's not good stuff.

So that's one area where I'm thinking, I don't want him.

Don't give him a bib.

I think fundamentally, I can't handle playing football with anyone in trousers.

Agree.

I've made that mistake.

So when I played when I was younger,

I was not good.

And

I would say one of the biggest traumas of my life, I was taking a kickoff.

I was about 12 or 13.

I was about to take a kickoff.

And the referee mugged me off in front of everyone on the pitch because my mum had insisted that I wear tracksuit bottoms and everyone else was in shorts.

The referee just looked at me and went, Cold today, are you?

And that was it.

I would say that was the end of my footballing career, actually.

I would say that was the end of me ever playing football.

There's no going back to beyond the age of 16.

That's an awful feeling.

That's quite vivid.

Yeah.

Flash boots are often a sign that no they're not going to be that good.

You're overcompensating.

Do you do you know how people say, like, a sort of sports car is often overcompensating for insecurities about yourself?

I think when you turn up to Five Aside in, like, lime green or bright pink boots,

you're not confident in your actual ability.

Well, We're past that note, surely.

It's 2025.

Like all boots are green and pink.

Like there's no escaping it.

This is it though, but you can have, I would say that I'm someone, and this is a different classification person.

You can studiously be so aloof that you would avoid those boots.

Yeah.

I've gone as far as to purchase a pair of all-black bizunos before just to show how much of a student of the game I am.

And

that took me a long time to find those in the right size.

They were horribly uncomfortable.

Obviously, you're much better off buying some night vapors in in lime green but um that was my that was my way around it so but yeah you're right the proliferation of it does make it hard to some of those players that can actually be quite good um i mean that yeah that that can be the mark of a baller as they say

i think i think it's more about less about the colour more about unless it's unless we're in august say um it's it's more about the newness of the boots if those green boots are still shiny he's just gotten from sports direct on the day because he doesn't own any decisions that's more of a concern yeah that or running trainers that or some hokers and you're you're really struggling

running trainers and tracks your bottoms i would leave oh my god i would actually leave no come on if you ever get a keeper who's good in gold but isn't fat they will be good on the pitch as well that's happened to me about nine times yeah i did that face out when he told me

yeah once he wants to work

not a big lad who's in there because he doesn't like running someone who's genuinely good at goalkeeping they will be amazing on the pitch and and they will you'll you'll be a, this has happened to me so many times.

You will be a bad fiver side team.

You'll be losing, but they will have made some incredible saves.

And then the keeper will go, shall I try playing on the pitch just to flip it up?

And you'll go, no, but you're the one stopping them scoring.

And then they'll score some goals.

That's happened to me so many times.

I think you've just described Adam.

Yeah.

That's you.

You're a good keeper.

You're a good keeper.

And you're a good up pitch.

How can people not be good in goal?

What's wrong with people?

I'm so bad in goal.

I'm embarrassingly poor in goal.

People sort of turn kind of into semi-permeable membranes when they go in goal in five sides.

That's to stop it going in.

Use all your football intellect to stop the shot going in.

On the worst mix, I'm someone who's letting it in front post with a weak wrist.

And then I'm also, if someone else is doing the same, I'm turning away in disgust when I'm out on pitch.

Do you want to come out, Jake?

Do you want to come out?

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I think as well, that's kind of a, I think that's a link to like elite level football as well.

Because wasn't it always like Wayne Rooney was so good in goal, he could have played like League Two of goalie as well.

There's that kind of vibe, like master of all trades thing going on.

Just a couple of other things that people should look out for.

You don't want them on your team.

If they've got a genuinely nice retro shirt on, you don't want to be anywhere near them.

Like if they've got the Boca Jr.'s Killmay sponsored one,

they are a Monday Our subscriber.

They are an R footballer.

They cannot be allowed to play.

But that being said, I mean, worst case of that is the Bob Marley Arsenal shirt.

That can't, you can't just get the iX shirt, sorry.

The IX one, yeah.

I could be forgiven that Arsenal for releasing.

No, sometimes the Gooners are that wavy.

I completely get why you went that way because sometimes Gooners can be that wavy, but in that case, it was an IAC shirt.

Captain, the gooners, they're too wavy.

But then if you see someone in a niche but very nice shirt,

like my friend has a lot of incredibly nice Ipswich shirts, to go back to a theme of a proper club, that's good, that's good, that's intentional, and that's what we like that.

But you could be quite patronising with that aspect of it, Dave.

You could say, well, you know, oh, they support a lower league club.

They must be good at football.

I mean, should that tally?

I mean, in some ways, I kind of sympathise with that.

But

I fear you might might be sort of, I don't know, patronizing slightly.

Is that possible?

I don't know.

I think it is a decent marker.

I would feel comfortable.

I would feel reassured if I saw someone turning up

with a worn-in, tatty 2003 for Lincoln City shirt or something.

You know,

no one's buying it for street cred.

It's not a fashionable thing, but like they actually wore it.

Yeah, exactly.

But the unspoken thing, Jake, with retro or sort of fashion-adjacent football-style shirts is that you're not really supposed to play football in them.

Exactly.

So, I think, I mean, you're spot on there.

They really shouldn't, they shouldn't touch the friction.

You've misunderstood.

You've misunderstood why we've all come to this primary school in Streatham.

And it is not so you can exhibit the latest Roma throwback shirt.

It's so that we can shout at each other and maybe kick people if we get angry.

Like,

this is not a fashion show.

It can be a nice sense, not when it's too top top end but like when there's like really random shirts like maybe you've picked one up from on holiday or i don't know you've got one one of those bloody mystery shirts or something like if you don't know these people can be a nice little icebreaker though if you go oh what's that what's that shirt mate what's where's that from staring at the badge get that a bit from the stevenage badge yeah oh nice yeah i think there's also a level and i do this alternatively where the club is so low and stevenage doesn't quite count as this but it's like oh did this person play for that do you know what i mean like are they using some of the old kit?

Exactly.

Yeah.

Oh, wow.

Like, Market Harbor Town.

Okay,

this guy's good.

Spot on.

That is spot on.

Well, yeah, I just dawned on me as well.

One of my mates is not into football at all, but really likes playing five-aside.

And he plays like twice a week.

He's quite more than serviceable, one of my best mates from home.

But as a result, he doesn't have a club and he just goes on M ⁇ M Direct to the website and he just buys whatever shirt is the cheapest on there.

Oh, wow.

And he doesn't really talk to the people that he plays with.

So to them, he must be the weirdest guy ever because he usually turns up in a he does a cycle of he's got a Mill Wall away shirt from two years ago, a Trinidad and Tobago strip and a Shack Dardanette's training top.

Now, that is like this guy's trying to fuck with me.

Somebody must have played for those three clubs.

Somebody.

Exactly, right in for the Andy Ryan trio, yeah, for sure.

I think, I mean, you were hinting towards it there, but anyone who arrives alone and is a bit of a rogue.

They're often very good.

What kind of behaviours do they display?

Doesn't speak to anyone, smoking non-stop.

They will always be very good.

My mate is so my mate

moved to Cambodia for love a few years ago and has settled down with a Cambodian girl over there.

He doesn't really speak the language.

He's struggled to make friends.

He plays five aside four times a week to the Cambodian gentleman he plays with.

He is the strange Englishman who smokes non-stop but then scores every goal possible to score.

He's really good at football.

He doesn't speak to anyone.

He can't speak the same language as anyone, but he just hammers cigarettes and bangs goals in.

Can I offer a theory on this particular subject, Jacob?

If you move to a country that would be generally considered to be a footballing backwater and you sign up for a local five-aside game, do you think you turn up with the inherent belief that you are better sort of at a DNA level?

Are you saying that if he'd have gone to Brazil, he might not have been quite so confident?

I mean, basically, if you want to flip it, then yeah, yeah, I would.

It's funnier the other way around, but yeah, it's fine.

It's a tragic story, the The man who moved to Brazil, who's got no mate, who smokes and is awful at fire.

There must be an outside hope there that you just like, there's a scout going, bloody oh, this guy.

How did we miss this guy?

Oh, he's from England.

He smokes a lot, but he can do a job.

Arsenal players had this.

I remember there was talk of Vojek Chesni doing this and Mikel Arteta of they've been in England long enough.

Could they get an English passport and play for the English national team?

That would be the dream for my mate Andy in Cambodia.

Is he was never good to even dream of professional football in the UK, but perhaps in Cambodia

he could get his passport and play for their national team.

The oldest pub debate in time.

What country could you go and play for if you could get a passport?

I do think you're right, though, with this point, that particularly with footy addicts, the chattier and friendlier that you are before the game, the worse you're going to be.

The guy that's going around going, do you want to play left back?

Just ignore him at all costs.

That's just incredible behaviour with strangers, isn't it?

Yeah.

What shape do we want to be in?

What shape do you want to be in, mate?

Get somebody.

It's going to be organised, though, right?

It's a semblance of organisation.

Is it a district match?

When we're 6-0 down, 10 minutes in, then I'm wishing we listened to that guy.

But yeah, I think beforehand, the guy that's kind of proactively getting everyone to share their names.

Come on, mate.

It's not team building day.

Joe, I'm a bit worried at this point.

You know, have you ever played Guess Who?

You know, when you're flicking down the people,

I reckon we've done in about 75% of our listenership now, just by clicking off all these boxes.

Who have we got left?

They're turning off now.

They're all giving Screen Rock bad reviews on Apple Podcasts and stopping listening when we got to Exotica Records anyway.

It's fine.

Right.

Your third and final fascination, please, Screen Rock.

This one, this is a borderline irritation, borderline fascination, really.

But I sit like right

on the touchline at the Steven Edge, just above the tunnel.

And as a result, I get to see every team in League One and League Two for the last four years.

All of them come out just before kickoff.

And without fail, there will be a fitness coach there, tight track suit bottoms, blacked out boots, hair transplant.

And he will have the cones out.

And as the players come out, he will stand there and he will kind of clap, do that kind of fast rhythmic clap getting them to go through the cones and i think that it's some kind of like muscle activation thing or like short sharp movements before you play and the thing that i've noticed about all of these activities is that fuck all players do them literally No one ever does it.

I don't know what they're doing.

I don't know why they're wasting time on it.

And if it was me, I would be like, well, well, stop.

We're not going to play until you do this properly.

I would be full year six teacher.

Like, we're either doing it or we're not doing it.

But they never do.

And I don't know what the purpose of it is.

I think it's very interesting how you go up through football, how players react to that.

Because as a fan of a Premier League club, I've seen Arsenal doing that in the past, and I've seen away teams at the Emirates do it.

Most of them will do it.

And I actually yearn for the time when, because Arsenal at the moment, we're a kind of team of prefects who can be Arteta's favourite good boy.

And I miss kind of four or five years ago when we would have some nerd nerd from the backroom team who's 26 trying to put out cones and ask Socrates Papadopoulos to jump through a little hoop before he gets on the pitch.

And the way that Abameyang would sneer at those hoops before gently sidestepping them and Arteta would look like he wanted to kick a pet as he watched Abamayang.

I miss that quite a lot.

It's the shit, like, they're not even giving the illusion that they're doing it.

Some of them, they're not even touching, they're barely getting their legs over the cones.

And like,

our captain carl pierjani the mr football mr stevenage right he's the model professional by the way like he is uh and i kind of mentioned in the in the in the document like he is club captain people would refer to him as the club captain which is not a relevant term at all it's only relevant when the person who's club captain is too shit to play like like joel ward is they become a kind of ceremonial figure right exactly they become they become like an ambassador yeah they become like a a trade envoy for the club But he is referred to consistently as the club captain, which is an extra mark of respect.

Pierre Gianni.

Yes.

That's perilously close to if his name was Territory.

Exactly.

Exactly.

It's the inverse of that.

But

all he does is head it, kick it, and shake people's hands after the game.

And even he doesn't do the activation.

So in that respect, unless you are number one starboy Bacayo Saka, who is doing it?

Well, I mean, it is quite a common sight, David.

Like, I feel like it's a standard thing amongst clubs.

But the real flex is when clubs do it at the start of the second half.

Oh, insane.

Because that's very Brentford to me.

I feel like Brentford would do that, especially if they're 1-0 down.

It's like, get them going, get them activated again.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's very...

Obviously, it's a sports science thing, and if the professionals could explain it, I'm sure they'd tell us in great detail what they were doing and what they were activating.

But it's the same as I've been going to the gym recently and doing like some sort of personal training sessions, right?

And they'd be quite good.

And I've definitely come out of it at the end thinking like, fuck that was hard i've definitely worked hard there but they they do this stuff before like each block of weights or whatever it is we're doing called movement prep and and they're like making us do little stretches that would that will activate the muscles we're about to use and it just feels like the padding out the session to me that is woke nonsense utter woke nonsense there is not you don't have movement prep you do a short sprint towards the touchline and then you're ready to go yes that's that's how it works surely life is just movement prep no one's getting out of bed and going straight to the game, are they?

Surely everyone's been mooching around.

Surely a mooch is enough.

Yeah, a mooch is definitely movement prep.

Absolutely.

Jacob and I do have a short conversation before every Scream Rock record called Scream Rock Prep as well.

That's where we just get the mouth muscles going

so we can get out there and give it our best.

So what do you think is the mentality behind this then?

Well, I connect a lot of it to nihilism.

I believe that it's all.

If you haven't noticed, Jake's depressed.

Yeah,

every single act that a League One manager does, and again, sit right next to the dugout.

So I mainly watch them think it's much more entertaining than the game.

Like, they have no control whatsoever over the game.

They have none.

And they do, I'm assured, some rigorous tactical detail and prep before the game.

And then everyone just goes out and does whatever they want.

And you can see that it's eating them from the inside.

They cannot believe what they're doing.

And I think the biggest manifestation of this, which is a new phenomenon, is of feeling feeling like you have some kind of control over a chaotic and unjust world, is the set piece manager or the set piece coach coming out to the edge of the technical area and moving someone by about two yards on the edge of the box.

So we have a central midfielder called Dan Phillips.

He constantly gets moved just two yards here, Dan.

And it doesn't do anything.

It just makes you feel like you have control over your own life.

And I think that gives them some kind of semblance of hope.

And it kind of flies in the face, Dave, of the old kind of sentiment of once they cross that white line, you know, you know, it's up to the football gods what's going to happen.

We've done we've done the best we can and we'll just see what happens.

But the paranoia of not being in control from the dugout of a game going on, this is literally Jose Mourinho's fault because he mainstreams the idea of knowing what was going to happen before a game began.

And all the players sort of in their autobiographies going, he knew we were going to win 3-1 with a golfing corner.

And

so that's it.

It's all stemmed from that.

And it's been taken to its sort of logical extension now, Jacob, by Arteta, who is is a completely manic touchline presence, trying to dictate every little movement constantly, right?

Yeah, I d I if you could give him an Xbox controller that was connected to the brains of some of our players,

he'd be deciding where exactly our

deep line midfielders would stand in possession, our out-of-possession shape.

And and obviously Arsenal are famous for the set piece coach Jova, the the the nerd who parades the touchlines and sort of speaks in code to Erdoga.

But it's like also we we sort of garnered that reputation at Arsenal that we're good at set pieces very much in the first three or four months of the campaign.

And it was like, yeah,

we've got this genius.

We've got this guy who's got these ways of doing things.

I don't know if we've scored from a corner in about six months now.

We also concede a lot of corners.

And I sort of come back to the fact now that actually we've got two really good corner takers in Saka and Rice who almost nearly every game come close to scoring from a corner.

And we had Gabrielle at the back who was maybe the best force in the air in the Premier League.

I'm not sure that Joe had any impact on our set pieces whatsoever.

That's great PR by him.

I read a really detailed job description for a job opening at QPR to be their set piece coach.

And it's really long.

And fortunately, someone's got the job now, so the pages have been deleted as I tried to search for it.

About 50 bullet points, all of them, you'll be surprised to learn, relate directly to just learning how set pieces are taken.

Like there's no other job.

And it's like, it's amazing.

It's such a detailed job description, but it's all about set pieces.

Like, there is, and you just think, okay, okay, I think I get it now.

Cheers.

Yeah, is there a bullet point in there that's like, must be able to deal with the fundamental futility of existence?

Must be able to realize that we are just dust in the eyes of history, have no control over anything in our lives.

That should be the last bullet point.

The words of a man who has many books behind him, right there.

Right.

Right, that's the screen rots: fascinations of football taken care of.

We'll be back very shortly with their irritations.

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Welcome back to Football Clichés.

We are here with the Screen Rock podcast.

They've done their footballing fascinations.

Now, Jake and Jacob, let's hear about your footballing irritations, please.

So, the first irritation we wish to raise, we feel that referees are subconsciously biased against attacking teams that are attempting to keep the ball in the corner to maintain a lead you you know when like when you're holding on for the last five and a forward will sort of just hold the ball there it feels as though the refs are against that and i i do think that you know referees are football fans at heart they they want to see last minute winners why are they stopping like that happening it must be because they want drama and it feels almost sky sports directed do you know what i mean it might it feels almost like it feels almost like someone at Sky has said, don't let them just grind this out.

Let's try and get a last-minute winner for Monday night football.

I mean, this is 100% a directive, Dave.

They're buried deep in the PGMOL kind of unwritten rules.

And we can all sympathise with it.

Because if you're watching a game that you're broadly a neutral for, and it's 1-0, say like a playoff final or something like that, and one of the teams are keeping the ball in the corner, and you look at the clock and you think, is there enough time to recycle the ball, which takes some time in that situation, and then launch one more attack?

You're kind of willing the ball to become free, basically.

You're willing the ball to be returned to the defending team in that situation.

So you can see why referees who have this broad remit, unwritten remit, to keep the game flowing and protect the game as a spectacle.

You can see how this marries together.

Yeah, definitely.

I mean, we touched on this the other day when we were talking about the commentators saying, and still they play on deep into injury time.

And

I completely agree.

Like, I think I was trying to articulate it then, but you've done it much better than I could there.

I do think deep down that even subconsciously, as you say, referees, they're football fans.

They want it.

They do want that opportunity for there to be one last chance.

But we're talking about this in a broad sense, Jake.

Like, you know, the referees sort of just want this ball to be freed from its really unnatural, unfootballing situation.

But there are going to be situations here where a foul simply doesn't occur.

A foul that even could be remotely detected as a foul occur, and they still blow the whistle.

So there's, I mean, you can see where the joins are there.

Yeah, exactly.

I think, like, when it's Mike Dean used to be doing it, he wasn't really doing much acting there.

It's like, what can I give?

I'll give anything.

Obviously, if it goes out, that's a defensive throw.

It doesn't matter who it's come off.

It doesn't matter whether they've kicked it into row Z.

That's, yep, play on.

But the free kick is the most important thing because it enables one of my favourite moments in any game, which is the central defender rolling it back towards the keeper, indicating, I'm going up for this.

This is last-minute stuff.

The keeper running towards the touchline and completely unnecessarily waving everyone forward as though someone were going to go short at that point or someone were going to say, yeah, let's try and build up.

Like, we've got all the time in the world.

And the accompanying crowd roar that goes with that

in the run-up to that goalkeeping free kick.

That's one of the pure, that's such a great moment in any game.

And I think that the referees want that.

Yes.

So, like, the thing is, Jacob, even if your team are the ones trying to keep the ball in the corner, no matter how big the game, it's like it's Champions League final or something,

This outcome where a referee just gives like a soft foul is just basically accepted by everybody.

Like there's never any sort of prolonged sort of protest against it.

It's like, yeah, fair enough.

We've seen this happen to everybody.

It's fine.

Almost as if it is cheating.

Almost as if it would be cheating to let someone keep the ball in the corner.

I've always felt like, I remember when I was younger watching Thierry Henri do it.

And he feels like one of the pioneers of this.

He feels like, and I think some of the kind of sentiment towards it, it felt like a lot of the sentiment sentiment that was against Arsenal at the time, which is like they've got this international, strange professor of a manager who's sort of quiet and quietly spoken, and they do these strange things.

And they're keeping the ball in the corner.

And it's one of my favourite moments of watching Arsenal was, I don't know if you'd remember in 2004 when

Danny Mills, the ball was going back into,

I think he was playing for Middlesbrough at the time, and the ball was in there part of the pitch.

And the ball was sort of rolling towards the corner flag.

Despite it being like the corner that Danny Mills defends, he started doing that thing.

He started protecting the ball while it was in the corner.

Henri managed to get around him, nutmeg him with the ball, and then because he was in the opposition's half, he managed to get across in.

I think it went to Edu, but that has coloured Danny Mills' entire career.

Every time he speaks about Arsenal now, he completely hates them because he was giving it away.

And the funny penalty they tried to do, and that annoyed him as well.

Sorry about Danny Mills, just constantly getting riled by Arsenal's foreign flats.

And

I think it plays into a particularly slightly sense of Britishness as well.

Like, I've been trying to, I reckon it's like the threshold for a foul in that moment is 35% lower than in any other moment of the game.

What is the foul?

Like, what is the, what is, like, put yourself in the referee's eyes.

What do you think is the typical decision they're giving?

Like, what, what, in the most granular way you can describe it, technically, is the foul that's occurred in that situation?

I think they're often giving it for like shirt pulling.

They're often giving it for for a bit of shirt pulling on kind of when you're bringing the player towards you.

I also don't think that they know that they're also, again, to serial killers being a theme of this podcast.

They're reveling in getting away with it.

They know.

We can all see it.

It's not a foul.

They don't give a fuck.

They're going to do it anyway.

They've never been surrounded by players in that situation.

No player's ever gone around and going, what are we giving that for?

Because they just know they've got to get on with it.

They have not got enough time.

And I think that, again, this particularly British sense that this isn't fair play, this isn't appropriate.

This isn't kind of like

Victorian sporting like morals and values.

I don't really watch that much Seria.

I reckon the inverse is directly true.

So like if you are keeping it in the corner, that's a sign of masculinity, savvy and quality.

You're getting the foul every single time.

That ball going in the corner in the 75th minute is not coming out.

That's what I reckon is going on over there.

The ball stays there for about 10 minutes.

Why not?

Well, I mean, we've all been leading to this question.

Dave, it's a very inevitable question.

How early is too early for this behavior, no matter what league you're in?

Because every time I see the ball get played into the channel in this situation, late in a game, I think to myself, would they dare do this now?

Not just in a kind of, is it time to time waste moment, but do they have the footballing balls to ignore actual football and play a completely different sport?

I think the acceptable threshold is probably 85, 86 onwards, but in theory...

It would be late 80s, haven't you?

High 80s.

It does depend a bit on like how, if you're a really small team in the FA Cup, I think you can start doing it as early as you like.

Whereas

if you're a bit more, if it's a Champions League final or Champions League semi-final, I think there has to be a bit of dignity involved in this situation.

We were talking earlier, Jake, about how there was a certain era, Mourinho, sort of peak Mourinho era, where managers knew what were going to happen in the game.

We need to see teams sort of keeping it in the corner in the third minute, just saying, we just save this for later.

We've got this in the bank for later on.

It's like they say, like, a win on the the first day of the season is worth the same as a win on the last day of the season, right?

It's like just because you're closer to the end.

It's maths.

Yeah, it's just maths.

It's just facts.

A bit to me, that time will get added on before halftime, but you know what?

Don't worry about that now, Adam.

Don't worry about that.

Don't worry about that.

We're keeping it in the corner.

Like, yeah, there's some games where I think that might be the closest route for Stevenage to win the game.

So I think, yeah, let's do that.

Let's get in that corner and let's get on with it.

But like, you say semi-final, David, with Champions League.

Like, in the inter-Barca game, which everyone was kind of widely lauding as the return of good football, but it's just two teams that can't defend.

Lameen should have gone in the corner at the end of the game.

Yeah, cut in, hit the post.

Then, bizarrely, there was like seven of them in front of the ball.

If I was playing five aside, I would have been shouting behind the ball, behind the ball, behind the ball.

No one's listening.

Then they got the other end and score.

So

there's no romance to it.

It's just silly.

Get in the corner.

You're not going to get the decision.

And that's bad because the referees are all cheats.

But that's just what you've got to do, I reckon.

On the flip side, there was a great example in the League Two playoff semis semis where Walsall's Albert Adoma took the ball.

He took the ball down to the corner in injury time, and you're expecting him to shield it.

He nutmeged the defender, put a crossing, and they scored a second goal.

He was shielding.

I'm all for it because I think you could completely hoodwig a whole defence with that because that's what they're expecting you to do.

But I mean, I think we can all agree, Jacob, that the most unsatisfying conclusion to this situation is a corner.

Because nobody wants that.

Even you want that.

No, no, Jacob.

Straight into the keeper's hands every single time.

Right.

Second irritation of football, please.

I am completely against cross-sport celebration influencing.

So

you'll have noticed that, as the kids say on Twitter, when Betto scores for Everton, he now hits the LeBron Selly.

That's what people say.

He does this kind of leg stomping thing, which is what LeBron James does in basketball.

And that is,

shouldn't be allowed.

And there is this kind of, I think it started, I think the origination point of this cross sport celebration might have been the Stuart Broad kind of hands-on head when Ben Stokes took a worldy catch in the kind of the famous spell in Trent Bridge

kind of like disbelief Yes, the worldy reaction that kind of over it over yeah, and that's when it started and and it should be banned I think and also I think that the band lengths should be proportionate to the disparity between the quality of the two players in the retro in the respective sports So in the case of Betto who might be in the top thousand footballers in the world 500 footballers in the world probably whereas LeBron James, as far as I know, one of the top five basketball players, that should be a lifetime ban.

You shouldn't be able to do that.

Even if you're sort of going upwards, if you see what I mean.

If you're evoking upwards, is that all right?

Surely.

No, yeah.

It's kind of like punching up or punching down in comedy.

Like, yeah, no, you can't do that.

That's not allowed.

If Betto were to somehow improve, we could assess the length of his ban.

He might be allowed to play again, but I don't want to promise anything on that.

But for example, if Killian Mbappe, top three or four footballers in the world, were to use the celebration of the darts player Stephen Bunting,

also one of the top four players.

What is his celebration?

Well, I think I would class it as his kind of him doing the

Seer song when he comes on.

He's

cupping the year.

Oh, you're the year thing.

Yeah, he will do that after winning a leg as well.

Stephen Bunting, incidentally, my age, which is

really something.

But yeah, so I think that's more acceptable because Killian and Stephen are at the peak of their respective sports.

Very much so.

There we go.

Game-recognised Game-recognized game, as the kids might say.

As the kids would also say.

I love the idea of TNT Sports sort of tweeting out that Mbappe has dropped it.

The Stephen Bunting Selly.

He's just dropped the Bunting.

Another irritation of ours within the broad field of Sellies is.

Don't do it.

Don't say it.

I hate it.

I've been doing what used to Klino.

I'm alright with Klino, but I can't handle Selly.

I can't do it.

The other one is, and I say this as a fan of a club who one of our players very famously did this this season, but it's the ironic celebration copying.

You know, people doing,

that feels wrestling.

That feels WWE.

I'm going to do your move to you.

Miles Lewis Skelly gets a pass because he was a kid and he didn't know better.

The one that I...

The James Madison darts throwing.

Yes.

And then Neil Mopay did it.

And I will say, I miss Neil Mopay.

He's obviously in France now.

And he was a great Premier League kind of villain.

Yeah, yeah, he's really good at it.

The darts thing and everyone, you know, I think Saka did it back to him once.

And it's like, what is this?

What is this?

You're not mugging each other off.

You're all mates.

It's not that era.

This feels like pantomime.

I completely agree.

And it just,

it takes on another two or three layers as well after it happens because,

you know, Sky Sports will clip it up.

Then the overlap lads will talk about it.

And then Madison will react to them doing it in the next match.

And then he might be asked about it in the post-match.

And then Gary Lineker will get involved on his podcast.

And it's just all out of control.

If you watch any Premier League years or any sort of old match from even sort of late 2000s back, it's actually great to see how unsophisticated, unrehearsed, and random all the celebrations are.

Yes.

Whereas now it's either a knee slide or it's something contrived.

And

I think the ground zero of this was Gareth Bale's volley for Tottenham against Stoke.

Oh, back post kind of knee-over volley.

And if you watch that back, the clip afterwards, he goes through about seven celebrations on the way to the touchline.

He does a kind of bird flap.

He ended up doing the kind of TM'd Gareth Bale like heart sign.

He does hand over mouth.

He's doing all sorts.

He's just kind of, he's like workshopping the celebration.

It's like a FIFA glitch, isn't it?

It's like a FIFA glitch.

It's like something's broken and he's trying to do four of them at the same time.

It's really good.

I mean, Alan Shearer's kind of trademark celebration was putting his hand in the air.

I might say that is a proper celebration.

It is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it brings us full circle.

But Jacob, I'm interested that you kind of likened it to WWE because it feels like the new battleground for football classiness.

Because we're used to Arsenal and Man United in the 90s hating each other collectively.

And I don't think football and the consumption of football, by which I mean sort of social media accounts who aggregate this sort of stuff, are quite prepared for player-on-player beefs.

But, you know, really quaint beefs like this.

I mean, Viera Keene's not the same thing.

I'm talking about Mope and Madison, like you suggested.

I don't, I mean, it's, it is literally pantomime stuff, and they always laugh it off as well.

But that the laughing off never takes effects.

Everyone's like, oh, God, he's done him.

He's done him.

No, it's fine.

They don't mind.

Yeah, I think Dave described it really well.

It's the predictable kind of like consequence of each action that almost all of it feels like it was designed by a PR agency.

All of it feels like a PR agency may have pitched this to James Madders Madison in a meeting in Soho.

We went, if you do this, then Mope can do this.

That means Neville can mention it on Monday Night Football.

And then when they do the overlap, they can mention it again.

Keene always gets annoyed.

Keene loves getting annoyed, and they can say, That's sponsored by Better Help.

And then we go to someone else.

And they'll say, Do you know what I mean?

And it's so...

Perfectly, you can predict every little bit of it to the nth degree that you just feel like you're doing a dance.

You feel like you know exactly what's supposed to happen.

Everyone reads their line, you know who's going to read the next line, and then you know, we forget, move on again, and off we go.

That is actually terrifying.

Like, I, I, Dave, I do feel like that news cycle path is so well laid out, despite this being quite a recent phenomenon.

I feel like we all do know what would happen at each stage of it.

100%, yeah, yeah, exactly.

It's really terrifying, actually.

And also, I was watching a video recently of Cristiano Ronaldo Jr.

scoring.

Was it in Saudi or for Portugal youth or something?

He was a good idea.

And I was really sad.

It was really sad watching him do the Sue in the corner.

Oh my god.

Does he have to do that?

Do I have to?

Do I have to do the Sue?

There will literally be a contract that he has to do that.

That will be part of Ronaldo's millions is that your son will do the Sioux when we ask him to and mention the alkaline drink that is now for sale as part of a Tesco meal deal.

Sort of slightly limp, jump up and landing.

I don't want to.

Yeah, trading on my dad's name coming up.

Ronaldo breeding sons indefinitely, so there will never be a lack of sues in the Saudi pro league.

The kings of Saudi Arabia demanding more sons from Christopher.

2045, someone saying this is the first professional season in which one of Ronaldo's sons has not sued since like 2019 or something.

Yeah, for sure.

Messi could never.

Messi could never.

Pessi could never.

I just like the...

This has made me really think now about this kind of this like confected beef between Madas and Madas, the king king of the Carvery and and Neil Mope which is like Neil Mope might be the first like the streets will never forget footballer but not for anything he did like on the pitch just like purely on his kind of shit housery or rattle I don't know what position he plays I have no idea I don't know what he does I still think there's a player in there actually

if he was called Neil Mope

Yeah, it was spelt Neil, like the English Neil, yeah.

Yeah, I don't know.

The other big thing with the celebrations was: I don't know if this was just a me thing, this might be a real soon-es opinion, but it felt like at some point, um, everyone was doing the fingers in the ears, regardless of whether they were actually receiving criticism or not.

Like, there would be people doing it, and I'd be like, You're in good form.

Everyone's like, You might get called up for England.

Like, what are you blocking out?

You're doing really well.

Like, what are we talking about?

There's always noise.

You always want to block out the noise.

I guess you do want to just block out the noise, concentrate on executing your skills.

Yeah, but it's, it's, um, yeah, it's, it's a weird, it's a weird thing.

I would just ban them all.

I would just go for full-on full-on ban like rugby.

You can't talk to the ref.

You can't celebrate a goal ever again unless you do the shearer.

That'll be it.

Right then, back to the AstroTurf for your third and final irritation of football, please.

Final irritation, the use of tactical or elite-level language in five-aside or like amateur football, like particularly relevant to pick up games that are organized by the app.

The term pressing is so overused now.

Usually it's a kind of intricate system of movements in proper games.

But

in five-aside games, there are no pressing triggers.

Do you know what I mean?

You don't need a pressing trigger, or like let's like the keeper gets the ball, quick transition.

It's like it's only 20 yards, you can't transition.

I mean, Dean Saunders here, but this is all right.

I will say, this is one that Jake suggested on our Google Doc.

And I will say, as Jake is, he wouldn't mind me saying, a very good five-aside footballer.

I'm very bad.

That's an overstatement.

But

I'm a bad footballer.

And so I rely on being loud.

I need to, otherwise I've got, there's no reason for me to be there if I'm not shouting.

I'm very much the math, the Matthew Flamini of modern day five-aside football.

I'm pointing and shouting.

And having these words.

You're Flaminy's face, I've just realised.

You literally look like Matthew Flaminy.

Thank you so much.

Wow.

I've just realised that as well.

Fucking hell.

I'm a shouter on the football pitch.

And it does help having, like, because you run out of how many times you can say pick up, you know, man-on.

There's only so much that you can do.

Now that I can say, come on, boys, press a bit.

Joe, I mean, stuff like that.

Let's engage.

Let's engage.

What does that mean?

No,

I don't know.

I was about to lay into pressing

as a sort of functional thing in Five Aside Dave, but I've just realised, to my horror, what I started to pick up as a habit in Five Aside in sort of early 2020s, which I would bend my run in the press like proper strikers do.

I love it.

Because it's the blind side press, isn't it?

God, it works.

I'm telling you.

It's so good.

Patrick Valentine's Day.

Force him onto his weaker foot.

Belta stuff.

Proper BLT stuff.

Sorry, it's brilliant.

And I really enjoy doing it.

But, but, Dave, pressing at five-aside, if it isn't remotely structured or planned, and nor should it be, obviously, is the biggest waste of energy a human body could possibly perform.

If they pass it round you, it's so hard to get back.

Like, it's physically impossible to run back.

I always used to get really annoyed when, because I used to play for a five-aside team like every week with my mates when I was like 19 or whatever.

And we were actually a pretty well-drilled pressing unit.

We actually knew what we were all doing and we would do it together and it was great.

So if I've ever played in a game that wasn't with those lads and it was just all a bit random, you get these players who, when the ball goes back to the goalkeeper on the other team, they're like trying to block the goalkeeper from like getting it out.

And you're like, what are you doing?

Fucking get back and just block the, don't let him pass it to someone.

Just block the line off.

Leave the keeper he can't come up the area you can't go in forget the keeper don't worry about him don't worry you're not gonna get it and like i don't i the thing is with this i don't like the use of technical language use but the last thing i would want is for us to go quiet that is the last thing i want i do not want us going quiet in the middle of the game but

you have to be sensible because we at uni we played for a team that was i was called penfield athletic which was named after a clothing brand because we were all like vague hipster people and people didn't think we'd bought a line forward it's yeah it's it's it's mundial stuff and That's trick for Mundial.

Love the guys there.

But like, we used to play against these guys, and they were from York.

They were just like local York people, and they were called Boca Seniors.

And our lack of pressing meant that we came second to them in the league every year for three years, and they would just pass it around us because we were going in ones and twos, as they say.

We weren't going all as a unit.

And so, ever since then, just the notion of pressing, like in general,

I just can't deal with it.

It's just running at the person.

It's not pressing.

I played in a five-aside tournament a few weeks ago, and we had the former Watford and QPR forward Tommy Smith on our team.

Class.

He's quite live still.

We bought him in an auction the day before.

What?

Yeah,

it's a charity.

Oh, I see.

How much?

It was 170.

175 quid.

That's a bargain.

Yeah, it was eight of us on the team.

Not too bad.

Oh, but he wanted Alf Common from 1905 for that money.

This was a thing that everyone could do.

You had just done your team had just done this off your own back.

Everyone was allowed to buy one player.

It was open to anyone.

And

we went in from it.

And we got him.

And he said to us before the start of the game, so I was sort of nominal captain and I was sort of giving some sort of half-ass kind of team talk.

And he just kind of didn't listen to any of it.

And

one instruction he gave us, he was like, lads,

when we haven't got the ball, let's defend together.

Defend as a team.

Don't all go running off on your own.

Good advice.

That's nice.

That's the universal five-aside tactic, Jake.

When we lose the ball, everyone behind the ball.

Because I feel like

I mean, it doesn't imply effort.

It just says be in the right place.

It doesn't mean you have to put the yards in.

It just means be diligent and responsible, which is a great way of communicating it to someone who doesn't want to run back.

Yeah, exactly.

It's not a transition.

It's just get behind the ball.

That's all you have to do is be behind the ball.

And then, like, you're not going to get any stick from me.

But if you're not behind the ball, you will be asked to get behind the ball as quickly as you can.

And that's the main, that's the main thing.

Because we do indeed want to defend together.

The last thing we'd want to do is defend apart.

I've got two.

I've got two.

I've got two.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, when it comes to, I'm going to say it, when it comes to overloads in Five Aside, Jacob, I mean, there is a natural thing that occurs in Five Aside, which is when you identify the player on the other team who you're happy to have the ball.

And you can sort of, you don't have to press them.

It means you can overload the rest of the pitch.

Now, I'm sorry to say overload again, but that's basically what I mean.

That is the edge you need.

100%.

And I know that because I am always that player.

I am always...

I am the absolute opposite of a pressing trigger.

I am a pressing relaxant.

The press absolutely drops when I get the ball.

This is nervous.

I've just got so much time on the ball.

I must be like moderate.

I'm the complete opposites of moderate.

We need to like a graphic visualization of this, Jake.

There are players who are so good that you stand off them because you don't want to get sort of circumvented straight away.

There are players who are quite shit, so you press them quite hard straight away because you know you might get the ball back.

Now, in between those, there are players who are quite good, so you're not sure.

But then there are players who are so, so, so shit that you don't press out of sympathy.

Like, it would not sympathy, no, crucially, not sympathy.

It's because if you press them, it would look cruel and weird.

Like,

you'd actually look quite aggressive if you press this player.

I think that's a perfect classification.

Yeah, there's, there's, there's some people where that would look like a cruel act of a vengeful mind.

Just look,

we've all paid our £6.50, fifty all right let him have a touch of the ball it doesn't mean you don't need to run towards him because like you say and it also implies a lack of bottle because you don't do that to other players who you think you might get done by so like if you're an equal opportunities presser shall we say if you're if you're gonna sprint towards everyone

then then you kind of you're justified in going for the weakest player on the other team unless you're pressing everyone equally um as martin luther king once dreamed of then no, you can't do it.

So you're right.

There's some people you just have to leave.

It's equity rather than equality.

Remember when we used our proper pressing?

They weren't worried about who someone was by checking who they are, whether they were up for it.

Didn't get a pressing participation medal.

Everyone was just telling to do it themselves.

I can't believe we've had to wait until the sixth century visit holidays to get into this chat, but it's happened.

I'm delighted.

I'm delighted for it.

Well, I think like you said, Adam, there are things that are actually relevant, like overloads, the classic, I've got to, to, 2v1.

That's what you're looking to generate, but you should never say that you're looking to generate an overload.

I would never say it out loud at home, I promise.

I feel safe saying it here, and that's the main thing.

Yeah, the other tactical concept that I think is relevant, but should never be referenced is compactness.

So, you do, you do indeed want to be compact, I think, both both in and out of possession.

Yeah.

But, but again,

you can't reference that.

I think the closest you might get to that is saying, Tim, get behind the fucking ball.

That's the kind of thing.

Yeah, sort of second, second, two degrees of separation away from saying compact.

Exactly.

I mean, if we're all in one half of a five-as-side pitch, you have to be compact.

That is the rule.

And that, again, a

telltale sign often for somebody who doesn't play much five-a-side, but is maybe trying to sort of over-complicate things.

Is at the start of the game, they'll say, What system are we going to play?

What positions are we going to play?

There aren't really any positions.

Defend when we haven't got the ball and try and fucking score if we've got it.

I couldn't agree more, Dave.

There are two positions:

there is at the back or up top.

And the only usage there is, I'll go up top for a bit.

That's the one that you might do.

That implies a kind of a pressure release valve, I think.

Like if we can get someone up there to act as a focal point, again, don't use that phrase, that's going to get us out.

I've heard the phrase pivot being used at five and side games.

I've heard the phrase

I've heard six being used.

I'll stay in the six.

What?

i'll be in the six like i i i mean this is a whole different thing but like the the kind of but yeah again no no pivots no sixes no nothing up at the back up top if you're lucky that's it that's the and then just runners just legs in between exactly yeah it's it's more like netball positioning than it is

one player allowed to go between the zones yeah this is another one and i would be interested to get your take on this as someone who plays in goal now and again adam as well the asking people to relax on the ball and thereby insinuating that we're some kind of like possession based side when we all met each other seven minutes ago, or we're all like we've had three pints at lunch and John's been up looking after his kids since like four in the morning.

Like, we don't need to relax, actually.

That's the opposite of what we need to do.

And yeah,

it insinuates that we should be the type, we should, the classic mark of a good player on Sky Sports is someone who receives the ball under pressure or is willing to receive the ball under pressure.

Not relevant, not relevant at goals.

Don't relax, do the opposite.

Yeah, that's one that I just really can't get.

I sort of disagree in a way that I do sometimes find myself being the guy who wouldn't say relax, but

I will tell people to keep the ball.

When they've got it in the corner,

don't shoot.

Don't shoot.

Don't try and cross it into the middle.

Don't shoot.

Come back to me.

Give me the ball and we'll start and we'll keep it and then we might score.

I'm so happy because I'm starting to get a reputation on this podcast as being the shouter at Five Aside, telling people what to do.

I'm glad that Dave's sharing this burden now.

It should be done.

Make decisions for other people at Five Aside.

It's the the way to do it.

They can't see it.

They can't see the game.

You've got a better view.

Big time.

I'm a huge keep the ball guy.

I'm like, don't worry about that.

And that's not from a kind of ticky-tacker, like, let's build up through the phases.

That's just, I don't want to run around to get it back.

Just pass it backwards and then we'll be back.

It's on your corner.

I'm playing it safe and clearing it.

Even at Five Aside,

in a cage, I'm clearing it.

It's coming straight back.

Big time.

But to take the shout literally,

when you implore your teammates to relax.

Thing is, I find it impossible to relax at Five Aside, especially like competitive power league division-based five-aside.

It's the most stressful thing in the world.

I'm so wired at that point.

I'm so...

It's a mixture of concentration and nerves together.

And then you've got the added factor, Jake, of people watching you through the fence.

Like complete random people.

And one side of your brain are going, they're watching me, but also, what division are they in?

If they're in a higher division, they think I'm shit.

If they're in a lower division, are they picking up tips?

Like, what's happening?

Watch me, ever.

Like, like you say, the counter, the counterproductiveness of that shout, no one's heart rate has ever actually gone down after, because usually it's being shouted like with a kind of relax.

It's like a kind of, it's like an order.

Time!

You've got time!

You've got time!

Keep it!

Keep it!

So, yeah, so like you say, it's never once worked in a million years.

And like you say,

if you've got faces pressed up against the wire mesh looking through as you kind of bobble it off your standing foot and and it kind of either goes out for a throw or straight to their one of their players hear someone's and you hear someone talk about you as a football player

i just can't handle the feedback imagine being a professional football player with 60 000 people watching you i just couldn't believe it it'd be the same thing yeah it's remarkable they get anything done it's remarkable they yeah they do anything at all but yeah

i there's one there's one other one as well that's like as a keeper do you ever do you ever are you looking to play short when you're doing when you're when you're getting the ball there?

Is that a relax moment?

Big roller into the channels.

Yeah.

Big roller into the channels.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Set someone off.

Easily, when five-of-side goalkeepers go long too often, just give it, just give it short.

Let's just play.

Yeah, relax.

We need them to relax.

Short, guys.

The goalkeeper's not exempt from a relax.

If they're bolted.

Dave doing this.

Yeah.

Dave doing the kind of circular finger motion to denote the pocket.

Pocket.

Oh, well, this has been thoroughly enjoyable.

Incredibly cathartic for my five-aside existence as well.

Thanks so much to the Screenbot boys.

Jake and Jacob, have you had a good time?

Oh, we've had a brilliant time.

Most fun about a week.

Thanks so much for having us.

I've heard so much about your sort of respective weeks, so that's actually quite an accolade, actually.

Thanks to you, Dave Walker.

Thank you.

And thanks, lads.

It's been great.

Yeah, please do listen to the Screenbot podcast.

Go through the episodes and just find the one internet thing that obsesses you the most and start from there.

That's my tip.

And thanks to everyone for listening, especially for that first 20 minutes um that was a big portion of my life accounted for there we'll be back on tuesday with some very big announcements see you then

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